His Bid for a Bride

by Carole Mortimer

  “Skye, I want you to give some thought to the idea of marrying me.”

  Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it certainly wasn’t this!

  “Why are you asking me to marry you?” She stared at him with compelling eyes.

  He raised dark brows. “You don’t think it’s because you’re a beautiful young woman—?”

  “No, I don’t,” she cut in forcefully. “Nor do I think that it’s because you’ve fallen madly in love with me. Something else is going on here, Falkner—and I think it’s time you told me what it is!”

  CAROLE MORTIMER is one of Harlequin’s most popular and prolific authors. Since her first novel was published in 1979, this British writer has shown no signs of slowing her pace. In fact, she has now published more than 145 novels!

  Her strong, traditional romances, with their distinct style, brilliantly developed characters and romantic plot twists, have earned her an enthusiastic audience worldwide.

  Carole was born in a village in England that she claims was so small that “if you blinked as you drove through it you could miss seeing it completely!” She adds that her parents still live in the house where she first came into the world, and her two brothers live very close by.

  Carole’s early ambition to become a nurse came to an abrupt end after only one year of training due to a weakness in her back suffered in the aftermath of a fall. Instead she went on to work in the computer department of a well-known stationery company.

  During her time there, Carole made her first attempt at writing a novel for Harlequin. “The manuscript was far too short and the plotline not up to standard, so I naturally received a rejection slip,” she says. “Not taking rejection well, I went off in a sulk for two years before deciding to have another go.” Her second manuscript was accepted, beginning a long and fruitful career. She says she has “enjoyed every moment of it!”

  Carole lives “in a most beautiful part of Britain” with her husband and children.

  “I really do enjoy my writing, and have every intention of continuing to do so for another twenty years!”

  HIS BID FOR A BRIDE

  CAROLE MORTIMER

  ~ THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN ~

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  HIS BID FOR A BRIDE

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  IT WAS sexual attraction.

  Pure and simple.

  Except there was nothing pure or simple about the way Skye felt right now.

  She was hot and feverish, knew her eyes must be overbright, her cheeks flushed, each breath she took painful with the effort it took to complete even such an instinctive function. Her breasts were pert, nipples hard with arousal beneath the fitted pink sweater she wore, and as for the heated desire between her thighs—!

  She could feel all that—and yet she wasn’t sure she even liked the man responsible for all these totally new, confusing feelings.

  ‘Connor, I have no intention of selling Storm to you just so that he can break your beautiful daughter’s neck for her the first time she tries to show off riding him in front of her friends,’ Falkner Harrington now told Skye’s father scathingly.

  Falkner Harrington.

  Arrogant. Condescending. Mocking. Handsome as the Vikings represented by that unusual first name!

  Overlong blond hair, which should have looked ridiculous in this age of much shorter styles, merely added to this man’s already overt masculinity, the sharpness of his features; straight brows over hard blue eyes, his nose an arrogant slash, sensual mouth twisted with derision now, his chin square and determined—all these things merely emphasized the man’s untameable appearance.

  Her more conservative father, in his business suit, shirt and tie, Skye acknowledged ruefully, looked more like a domesticated cat facing the fierceness of a jungle feline.

  Her father shook his head smilingly. ‘Skye could ride before she could walk,’ he told the other man with dismissive affection. ‘Falkner, I promised to buy Skye an Arabian as an eighteenth birthday present,’ he added before the younger man could voice any more of the derision he made no effort to hide in that arrogantly handsome face. ‘More to the point, Falkner,’ her father added ruefully as he could obviously see the younger man’s disinterest in such a promise, ‘you and I both know that Storm’s unpredictable temperament just isn’t suited to the showjumping circuit.’

  Falkner Harrington, at thirty-two years of age, was one of the top riders of the world showjumping circuit, and had been so for the last ten years.

  But, as Skye also knew from numerous newspapers articles about the man, he was as much known for his prowess off the showjumping circuit as he was on it!

  But, nevertheless, he had some nerve talking to her father in that condescending manner—because her father’s whiskey company had been this man’s sponsor for the last seven years.

  She also didn’t like the fact that Falkner Harrington seemed to see her as some little rich girl who didn’t know one end of a horse from the other, merely wanted his precious Arabian as a fashion accessory to show off to her friends.

  ‘Skye?’ the younger man echoed mockingly, icy blue gaze flickering over her with scathing dismissal. ‘With a surname like O’Hara, wouldn’t Scarlett have been a more apt preface?’ he added derisively.

  The taunt, Skye was sure, had more to do with her almost waist-length copper-red hair, confined in a ponytail at the moment, than it did with her surname!

  Heated colour warmed her cheeks at this man’s deliberate rudeness; as if his own first name were so ordinary. Although, Skye had to admit, there was no denying how perfectly it suited his look of Viking fierceness…

  ‘My eyes are a sky-blue.’ She spoke for the first time, defensively, her voice husky, the slight Irish lilt making it more so.

  Eyes of the same clear blue met her gaze with bold amusement. ‘So they are,’ Falkner Harrington acknowledged mockingly, that gaze raking over her with merciless assessment now, taking in the rounded beauty of her youthful face, the pink sweater over pert breasts, denims fitting tightly over the long length of her legs. ‘And you’re almost eighteen,’ he echoed sceptically, obviously finding that very hard to believe.

  She was five feet six inches tall, not that short for a woman, her hair, when it wasn’t confined, a mixture of blonde, cinnamon and copper, her skin, now that she had at last passed through puberty, pale and flawless, her figure perhaps a little on the slender side rather than voluptuous, but there was time for that.

  There was certainly nothing about her, Skye decided indignantly, that warranted this man looking at her as if she were no more than a precocious child!

  ‘Come on, Falkner,’ her father cajoled. ‘Just letting Skye take a look at the stallion isn’t going to do any harm, surely?’

  ‘No harm, no…’ the younger man agreed slowly, still looking assessingly at Skye.

  A look she deeply resented. If he would just once let her near the stallion then she would show him—

  She drew in a deeply controlling breath, forcing herself to smile naturally—which wasn’t easy when she considered this
man had insulted both her father and herself in the last few minutes! ‘I really would like to see Storm, Mr Harrington; my father has done nothing but sing his praises since he saw him last week,’ she added encouragingly.

  That deep blue gaze flickered briefly in the older man’s direction. ‘I wasn’t aware you had been to see Storm, Connor,’ he murmured softly—dangerously so.

  Skye glanced at her father too, knowing by the slightly reproachful look he shot at her that she had just said something indiscreet.

  ‘I happened to be in this area on business last week,’ her father told the younger man with a dismissive shrug. ‘You were away at a competition at the time, but your groom kindly let me take a look at the stallion you’ve told me so much about.’

  ‘Really?’ The younger man’s relaxed demeanour hadn’t changed by so much as a flicker of the eyelids, and yet his displeasure at this revelation was nonetheless tangible.

  Skye didn’t hold out much hope of the groom escaping verbally unscathed from this disclosure. ‘Surely it’s only reasonable for my father to want to take a look at something he intends offering to buy?’ she dismissed lightly.

  Falkner Harrington looked at her coldly. ‘Reasonable, yes—if I had had any idea your father intended offering to buy one of my horses at all,’ he rasped. ‘Least of all Storm.’

  ‘But why would you want to keep him if he’s unsuitable for jumping?’ Skye continued recklessly; goodness knew her father, as this man’s sponsor, knew what it cost to stable, train, and compete horses who were suitable for the circuit, let alone ones that weren’t in that class.

  Falkner Harrington looked down his arrogant nose at her impertinence. ‘Could it just be that perhaps it’s because he’s unsuitable for that purpose that I have my doubts about selling him to a young girl barely out of braces?’ he rasped harshly.

  The twin spots of angry colour in her cheeks clashed wildly with the redness of her hair; how could this man possibly know that until a few months ago she had worn braces on her teeth?

  Skye could see from the corner of her eye as her father shifted in his chair at this visible display of her rising temper, but she was too indignantly furious now to heed that subtle warning.

  ‘So you’re unwilling to even let me see Storm?’ she snapped between clenched teeth.

  Falkner Harrington shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I have no problem at all with your seeing him.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Merely with your ever owning him,’ he concluded scathingly.

  Skye opened her mouth, closing it again with a snap as her father sat forward slightly and lightly touched her arm. She glanced up at him, knowing her frustration must be evident from her expression.

  He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head before turning back to the younger man. ‘As you know, Falkner, I have a pretty impressive stable myself in Ireland. I taught Skye to ride there,’ he added lightly. ‘She really is a very capable horsewoman,’ he assured the other man. ‘Professional standard, in fact,’ he added firmly.

  That cold blue gaze flickered over her briefly before Falkner gave another shake of his head. ‘We’ve already agreed Storm’s temperament isn’t suited to that way of life.’

  ‘We’ll settle for just seeing him,’ Connor cajoled.

  ‘If you insist!’ Falkner Harrington accepted impatiently after a brief glance at his wrist-watch, obviously aware that he owed at least this much politeness to the man whose company was his professional sponsor. ‘Storm should be back from his gallop by now.’ He rose abruptly to his feet, at once revealing why he had looked down his arrogant nose at Skye’s own height minutes ago; at least six feet four inches tall himself, he must tower over almost everyone he met!

  Her father, a man Skye had looked up to and admired her whole life, looked positively short beside the younger man, even the breadth and power of the older man’s shoulders doing nothing to allay that impression; Falkner Harrington had wide, powerful shoulders himself beneath the black jumper he wore, his waist and thighs muscular in cream riding trousers and boots.

  The Falkner stable, as Skye had discovered for herself when she and her father had driven into the yard in their hire car a few minutes ago, was a large concern, and although the house itself was slightly run-down, both inside and out, the stables and training grounds were of the very highest standard.

  Well, they would be, Skye thought disgruntledly; O’Hara Whiskey, her father’s company, paid for most of that!

  But as Skye accompanied the two men outside, for all the resentment she now felt towards Falkner Harrington, both on her own and her father’s behalf, she realized that the sexual attraction she felt towards him was increasing to an almost overpowering degree.

  The man was obviously lean and fit, his arrogant good looks beyond question, but it was the animal magnetism he exuded that made her tremble with longing, that made her aware of every aching inch of her own body in a way she never had been before.

  But even those feelings faded to insignificance as they entered the cobbled stableyard and Skye fell in love for the first time in her life…

  He was wonderful. Tall, dark, and so handsome he took her breath away, his face aristocratically beautiful as he looked down his long nose at her in arrogant query.

  Storm.

  Her father had told her the stallion was magnificent, pure black, with the fine delicacy Arabians were so known for, but he hadn’t told her how absolutely breathtakingly beautiful Storm was.

  ‘Thanks, Jim.’ Falkner Harrington took the reins from the groom who had just returned from exercising the magnificent stallion, patting the horse’s neck even as he spoke gently into one of the sensitively flicking ears.

  ‘What did I tell you, Skye?’ her father enthused happily beside her. ‘Isn’t he the most darlin’—?’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt.’ A softly spoken middle-aged woman crossed the yard towards them. ‘There’s a telephone call for you at the house, Mr O’Hara,’ she informed him lightly.

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded knowingly. ‘Can I leave Skye with you for a few minutes, Falkner? I really need to take this call.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ The younger man gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘Skye will be perfectly safe with me,’ he added tauntingly.

  She gave him a sharp look before turning to give her father a reassuring smile, knowing he had been expecting this call from his older brother, Skye’s uncle Seamus, in Ireland.

  ‘You see what I mean.’ Falkner Harrington barely waited long enough for her father to follow the other woman out of the yard before turning scathingly to Skye, Storm moving skittishly on the reins, the beautiful brown eyes glaring his displeasure at this change in his morning routine. ‘Storm just isn’t suitable for a lightweight amateur,’ he added disgustedly.

  ‘Lightweight—!’

  Her father really wasn’t exaggerating when he said she had been riding horses before she could walk. Her mother had died when Skye was less than a year old, and immediately after the funeral in England her father had sold up there and returned to his native Ireland to take over the running of the family business from his father, Old Seamus, taking baby Skye with him.

  Instead of engaging a nanny to look after her, as most men would have done in the same circumstances, her father had simply taken her with him, either when working in his office, or in the stables that were really his first love.

  Skye had been crawling under horses’ legs, and put up on their backs before she could even stand on her own two legs, leading the huge animals about by their reins by the time she was two years old, riding out with the grooms on their daily exercise by the time she was eight.

  How dared this man call her an amateur?

  She could never afterwards have even begun to explain what prompted her into her next action, even to herself; she seemed to see her own actions as if in slow motion.

  She grabbed the reins from Falkner Harrington’s unsuspecting grasp, foot in the stirrup as she swung herself agilely up into
the saddle, before galloping out of the stableyard up onto the downs she could see behind the house.

  It was exhilarating, Storm responding to the lightest touch as he was allowed to do what he obviously loved best: running like the wind, his black mane flowing free, body stretched fully as hooves pounded easily across the grassy ground, almost seeming to fly as he jumped a hedge with effortless ease.

  Riding Storm was the most thrilling experience of Skye’s young life, and she knew herself completely lost in the sheer ecstasy of the moment.

  So much so that she had no idea she was no longer alone until a hand reached out to tightly clasp the reins, pulling sharply back on them, Skye almost tumbling over Storm’s head as he came to a shuddering, quivering stop.

  ‘Are you insane?’ Skye turned angrily on Falkner Harrington as he sat astride the showjumping horse Skye easily recognized as O’Hara’s Lad. ‘You could have knocked me off,’ she accused indignantly.

  He was breathing deeply between pinched nostrils, his face white with anger as he swung down out of his saddle, his fingers tightly gripping Skye’s arm as he pulled her roughly from Storm’s back.

  ‘You little idiot!’ He shook her roughly, glaring down at her furiously. ‘You could have been killed!’

  Skye smiled confidently. ‘No, I—’

  ‘Yes!’ Falkner ground out harshly. ‘Or Storm could!’ he added furiously.

  Which was probably more to the point as far as he was concerned!

  But before Skye could make any further protest Falkner’s mouth came roughly down on hers, the kiss he subjected her to owing nothing to gentleness and more to the anger that so obviously consumed him.

  Nothing in Skye’s previously youthful experiences with the couple of boys she had so far dated had prepared her for this thoroughly adult kiss, Falkner giving no quarter as his mouth ruthlessly savaged hers, his arms like steel bands as he moulded her body so close to his she could hardly breathe.