Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘Forgot your own fiancée, eh?’ Lady Ottoline said. Her eyes appraised Sally’s flushed face and softened slightly. ‘Well, well, Jack. You do surprise me. For a moment I thought you’d brought one of your fancy women to a family party at your sister’s house.’

  ‘God forbid,’ Jack said silkily. He slid an arm about Sally’s waist, drawing her unyielding body close to him. His glance commanded her silence. She looked up at him and he gave her a smile so full of charm that she felt her knees weaken.

  ‘We must have a chat later, my dear,’ Lady Ottoline continued, giving Sally a wintry smile that was somehow more fearsome than her hauteur. ‘I am anxious to learn all about you.’ She looked sharply at Jack. ‘Does your papa know?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Jack said. ‘It is but a recent development.’

  Lady Ottoline smiled again. ‘Indeed. How charming. I shall send the news to Robert myself as soon as I have rested and partaken of tea. I only use the telephone in emergencies, but I feel this qualifies.’ She nodded to Sally and beckoned to Charlotte. ‘Come along, Charlotte! I want to see whether you took my advice and had the chairs in the Green Bedchamber reupholstered after my last visit. They were shockingly uncomfortable …’ Still talking, she hobbled off with the maid in her wake, and Charlotte shot Sally an agonised look before hurrying after her.

  There was silence in the hall. Jack’s gaze was locked on Sally’s face.

  ‘I’ll go and help with the baggage,’ Stephen Harrington said hastily, looking from one of them to the other. ‘And move the car.’

  ‘So,’ Sally said, as the front door closed behind him and Patterson retreated discreetly down the passage to the servants’ quarters, ‘I am your fiancée now, am I, Mr Kestrel?’

  Jack drove his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘My aunt is both old-fashioned and increasingly frail in her health,’ he said. ‘I had no wish to distress her by introducing you as my mistress at a family party. That would have been quite inappropriate.’

  Sally winced. ‘At least we agree on one thing,’ she said coldly, ‘though why you had to introduce me as anyone other than an acquaintance who would shortly be leaving, I have no notion.’ She glared at him. ‘How could you possibly convince her that you actually have some affection for me—enough to wish to marry me?’

  A disturbing smile tugged at Jack’s lips as he scrutinised her face. ‘I think we could both convince her of our passionate regard for one another,’ he murmured. ‘At the very least, we will have to try because I am afraid we shall be staying for a little while.’

  Sally was infuriated. ‘So you have changed your mind and decided we are to stay now? How high-handed of you!’

  Jack sighed. ‘We must. I have no desire to upset Aunt Ottoline and as Charley said, she is increasingly frail these days.’

  ‘Your great-aunt is about as frail as an old boot,’ Sally snapped. ‘You are simply afraid of her. Either that, or you have another reason.’

  Jack grimaced. ‘Very well. I admit that I have no desire to tell Aunt Otto of Bertie’s latest indiscretion. He is her godson and her heir. I am sure it would cause her concern to hear he was throwing himself away on a fortune-hunting night-club hostess.’

  ‘You mean that she would disinherit him,’ Sally said. She understood Jack’s reasoning now. Keep the old lady sweet, keep the truth about Bertie and Connie’s elopement from her, and with luck the whole matter might be sorted out and Lady Ottoline be none the wiser. Once again Jack’s cynicism made her feel utterly disillusioned.

  ‘And if I refuse to play along with your masquerade?’ she asked.

  Jack shrugged. ‘I am sure you will find a way to oblige me. After all, I thought that we were both getting what we wanted from our association?’

  ‘You mean the money,’ Sally said. Her throat was tight. How had she made such an error of judgement? She wished so profoundly that she had never asked him for the two hundred pounds. She had been terribly distressed over Nell’s situation, and equally furious and upset by Jack’s poor opinion of her, but it had led her to make a fatal error. She could see that now, now that she had confirmed every last one of his prejudices against her.

  ‘I will give you the money back,’ she whispered. ‘I made a mistake asking for it. It is not worth it.’

  He caught her arm, his grip fierce. ‘Too late, my sweet. You took the money. You spent it.’

  Sally wrenched herself out of his grasp. ‘I’ll pay it back,’ she said. ‘I’ll find a way, sell something …’

  ‘You already did,’ Jack said. His face was hard as granite. ‘You sold yourself for it, if you recall. And I am sure I can persuade you to do the same again.’

  Their gazes locked and he drew her, unresisting, towards him and dropped a kiss on her lips. A shiver racked Sally’s body. How was it possible to feel so distant from this man and yet to feel his touch with a pleasure that she could not hide? It confused and distressed her.

  ‘You will be my fiancée if I require it.’ He bent his lips to brush the curve of her neck and the quivers of cool sensation skittered along her nerves. ‘You see,’ Jack said, turning her face up to his, ‘it is not so difficult to pretend.’

  ‘Save your displays of affection for the privacy of your own room, nephew, preferably after you are married!’ Lady Ottoline Kestrel boomed from the top of the staircase. She started to descend the steps towards them.

  ‘Well?’ Jack whispered. He raised one black brow. ‘Do you agree?’

  Sally thought quickly. ‘For this one night only I will pose as your fiancée,’ she said, ‘but not to oblige you, Mr Kestrel. Just as you do not wish Mr Basset’s folly to be exposed to your great-aunt, so do I not want Connie to be subject to her censure. I wish to save this situation as much as you do.’

  ‘Of course.’ Jack gave her an ironic bow.

  Without another word, Sally turned on her heel and walked out of the front door and down the steps. She needed fresh air and time to think. Behind her in the hall she could hear the sound of Lucy’s excited chatter as the nursemaid brought her back downstairs to see her uncle again, as promised. Sally thought of the happy family circle into which she had thrust herself and felt mortified. But then, it was Jack who had insisted on bringing her here and Connie who had forced this whole affair with her elopement. She should not take the blame herself. All she could do was to find Connie as quickly as possible and extract both of them from the situation with minimum fuss.

  Sally walked across the cool shaded courtyard, with its fountains and statuary, towards the moat. The later afternoon sunlight shone on the water and dazzled her eyes for a moment. She raised a hand to shield them.

  ‘Are you all right, Sally, old girl?’

  She had not heard Gregory Holt approaching, although now that he was beside her she reflected that she should have been aware of his proximity from the fug of pipe smoke that always enveloped him. Even when he had been a pupil of her father’s, he had smoked a pipe. Sally smiled to remember how she and Nell had teased him about appearing like an old man at the age of only twenty-one.

  ‘Oh, Greg,’ she said. ‘I did not see you there.’

  Greg took her arm and steered her along the path towards a stone bench placed to look out across the moat to the deer park beyond.

  ‘Wanted to talk to you, old girl,’ he said. ‘I just heard that you are engaged to Jack Kestrel.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Don’t do it, Sal. I know you have shocking judgement when it comes to men, but this is a terrible mistake. Almost as bad as your last one.’

  Despite herself, Sally laughed. ‘Must you always be on hand to warn me of the dangers of my romantic choices, Greg?’ She sobered. ‘I should have listened to you about Jonathan, I admit. I am sorry.’

  Greg took her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. ‘Should listen to me now,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a friend of Jack’s since we were in short trousers. He’s a sound man in business and even better if you’re in a tight corner, but he’d make the devil of a husba
nd.’

  ‘Then rest easy,’ Sally said, ‘for I have no intention of marrying him.’

  Greg stared. ‘Then why—?’

  ‘It is a convenient fiction to explain my presence here to Lady Ottoline,’ Sally said with a shade of bitterness. ‘The truth is that Connie has eloped with Jack’s cousin Bertie and Jack and I are intent on tracking them down. Jack does not wish Lady Ottoline to know the truth as I understand Mr Basset is her heir.’

  Greg did not answer immediately. He knocked the bowl of his pipe against the edge of the stone seat and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a pouch of fresh tobacco. Only when he had relit the pipe did he reply.

  ‘Jack’s a fool to think the old lady can be taken in,’ he said reflectively. ‘She’s as sharp as a new pin. And I’m surprised you went along with it, Sal. Not like you.’

  Sally sighed. ‘I don’t like it,’ she admitted, ‘I am only doing it for Connie’s sake.’

  Greg sighed as well. ‘You take too much responsibility for that girl. You should leave her to make her own mistakes and face the consequences, Sal.’

  ‘I know,’ Sally said. She remembered Mrs Matson saying much the same thing. ‘But I have a duty to both Connie and Nell, Greg—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Greg said rudely. ‘You always did have some bee in your bonnet about Sir Peter’s death being your fault and how you had deprived your sisters of their father’s protection.’

  Sally blushed defensively. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Greg spoke roughly, but his tone softened as he glanced at her face. ‘There was nothing that you could have done, Sally.’

  For a moment the memories threatened to swamp Sally’s mind. She stared at the smooth green waters of the moat and remembered the river closing over her father’s head and her frantic efforts to give him her hand and pull him to safety. She gave a violent shudder and pushed the memory firmly away.

  ‘And what about yourself and Jack?’ Greg was saying.

  Sally could feel herself colouring up. ‘I barely know him.’

  ‘Which,’ Greg said drily, ‘hardly answers the question.’

  ‘All right,’ Sally conceded. Greg had always been shrewd and there was no point in trying to deceive him. ‘I admit that there was something between us, but it was based on a misunderstanding. That’s all.’

  She felt his thoughtful gaze on her face. ‘If he hurt you—’ he began.

  ‘He didn’t,’ Sally said quickly. She could not bear to expose her feelings, even to Greg. She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Bless you, Greg, for always standing as the brother I never had.’

  Greg pulled a face. ‘Not the relationship that I want with you, Sally, as you know.’ He answered her smile with an equally rueful one of his own. ‘You have always seen me as a brother and I have never seen you as a sister. That’s the tragedy.’

  Sally was silent. She knew that was the nub of the matter. It had been so tempting to run away with Greg when she had been desperately unhappy with Jonathan, but even in the depths of her misery she had known she would have been selling Greg short because she was not in love with him. To take his love and use it for her own ends seemed shabby then and it would be shabby now.

  ‘Your reputation suggests you do not pine for me,’ she said lightly.

  ‘My reputation,’ Greg said feelingly, ‘was gained as a result of my attempts to forget you!’

  ‘Don’t try to pin that on me,’ Sally said warmly. ‘I was not responsible for turning you into a rake and a gambler. And if you say that I could have saved you, I will box your ears!’

  ‘You could have saved me,’ Greg said, with a straight face. He sighed. ‘I know that you never needed me,’ he added, his blue gaze steady on her face. ‘I understand that.’

  ‘I do need you,’ Sally said. ‘I need you as a friend.’ Fleetingly she thought of the two hundred pounds that she had sent to Nell. If only she had asked Greg to give her a loan, not Jack. But then she had always been damnably independent. It was one of her besetting sins. She would not have wanted to go cap in hand to Greg and ask for money. She had only thrown the request for two hundred pounds in Jack’s face because he had incensed her.

  ‘That must be the kiss of death on a romance,’ Greg said cheerfully, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. ‘Come along. Time to dress for dinner.’

  A shadow fell across them and Sally put up a hand to shade her eyes from the low afternoon sun. It was inevitable, she thought, that Jack should be standing there with a face like thunder as he took in the sight of her hand clasped once again in that of Gregory Holt’s.

  ‘Hello, Jack, old man,’ Greg said easily, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth as he registered Jack’s stony expression, ‘your lovely fiancée and I were just discussing romance.’

  ‘I see,’ Jack said coldly. He turned pointedly to Sally. ‘Charley sent me to show you around the place,’ he said, ‘but it seems that you are already quite at home.’

  ‘Sally is certainly among friends,’ Greg said, and Sally felt the unspoken but unmistakable threat in his words and saw Jack square up to the challenge.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said hastily to Greg, freeing her hand from his and slipping past both men. ‘I shall go and prepare for dinner.’ And she walked away without a backwards glance to either of them. Let them sort out their differences without her. She could already feel the unresolved tension in Jack that could surely escalate into violence with one deliberately careless word from Greg. And it made no sense to her at all, for how could Jack be so possessive when she was no more than his temporary fiancée and he certainly did not love her?

  Chapter Six

  Jack fiddled irritably with his cufflinks whilst the long-suffering valet he had borrowed from his brother-in-law put the final touches to his wing collar.

  ‘If you could just keep still a moment longer, sir,’ the man said resignedly. Jack sighed and tried not to tap his foot. The dinner suit, shirt and tie were all borrowed as well as the servant. It was fortunate that he and Stephen were of a height. He was a little broader across the shoulder and could feel the material straining a little, but it was not a bad fit. He hoped he did not split the jacket. It was no wonder his brother-in-law had given him a tuxedo rather than his best tailcoat to wear, but he thought that Lady Ottoline would probably cut up rough when she saw that he was not in formal evening dress.

  He wondered what Charley would find for Sally to wear to dinner. Whatever it was, it would not be able to eclipse that luscious pink gown she had worn two nights before. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. He felt a sudden, bitter flash of emotion that their previous nights together had been so different. He had thought her honest then. Now all that was left was the devastating passion that had flared between them.

  And for tonight, at least, she was also his fiancée. A smile that was more satisfied than rueful lifted his mouth. He liked the idea of being engaged to Sally very much, far more than he had expected when he had made the impulsive announcement. He knew it was a gesture of somewhat primitive possession. Her sexual capitulation to him had the unforeseen consequence of making him want to claim her formally and show her to be his own. He realised that his need for her had been one of the reasons why he had been so angry with her for her duplicity. His feelings were engaged—desire and wanting, if not love—and so her betrayal was so much more acute.

  His previous affairs had had the reverse effect on him to this; all he had wanted to do was walk away from them. Now he was determined not to let Sally walk away from him until he was ready to let her go. He acknowledged that it was a very basic reaction. He had wanted Sally from the very first and now he wanted everyone else to know she belonged to him, especially Gregory Holt, who had made his interest in her so plain.

  ‘There you are, sir,’ the valet said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. ‘Not bad, if I say so myself.’

  ‘Thank you, Jeavons,’ Jack said.

  As he emerged from his bedchamber he saw his sist
er and Sally descending the stairs in front of him. Charley had evidently gone to fetch Sally from her bedroom and take her down to dinner in case she was nervous. Jack shook his head cynically over Charley’s naïvety. Could she not see that Sally Bowes was supremely capable of taking care of herself? But perhaps not—after all, he had made a serious error of judgement about Sally himself.

  He hurried down the stairs to catch up with them and as they reached the hallway Sally turned towards him.

  He stopped dead.

  She looked utterly divine.

  Tonight Sally was wearing a gown the colour of rich autumn leaves, with layers of taffeta and silk chiffon embroidered with tiny little sequins around the square neck. Charley had lent her a ruby drop necklace and it glowed richly in the hollow of Sally’s throat, a vivid counterpoint to the creamy pallor of her skin.

  And she rustled. Whenever she moved, the layers of petticoats beneath the taffeta and chiffon whispered together sensuously, setting all of Jack’s senses on edge. He could imagine the ruffles and lace beneath the sparkling gown and Sally’s warm, smooth skin beneath that.

  He seriously considered carrying her straight back up the stairs and into the nearest bedroom.

  ‘Are you quite well, Jack?’ Charley enquired, laughing. ‘I have never seen you struck dumb before.’

  ‘I … ah …’ Jack pulled himself together quickly.

  ‘Sally has been explaining to me that the two of you are always at odds, so I have put you at opposite ends of the table,’ Charley said, fixing him with a blithe smile. ‘Aunt Otto asked particularly that she should be placed next to you, Jack. I believe she wishes to check on your moral fortitude and suitability for marriage.’

  Jack cursed under his breath. ‘And I suppose Gregory Holt has offered to escort Sally,’ he said tightly, fighting down the wave of possessive fury that gripped him.

  Sally merely smiled placidly and his jealousy tightened a notch. ‘How clever of you to guess!’ Charley said admiringly. ‘That is exactly what he suggested!’

  ‘Lord Holt has always behaved as a perfect gentleman to me,’ Sally said, her tone reminding Jack pointedly that he had not. ‘I am sure I shall be perfectly safe with him.’