Joy was the youngest daughter in a family of four daughters, all of them renowned for their wildly ambitious and social-climbing natures. With the high-flying Joy by his side, Laurence’s life had been even more flamboyant and extravagant than ever. They’d gambled together, travelled abroad, skied, shopped and partied. They’d hardly ever been at Winterborne Hall, which was a relief to Laurence’s mother, who was still grieving for her husband while trying to bring up a young son at the age of forty-five.
The birth of a daughter, Estelle, two years after their wedding, had done nothing to change the jet-setting lifestyle of Lord and Lady Winterborne. They’d merely installed their new-born baby at Winterborne Hall with a nanny and taken off again.
Because of their closeness in age, Estelle had been more like a little sister to James than a niece, and although he and his mother had done their best to fill the gaps of love in the child’s life Estelle had grown up feeling neglected and abandoned by her parents. She’d always imagined it would have been different if she’d been a boy, and heir to the title, but James doubted it. His brother didn’t give a fig about what happened to the title after he was gone.
Estelle had eventually left home and begun taking drugs, then, after her parents cut off her allowance, had paid for her habit through selling herself on the streets.
By this time James had been at university, at Cambridge, and Estelle would occasionally contact him when she was desperate for money. He would try to talk some sense into her but to no avail. It had only been when she’d fallen pregnant a few years later—father unknown—that he was able to talk her into going home.
She had, and, with her grandmother’s help, had stayed drug-free till she’d given birth to her daughter, Rebecca. Less than a month later, however, she had died of an overdose of heroin. She was twenty-five—two years younger than her uncle James.
Rebecca’s grandparents, who’d still been leading self-indulgent lives, had been no more interested in their granddaughter’s well-being than they had in their own daughter’s. A nanny had been hired and that was that. Unfortunately, when Rebecca was only one year old, her great-grandmother had passed away, and, with James leading his own life in London by then, little Rebecca had seemed doomed to grow up even more lonely and neglected than her own mother.
Fate had stepped in, however, when her grandparents were killed on the ski-slopes of Switzerland during an avalanche two years back, making James the new Earl of Winterborne. He’d taken over the reins at Winterborne Hall, plus the guardianship of his then five-year-old great-niece, and had just brought some real love and happiness into the poor tot’s life when she’d been diagnosed with leukaemia.
Her existence over the last couple of years had consisted of nothing but doing the rounds of specialists, stays in hospitals, chemotherapy and sheer misery.
‘So you can see,’ Rebecca’s amazingly young great-uncle finished up, ‘she’s been having a real rough time of it.’
‘It goes like that sometimes, doesn’t it?’ Marina commiserated. ‘It doesn’t rain but it pours.’
Just then the rainclouds parted and a ray of sunshine pierced the passenger window, landing in Marina’s eyes. She blinked, then laughed softly. ‘I hope that sun’s a good omen. I think it might be, you know. I mean…what were the chances of finding a near-perfect match with Rebecca? One in a million?’
She turned her head towards her co-passenger, and caught him staring at her with those intense blue eyes of his. ‘I would say that just about describes you,’ he said in a serious tone.
Marina’s heart flipped over at the compliment. Her laugh felt strained. ‘What a flatterer you are, My Lord. You’ll turn my head if you don’t watch it.’
He said nothing, and she found his silence even more unnerving than his penetrating gaze. What was he thinking? Feeling? Was it merely curiosity about her which made him stare so? Surely the attraction couldn’t be mutual, could it?
She swallowed, and struggled to think of something to say. Anything.
‘Are…are we far from Mayfair?’ she asked, even when she already knew the answer. They were skirting a large park, possibly Hyde Park, and the streets were heavy with traffic even at this early hour. Some time back the rows of suburban houses had given way to impressive old buildings, mostly made of a greyish stone. Not a glass and concrete skyscraper in sight anywhere.
‘Not far,’ he said. ‘I take it you haven’t been to London before?’
‘Actually, I have. A couple of years back. Came on a shoestring and did what touristy things I could afford. Saw the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and Madame Tussaud’s and the Tower of London, not to mention all the museums and galleries. The free ones, that is,’ she laughed.
‘Did you go to the theatre?’
‘Heavens, no. Too expensive.’
‘I’ll take you, if you like.’
She shot him a sharp look, but there was nothing in his face which suggested anything but politeness.
‘Oh, I…er…I don’t think I’ll really have the time, do you? Not if I’m to go down to Winterborne Hall as well.’
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘You mean you’ll actually come?’
‘I…well…you said you wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
His laugh did not sound particularly happy for some reason. ‘But I never for one moment thought you’d succumb to that kind of male pressure.’
What a provocative expression, she thought. Succumb to male pressure. It conjured up the image of an attempted seduction and an almost unwilling surrender.
Marina could not help staring into his face again, for some hint of his feelings towards her. But there was nothing to go on. He had a habit of holding his facial features in that stiffly autocratic fashion which bespoke things like ancestral pride and honour and arrogance, but nothing of any personal emotion. If he was attracted to her on any physical level, his body language did not show it.
While some deep feminine instinct rang a warning that perhaps it was not wise to go down to Winterborne Hall, suddenly wild horses would not have kept her away. She wanted to see his ancestral home, wanted to see him in it, wanted to sleep in one of those dozen bedrooms—if only to spend the night fantasising over the Lord and Master of Winterborne Hall.
‘It’s not a matter of succumbing to male pressure,’ she said firmly, ‘but deciding for myself that I would really like to see Rebecca’s home. Still, I can only spare a couple of days. I really need to be getting back to my home as soon as possible.’ Back to the real world, she told herself ruefully. And away from this fantasy one, complete with fantasy man.
‘You must be missing your fiancé,’ he said. ‘What was his name again?’
‘Shane.’
‘What does he do for a living?’
‘He helped my mother run her riding and dressage school. He’s quite marvellous with horses.’
‘I see. But what is he doing now that your mother has passed on?’
‘Just the same. It would be a shame to let all my mother’s work go to rack and ruin. She built up a good business with plenty of clients. And her horses are simply the best.’
‘But that’s not what you do, is it?’
Marina was startled by his intuitive comment. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Your hands, for one thing. It’s also obvious you don’t spend much time in the sun.’
She stared down at her soft, pale hands, which were resting lightly in her lap. She was unnerved by the sharpness of his observations. What else had he noted about her? Could he look into her mind as well, see all those appalling thoughts she’d been having about him?
Her fingers linked together and pressed down hard. ‘You’re quite right,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘I’m a teacher.’
‘A teacher,’ he repeated, and smiled a strange little smile. ‘Yes, I can see you in front of a class. But not boys,’ he added wryly. ‘You would distract boys far too much. You teach at a girls’ school, I gather?’
