A storm, a stranger, a secret
The start of something special?
After a storm leaves handsome stranger Bryn Morgan stranded at Charlie’s Outback farmhouse she plans to keep her distance! But as the weather intensifies Charlie seeks comfort in Bryn’s reassuring arms. The night forges a bond between them that looks unbreakable, until day brings the revelation that Bryn is in fact Lord Carlisle! Can Bryn show Charlie that their differences can bring them closer?
Charlie woke and she was spooned in a stranger’s arms. Totally spooned.
She had her back to him, his arms were around her and her body was curved into his chest. His face was against her hair. She could feel his breathing.
She could feel everything else.
He was wearing boxers.
He wasn’t totally naked.
He might as well be.
Her nightgown was ancient and flimsy, and she could feel his body against her. His chest was bare. His arms, muscled, strong, were holding her tight. Bare arms against bare arms. Skin against skin.
She could see chinks of sunlight through the drapes. The storm was over.
She should tug away, out of this man’s arms.
She’d wake him and he’d been so good...
It was more than that, though.
She really, really wanted to stay right where she was. For the moment the world had stopped. Here was peace. Here was sanctuary.
Here was...Bryn?
A man she’d known for what, twelve hours? Most of that had been spent sleeping. Oh, for heaven’s sake... Get up, she told herself.
But she didn’t. She lay there and let the insidious sweetness of the moment envelop her.
Dear Reader,
I do love a good Cinderella story, with a beautiful heroine fallen on hard times and a hero to die for. The story of Cinderella, though, has always seemed unfairly stacked against our heroine. All the hero has to do is fix a glass slipper on her foot and he’s done.
I make my hero work a bit harder for his happy-ever-after.
I’ve therefore thrown a few extra obstacles in the way of Charlie and Bryn’s happy ending. Tragic pasts, conniving relatives, adorable dogs of dubious parentage, a dotty but aristocratic mama... I had the best of fun making sure Lord Carlisle of Ballystone Hall had to work to win his heroine. I wish you just as much fun reading his story.
Marion
English Lord on Her Doorstep
Marion Lennox
Marion Lennox has written more than a hundred romances and is published in over a hundred countries and thirty languages. Her multiple awards include the prestigious RITA® Award (twice), and the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for “a body of work which makes us laugh and teaches us about love.” Marion adores her family, her kayak, her dog and lying on the beach with a book someone else has written. Heaven!
Books by Marion Lennox
Harlequin Romance
The Logan Twins
Nine Months to Change His Life
Sparks Fly with the Billionaire
Christmas at the Castle
Christmas Where They Belong
The Earl’s Convenient Wife
His Cinderella Heiress
Stepping into the Prince’s World
Stranded with the Secret Billionaire
The Billionaire’s Christmas Baby
Harlequin Medical Romance
Bondi Bay Heroes
Finding His Wife, Finding a Son
Falling for Her Wounded Hero
Reunited with Her Surgeon Prince
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
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To Olga and Olga. With thanks for your friendship and your kindness, and for your generosity in finding my books so far away.
Praise for
Marion Lennox
“The story is one of a kind and very interesting. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.”
—Goodreads on Stranded with the Secret Billionaire
“This love story has a few unexpected twists and is even exciting at times. Lennox’s imagination shines with her worldbuilding.”
—RT Book Reviews on His Cinderella Heiress
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EXCERPT FROM THE MILLION POUND MARRIAGE DEAL BY MICHELLE DOUGLAS
CHAPTER ONE
BRYN THOMAS MORGAN, Twelfth Baron Carlisle, Peer of the Realm, thought his week couldn’t get worse. It could.
It said a lot for his state of mind—weary, horrified and disgusted—that while he searched in the rain and the dark to find the dog he’d just hit, his head was already rescheduling.
If the dog was dead, he’d take it to the local police station, explain how he’d hit it on a blind curve and let the locals look after their own.
His plane back to London was leaving in three hours and he had a two-hour drive in front of him. He had time to scrape a dead dog from the road and catch his flight.
But when he finally found the soggy heap of fur that had been thrown into the undergrowth, the dog was alive.
Despite being hit by an Italian supercar?
Twenty years ago, when he was a boy learning to drive the estate’s four-by-four across the vast estates of Ballystone Hall, his father had told him never to swerve for an animal. ‘You’ll lose control,’ he’d told him. ‘Animals can usually judge distance and speed. If you swerve, they’re more likely to be hit, not less, and there’s a possibility you’ll kill yourself, too.’
But this hadn’t been a farm-vehicle-savvy calf, darting back to the herd, or a startled but nimble deer. This dog was a trudger: a dirty white, mid-sized mutt. It had been square in the centre of the country road, head down, looking almost as if a car coming around the bend would be doing it a favour by hitting it.
So of course Bryn had swerved, but the road was rain-washed and narrow. There hadn’t been time or space to avoid it. Now it lay on the grass at the roadside, its hind leg bloody, its brown eyes a pool of pain and misery.
Bryn stooped over it and those eyes were saying, ‘Kill me now.’
‘You didn’t think of taking pills,’ Bryn said, but he said it gently. He liked dogs. He missed them.
But the dogs at home were currently being cared for by his mother and by the farm staff who valued them as they deserved. Not like this one. This dog looked as if it had been doing it tough for a while.
What to do?
He was trying to beat a storm that threatened to close the country down for a couple of days. A line-up of lawyers was waiting to meet him in London. He needed to get away from this mess and get back to Ballystone Hall, to the farm, to the cattle, to the work that filled his life. He also needed to finally accept the title he hated, and he still wasn’t sure how to do that. The dreariness of the last months had hauled him close to the blackness he’d fought ever since...
No. Don’t go there. Focus on getting on that flight.
But there was a dog. A bitch. Lying on the road. Bleeding.
It was a twenty-minute drive
back to the last town. It was twenty-five minutes to the next.
It was eight o’clock at night.
The dog was looking at him as if she was expecting him to wield an axe.
‘It’s okay,’ he told her, fondling the bedraggled ears. Forcing himself to think.
This was farming country, west of Melbourne. Where there were farms, there’d be a vet. He could ring ahead to warn he was coming, and pay whatever was needed to pass over the responsibility of taking care of her wounds and finding her owner.
But first he had to get her off the road. It was raining already and the distant rumbling of thunder threatened more.
The dog was bleeding. Blood was oozing rather than spurting, but it was enough to be worrying. He needed towels.
He was travelling light and a towel wasn’t included in the sparse gear he carried. He was in Australia to try and distance his name from his uncle’s financial mess. The debt collection agency was due to collect this car from the airport’s valet parking tomorrow. It’d be a great look if they found it smeared with blood, he thought. That’d add even more drama to the mess that was his uncle’s life.
‘A pill would definitely have been easier,’ he muttered to the dog, but he was already shrugging off his jacket, figuring how to edge it underneath so he could carry her. Then he headed back to the car to find a spare shirt to wrap the leg.
‘Okay, dog, hopefully it’s only your leg that’s damaged,’ he told her as he worked. ‘I’ll ring ahead to the next town and have the vet meet me. Let’s get you safe and warm before the eye of this storm hits. I might need to break the odd speed limit but I can still catch my plane.’
* * *
Charlotte Foster—Charlie except when she was with clients—didn’t like storms, though maybe that was putting it too lightly. In her neat little interior-design studio back in Melbourne, with solid town houses on either side, she could pull the blinds, put something loud on the sound system and pretend storms didn’t happen. Here, though, she was in a dilapidated farmhouse with a rusty tin roof, she had no neighbours for miles and she was surrounded by dogs who were already edgy.
If Grandma were here she’d sneak into bed with her. How many times had she done that as a little girl? This place had been her refuge, her time out. Grandma had scooped her up every school holidays and brought her back here, surrounding her with dogs, chaos, love.
She sniffed.
Charlie wasn’t a sniffer but she’d been sniffing for weeks now, and sometimes even more than sniffing.
Grandma...
There was a hole in her heart a mile wide.
The dogs, too, were acting as if the bottom had dropped from their world, as indeed it had. In the weeks she’d been here Charlie still hadn’t figured what to do with them. They were rejects, collected over the years by Betty who hadn’t been able to say no to anyone. To anything.
Charlie still didn’t know what would happen to them. There was no way she could take six dogs back to her studio-cum-bedsit—seven if you counted Flossie, although she’d almost given up on Flossie.
Betty’s note was still haunting her. That last night...she must have felt it coming. Pain in her chest? Breathlessness? Who knew? Whatever, instead of doing the sensible thing and calling an ambulance straight away, she’d sat down and written instructions for Charlie.
You know most of this but just to remind you of details.
Possum is a sort of fox terrier. Nine years old. Loves his black and white sock more than anything. There are spares in my bottom drawer in case of disaster.
Fred’s a part-basset, part-vacuum-cleaner. He’ll eat anything on the basis he can bring it up later if it’s not edible.
Don’t let him near Possum’s sock!
And so on.
But then, at the end...
Flossie’s a sweetheart, but needy. You met her last time you came. She’s only been with me for two months, dumped on the road near here. I need to keep her secure because any chance she gets she’s off down the road, trying to find the low life who abandoned her.
Charlie had spent the last weeks caring for the dogs and other animals. Trying to figure a solution to the financial mess. Wanting to kill the scumbag who’d fleeced her grandma. Trying to block out the memory of her own stupidity, which meant she had no resources to help now. Her grief for the gentle Betty had been a constant ache throughout, but adding to it was the fact that when Betty had finally called the ambulance, the paramedics had left the gate open.
Somewhere out there was a lost dog called Flossie.
Charlie had enough on her plate with six dogs she needed to rehome. Flossie surely must be someone else’s problem by now, but, still, she’d searched. She’d hoped. Betty would expect her to. Now, as the storm closed in, the thought of a lost Flossie was breaking her heart.
‘You guys can all come into bed with me until it’s over,’ she told the dogs, who were getting more nervous as the sound of thunder increased.
Flossie... She’d be out there somewhere...
‘I’ve looked,’ she said out loud, defiantly, to a grandma who could no longer hear. To Betty, who she’d buried with grief and with love ten days ago. ‘I’ve done all I can, Grandma. Now it’s time for me to bury my head under my pillows and get through this storm without you.’
* * *
Yallinghup was the town ahead. It had a vet who was currently somewhere in a paddock with a cow in labour. He could hear the sound of wind in the background when she answered the phone. ‘I can meet you in an hour or so,’ she’d said brusquely. ‘Probably. Depends when this lady delivers. I’ll ring you back when we’re done.’
Carlsbrook was the town behind. ‘Dr Sanders is on leave,’ the not so helpful message bank told him. ‘In case of emergency please ring the veterinarian at Yallinghup.’
The dog was now lying on his passenger seat, looking up at him with huge, scared eyes.
Okay, next step...or maybe it should have been the first step. Find the owner. However, this wasn’t exactly suburbia, with lots of houses to door-knock. This was farming country, with houses set back behind towering gum trees. He couldn’t remember passing a house for the last couple of miles.
‘But you must have come from somewhere,’ he told the dog and fondled her ears again while he located her collar.
Flossie.
No more information. Great.
‘Okay, next farmhouse,’ he muttered and hit the ignition. ‘Please let it be your owner, or at least someone who’ll understand that I need to be gone.’
* * *
She really, really didn’t like storms. She didn’t like the dark.
She didn’t like anything about this.
She should feel at home. She’d been coming here since she was a little girl, every school holidays, and she’d loved being here, helping Betty with the dogs, the chooks, the myriad animals Betty had housed and cared for.
She loved this place, but it was love of Betty that made her keep visiting, and it was that love that was making her stay now.
Three weeks ago Charlie had been finally starting to get over the mess her own life had become. She’d been scraping a living as an interior designer. That living had depended on her being at her studio to receive clients, but she couldn’t be there now—because of Betty.
And Betty would never be here again. That was enough to make her feel desolate, even without thunderstorms. Now... There’d been five huge claps of thunder already and the rain was turning to a torrent, smashing against the tin roof so loudly it made her shudder. She needed to bolt for the bedroom and hunker down with the dogs.
But then...
Someone was knocking at the front door.
What the...?
Normally a knock at the front door would have meant an explosion of canine excitement but there was no excitement now. Charlie was in the farmhouse kitc
hen, and the dogs were lined up behind her, as if Charlie were all that stood between them and the end of the world.
Or the stranger at the door?
For there was someone there. What she’d assumed was lightning must have been car lights sweeping up the drive.
Who? Every local knew that Betty was dead. The funeral had seen almost the entire district turn out, but since then she’d been left alone. It was assumed she was here to put the place on the market and move back to the city.
She wasn’t one of them.
So now... It was dark. It was scary.
Someone was knocking.
Weren’t dogs supposed to protect?
‘You guys come with me,’ she muttered and grabbed Caesar and Dottie by the collars. Caesar was mostly wolfhound. Dottie was mostly Dalmatian. They were both cowards but at least they were big, and surely that had to count for something?
She hauled them into the hall. The knocker sounded again over the rumble of more thunder.
She had a dog in each hand. Four more dogs were supposed to be lined up behind her. Or not. Three had retreated to the living room. She could see three tails sticking out from under the ancient settee. Only Mothball remained. Mothball was a Maltese-shih-tzu-something, a ball of white fluff, not much bigger than Charlie’s hand, but what she lacked in size she made up for in heroics. She was bouncing around Caesar and Dottie as if to say, I’m here, too, guys. But Caesar and Dottie were straining back, wanting to add their tails to the settee pack.
Nothing doing.
‘Who’s there?’ Charlie managed, thinking as she said it, Is an axe murderer going to identify himself?
‘My name’s Bryn Morgan.’ The voice was deep, imperative, sure. ‘I’m hoping you might be able to help me. I have an injured dog here and I hope you can tell me where I might find the owner. The name tag says Flossie.’
Flossie? She let her breath out in one long rush. Flossie!
‘Please,’ she said out loud, a prayer to herself, to Grandma, to anyone who might listen, and she opened the door to hope.
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