Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Copyright

“I’ve had enough! Hand over my car keys!”

“Georgia.” Will stood up. “You—”

“No! I’m not saying any more, I’m going, and if you don’t let me, I’ll call the police. You’ve done nothing but insult me, and play on my finer feelings in between times, and I’m sick to death of it. Hand them over, Will!”

But he didn’t do that at all. He stared down at her flashing eyes and working mouth, her imperiously held-out hand and then, before she could believe what was happening to her, pulled her into his arms and lowered his head to kiss her.

LINDSAY ARMSTRONG was born in South Africa but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and tried their hand at some unusual—for them—occupations, such as farming and horse training, all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when their youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

A Marrying Man?
Lindsay Armstrong

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

GEORGIA NEWNHAM unlocked her front door, flung her mail down onto her hall table, threw her muddy coat and equally muddy riding boots down in disgust at the terrible weather and walked into her lounge in her socks. Her home was in fact a converted loft above a set of stables, not large but comfortable, with two bedrooms and a lounge separated from the country-style kitchen by a half-wall. It was all wood-panelled in the old-fashioned Queensland colonial manner, but furnished colourfully and luxuriously.

The last thing she had expected to see was an absolute stranger sitting peacefully on her tartan-covered sofa.

‘Who on earth are you?’ she demanded, missing a beat in her long-legged stride, but only one, before walking up to him.

The man stood, and turned out to be very tall—at least six feet four to her five feet ten. He had a thin face, she saw, not handsome but interesting…a face with a faint scar running from the outer left eyebrow to the temple, hair that was mid-brown, a pair of greeny, gold-flecked, oddly insolent eyes and a rather hard-looking mouth. He wore a tweed sports coat—a very fine, discreet tweed, but not new—with khaki trousers and a checked shirt open at the throat.

‘My apologies, Miss Newnham,’ he drawled, in a light voice with a decidedly masculine timbre. ‘I’m William Brady and—’

‘I don’t care if you’re William Shakespeare, Mr Brady,’ Georgia broke in angrily. ‘How dare you break into my house? If you’ve come to rob me let me warn you that my father is a barrister, my uncle is a judge and the Attorney-General happens to be my godfather!’

The stranger spoke again and the timbre of his voice struck her once more, and not only that; his cultured accent also held a sort of…what was it? she wondered. A dispassionate sort of irony?

‘I haven’t come to rob you, Miss Newnham,’ he said. ‘I’d hardly have stayed to introduce myself if that were the case.’ A corner of that well-cut mouth twisted and his hazel gaze slid down her figure leisurely, then came back to her cornflower-blue eyes with a mocking little salute in his own.

As it happened, Georgia was not new to this kind of masculine appreciation, which didn’t mean to say that she cared for it—and even less so as she realised that her drenched cotton blouse clearly showed the contours of her bra and breasts beneath it. Extremely shapely contours too, as she’d been given to understand by quite a large body of opinion. But that didn’t necessarily commend anything to her either. ‘Watch it, Mr Shakespeare,’ she said, through her teeth. ‘What have you come for? How do you know me when I don’t know you from a bar of soap, and how the hell did you get in?’

The last thing she was prepared for was the glint of amusement that came to those hazel eyes, and she said imperiously, ‘Now look here—’

‘My apologies again,’ William Brady murmured. ‘We haven’t met before, Miss Newnham; all my knowledge of you is from hearsay, but I would imagine it’s pretty accurate. As to how I got in—’ he produced a brass key from his pocket ‘—I used this.’

Georgia stared at it. ‘But all my keys are silver—’ she began.

‘Nevertheless, it worked.’

‘Well, I don’t understand!’ She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

‘Perhaps you should take greater care with the keys you distribute, Miss Newnham,’ William Brady suggested coolly.

‘And perhaps you should take greater care with the things you say, Will,’ she flashed back. ‘What are you implying?’

‘That you may have retrieved your silver key from the—er—temporary owner of it, but not before he got it copied. Well, that’s one explanation, I guess.’

Georgia flung back her tousled mane of fair hair and opened her mouth, but her uninvited guest pipped her to the post.

‘Very effective, Miss Newnham,’ he drawled. ‘If you stamped your foot, you’d look remarkably similar to a spirited filly with a cream mane—have you one of those in your stable?’

Georgia breathed deeply and decided to change gear. ‘If you’ve come here for any purpose other than to insult me, Mr Shakespeare,’ she said, coolly and composedly, ‘would you please state your business? If not—don’t be offended if I call the police.’

The stranger eyed her narrowly for a long moment, then he said abruptly, ‘My business concerns Neil Dettweiler, Miss Newnham.’

Georgia’s eyes widened. ‘Neil? Oh, now it’s over, and you can tell him that—from the horse’s mouth,’ she added drily, but with the light of battle in her blue eyes. ‘I never want to see him again!’

‘That’s unfortunate, I’m afraid.’

‘Why? And what connection do you have with Neil?’ she demanded.

‘A—family interest and deep concern at this point in time, Miss Newnham. You see, he’s lying dangerously ill in a Sydney hospital after a car accident, and he’s asking for you.’

Georgia blinked. ‘Asking for me? Why?’

Those hazel eyes mocked her. ‘I think we both know that.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Georgia contradicted him. ‘I mean, I’m sorry to hear he’s ill—I wouldn’t wish anything drastic on him—but there’s no reason why he should be asking for me. After what I said to him on the last occasion we met, I’m sure I’m the last person he’d be asking for, in fact.’

‘What did you say to him?’ William Brady enquired evenly, but with an odd little undertone of menace.

‘I told him,’ Georgia said carefully, ‘that he was the last person on earth I would take my clothes off for.’

‘Bravo,’ William Brady said, then added, ‘What a pity you waited until he was thoroughly enslaved to make that declaration, though.’

‘I didn’t and he wasn’t.’ Georgia frowned. ‘There’s something going on here I don’t understand. Neil Dettweiler—who I met at a party, incidentally, and became fairly friendly with in a casual sort of way—expressed a desire to paint my portrait, you see, Mr Brady. He said I didn’t have that sort of chocolate-box prettiness that was so common but something much more…’ She stopped as William Brady quite pointedly examined her face for chocolate-box prettiness or otherwise.

After a moment during which she was curiously unable to string together any words, he said, ‘I see what he means—you’ve lovely skin, which you’ve obviously taken good care of, Miss Newnham, despite your occupation, and quite stunning eyes,’ he mused. ‘But no, not pretty, although well bred, rather patrician, in fact, good bone structure—interesting and quite memorable, I’m sure.’

‘Thank you.’ Georgia subjected him to an extremely arrogant and patrician look from her stunning eyes. ‘But, to get back to what I was saying, I agreed, and started to sit for him—which I have to say I found intolerably boring.’ She grimaced. ‘Be that as it may, he seemed quite sure I was Archibald Prize material, which would be a big coup for him. Only then, when the portrait was about halfway through, he became fixated with the idea that a full-length nude of me would be even more desirable.

‘That, Mr Shakespeare,’ Georgia said gently, ‘was when I made my declaration. Is it all clear to you now?’ she added sweetly.

‘Perfectly,’ he agreed. ‘And quite consistent with everything else I’ve heard about you, Miss Newnham. “A rare old breaker of hearts—not to mention other things,” someone described you as. Be that as it may, to use your own terminology, and although to my mind I’m not sure what he’s done to deserve the likes of you, tomorrow morning you’ll be flying down to Sydney with me to Neil’s bedside.

‘I hope I make myself plain,’ he said, coldly and pointedly. ‘Because I’d hate to have to indulge in any undignified brawling with you, Miss Newnham—but don’t imagine I wouldn’t.’

Georgia stared into his eyes for a long moment, and was stunned to see how angry and utterly contemptuous they were. It occurred to her that she was trapped in her loft with this well-spoken but angry man, who was not only a lot taller than she was but also possessed a lean, very fit kind of grace and a magnificently wide pair of shoulders…Trapped because there was only one exit and there was no one to call for help.

She said, almost thoughtfully, as the pause stretched, ‘Well, I don’t know about you, Will, but I’m cold, wet and starving. So you do whatever you like, but I intend to change and make a meal.’

‘What a good idea,’ William Brady murmured, and accepted with cool amusement the flash of fire that came his way from her eyes before she stalked into her bedroom.

‘There we are—reheated cannelloni. But the salad is fresh and the bread is home-made. Would you like wine, beer—whatever?’

Georgia had showered and changed into a fleecylined blue tracksuit, and had deliberately and defiantly put on a pair of old sheepskin slippers which she normally didn’t parade to the public but did wear on cold evenings at home alone. She’d also tied her hair back, and during all these preparations reviewed with growing chagrin her options for escape, only to decide there were none, for several reasons.

The bedrooms and bathroom in her loft were lit by means of skylights; those same skylights admitted air—but only with the aid of a long pole with a hook on the end. There were conventional windows in the lounge and kitchen area, with pretty, flower-studded window-boxes outside, but William Brady was sitting in the lounge, and while he wasn’t exactly exhibiting the air of someone guarding all such exits she had no doubt that he was. He was also sitting beside her desk, upon which resided her only telephone.

‘A glass of wine would be nice,’ he observed.

‘Please do the honours, then,’ Georgia invited politely, and gestured to her small wine rack. She’d set the table with a red and white checked cloth, matching napkins and a small bowl of flowers. She’d wrapped the warmed bread in a snowy napkin and the salad was colourful, tossed in a zesty dressing of her own making. She dished up the cannelloni as he chose and opened a bottle of Beaujolais.

‘This is very good,’ he murmured after tasting the cannelloni. ‘Did you make it yourself?’

‘Indeed I did,’ Georgia replied. ‘Whatever else men don’t deserve about me, they would have nothing to object to in my culinary expertise.’

‘Point taken, Miss Newnham.’

‘Yes, well…’ Georgia picked up her wineglass and studied the ruby depths. ‘Should we get back to the point? Your conviction, in other words, that I am the last of the great seductresses and that I callously spurned Neil Dettweiler. Do go on.’

He glanced at her briefly and continued to eat for a moment. Then he said, ‘Do people call you Blondie, Miss Newnham?’

‘Some do,’ she conceded. ‘My family, mainly. It’s not a courtesy I extend to a lot of people for the simple reason that it reminds me of when I was about four, which was when the name first came into existence. It’s something I’ve not been able to cure them of calling me on the odd occasion—my family, I mean. But I tell you what—you are giving me the absolute willies by persisting with Miss Newnham.’

‘Are you inviting me to call you Blondie?’

‘No,’ she said evenly, ‘Georgia will do. But what has this got to do with the price of eggs, Will?’

‘Just that Neil wrote to me about you—he used your nickname, and he’s still using it in his delirium.’

‘Neil never called me Blondie—’

‘Perhaps not to your face,’ William Brady said mildly. ‘But in his letter to me he described you as a blonde goddess and said he hadn’t realised what love was about until he met you. He mentioned that your background was impeccable and teeming with judges and barristers…’

He stopped and raised an ironic eyebrow at her as she made a disbelieving, inarticulate sound, then went on remorselessly, ‘Then, when I went through his things, what should I discover but your unfinished portrait? Whose name should be in his diary, heavily underscored, but yours—with one of your doorkeys?’

Georgia, who’d been staring at William Brady wide-eyed and with her mouth open, closed her mouth with a click. ‘This is…this is…I’m lost for words. No, I’m not. There’s got to be some terrible mistake. Other than the fact that Neil and I appear to you to have parted, why have you automatically assumed the blame for it lies at my door? Why, in other words, although you’ve never laid eyes on me before, am I such an object of contempt?’ Her eyes challenged him angrily.

He shrugged, fiddled with the stem of his wineglass, and she noticed with the periphery of her mind that he had long fingers and wore a battered old watch on a leather band that had seen better days. ‘I made some enquiries.’

‘Ah,’ Georgia said ironically. ‘Do tell me more!’

He lifted his hazel eyes and they met hers with that amusement she’d seen lurking in them before. ‘You have to admit you’re a colourful character, Georgia,’ he said wryly.

‘Go on,’ she commanded.

‘Well…’ He sat back. ‘Twenty-three, been to all the right schools and finishing schools, mixed in the right society, could ride almost before you could walk, were a show-jumper—those are the kind of things I came up with. Plus the fact that Daddy has never been able to deny you anything, apparently, including this little spread.’ He looked around. ‘Then there’s the reputation you seem to have acquired for being—stuck-up.’

She sat forward and propped her chin on her hands. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Several people.’

Georgia laughed. ‘I wonder if you researched any of my friends? It doesn’t sound like it to me.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘You seem to be curiously unmoved by these allegations, Georgia,’ he said reflectively.

‘I am, mainly because they’re untrue, so perhaps I could set the record straight, Will?’ She eyed him, then continued without waiting for a reply, ‘I did do a bit of show-jumping in my teens, but it was never a career or an ongoing passion with me—just the kind of thing a lot of girls who love horses dabble in for a while.

‘And my father didn’t buy this place for me. I inherited it from my grandmother, as a matter of fact, but what I inherited was a ramshackle old set of stables on twenty acres of bush, whereas what you see today,’ she said proudly, ‘is the result of my own efforts.

‘Yes, I did borrow from my father for some of the improvements, but I’ve paid him back every cent and I’ve turned this place into a successful spelling farm where people know they can send their racehorses between campaigns to rest, be pampered and cared for excellently. In other words I’ve turned it into a thoroughly good business proposition. I support myself entirely from it and it has the added advantage of being something I love doing.’

‘I stand corrected,’ William Brady murmured, although he didn’t appear to be chastened in the slightest, as he proceeded to demonstrate. ‘What about the men you’ve been associated with?’

‘All those men I gave my doorkey to?’ Georgia said with genuine amusement in her eyes. ‘Don’t you believe a word of it, Will! I’m surprised someone didn’t tell you how frigid and stuck-up I am.’

‘So they didn’t represent a long line of affairs?’

‘Hardly any of them, Will. Hardly any of them,’ Georgia said gently, but for some reason a glint of anger was back in her eyes. Although she added lightly enough, ‘Nor was Neil Dettweiler in love with me, Will. I really would have known, and taken great pains to avoid it, you see. And do you honestly believe a man in love would want to exhibit his beloved in the altogether for the Archibald Prize?’ She put her head on one side and scanned him with rueful amusement.

But he laughed back at her. ‘It’s not such an insult, you know. For a man in love who also happens to be an artist—’

‘Possibly not,’ Georgia conceded. ‘I mean, to want to paint the portrait, but not the exhibiting bit—not the kind of man I would want to be in love with me, at any rate.’

‘Then do you have any explanation for your name being in his diary, your key amongst his things, for the way he’s asking for you?’ he asked drily.

Georgia stared at him and felt her skin prickle as she realised that this man simply didn’t believe her—and that on certain evidence which she simply couldn’t explain he was probably within his rights not to. ‘No, I can’t,’ she said baldly at last. ‘It’s a complete mystery to me.’

‘Would it be too difficult to work on the assumption that he hid this grand passion for you from you, Georgia?’

‘Do you mean…?’

‘Yes. Come to Sydney with me tomorrow morning. What have you got to lose?’

‘I’ve got horses—’

‘Do you have no one to help you with them? For a day or two?’

Georgia tightened her mouth, then looked at him coldly. ‘How do I know this isn’t some plot?’

‘What kind of plot? Oh, come now, Georgia—’ William Brady looked at her quizzically ‘—you’re really not my type. I thought you might have sensed that.’

‘Easy to say, Mr Shakespeare. Easy to say,’ Georgia taunted. ‘There’s no reason on earth, however, why I should believe a word of what you’ve said—in fact there are a few good reasons for me not to!’

He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it across the table to her. ‘Ring the hospital yourself.’

Georgia stared down at it then rose and walked to the desk. A few minutes later she put the phone down and turned back with a frown to William Brady.

‘Well?’

‘He’s in Intensive Care—they’re not making any predictions at the moment,’ she said slowly. ‘His mother’s with him—they offered to let me speak to her.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind I’ll give…his mother a call myself in a moment. In the meantime, will you come?’

‘But look,’ Georgia said in sudden genuine desperation, ‘what am I going to say to him if I do?’

William Brady got up, came round the table to her and said with chilling evenness, ‘My dear, I have no idea what is going on—if there’s a new man in your life or whatever—but would it be such an imposition to ask you to come up with some slight reassurance for a poor guy who is hanging between life and death and asking for you?’

‘It’s no good, I can’t sleep like this—look, I’ve told you I’ll come!’

The lights were out, Georgia was in her bed and William Brady was reclining on her tartan sofa, having declined the spare bedroom. It was raining, her bedroom door was open and she’d tossed and turned restlessly for the past hour. ‘You don’t have to treat me as if you’re my jailer,’ she added bitterly.

‘Count sheep,’ he suggested. ‘Or fences, triple gates, water jumps—whatever.’

‘If you really want me to be wide awake, that’s the way to do it, Will,’ she said with irony, and reached over to switch on her bedside lamp. In the weak light her bedroom’s glory, which had caused him to raise his eyebrows wryly earlier, was somewhat dimmed.

She’d used a mixture of cornflower-blue and ivory to decorate it: ivory carpet and cornflower-blue quilt, stitched and appliquéd with ivory flower-heads—it alone was a work of art. Her dressing table and wardrobe were lovely walnut pieces, there was a padded armchair and matching footstool with a magazine rack beside it, a glorious gold-framed print on the wall, of mountains and snow against a lavender sky, and a bowl of exquisite white roses on the dressing table.

‘From an admirer?’ William Brady had said on his way to the bathroom, which could only be reached via the bedroom.

‘You could say so,’ Georgia had replied airily. ‘It’s nothing to do with you, however.’

He had not replied.

Georgia plumped up her pillows angrily and surveyed her tormentor through the open bedroom door. He’d taken off his jacket and shoes but otherwise remained clothed, and he seemed perfectly comfortable and at home on her sofa beneath one of her spare blankets, with his hands folded behind his head.

Not only comfortable but serene, even, she thought darkly, so that you could almost forget that steely little glint he’d had in his eye when he’d told her the bedroom door would remain open for the night. Not to mention all the other things he’d said to her.

‘Tell me about yourself, Will,’ she said, arranging herself comfortably with her arms folded on top of her bedclothes. ‘What do you do for a living? What kind of women do appeal to you—are you married to one, for example? Why do I get the feeling you’re a bit of a dry stick who lives in an ivory tower and feels he can afford to throw stones? Those kind of things.’

He chuckled. ‘I’m not married, I’m a journalist, I certainly don’t live in an ivory tower and I probably like my women a little less flamboyant and a bit more tractable than you. So far as throwing stones goes, I’ve only relayed to you tonight the things people have told me about you.’

‘Flamboyant,’ Georgia mused. ‘Am I really?’

‘Well, you’re certainly not a little mouse of a girl. One only needs eyes to see that but I have it on good authority as well.’

‘Will, didn’t it strike you as being just a teeny bit sneaky—going around behind my back like this? Or are you that kind of journalist?’

‘All journalists have their ways and means,’ he said, and left it at that.

‘Would it interest you to know that I thoroughly despise your ways and means? That I—’

‘Now, Georgia, don’t work yourself up again,’ he advised. ‘It really can have no relevance what you think of me, or vice versa.’

‘Is that so? What if I did an about-face on the subject of your beloved Neil Dettweiler?’

‘Are you contemplating it?’

‘No. You must be a very good friend of his, Will,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘to go to all this trouble.’ And she stopped briefly with a frown creasing her forehead. ‘What did you mean by a family interest? He never said a word about you.’

There was a minute’s silence, then he said, ‘He happens to be my half-brother. Georgia, we have a very early start tomorrow…’ He stopped, and to her surprise she saw him get up and come towards the bedroom.

‘Now look here…’ she said fiercely, sitting up.

‘Calm yourself, my dear Miss Newnham,’ he said, with more deadly amusement glinting in his hazel eyes as he came right up to the bed. ‘You’d be the last person who was in any danger of being taken against her will by me. But I am going to do this.’

Their eyes locked as he reached for the lamp, and in the moment before he switched it off she read again that cool contempt in his eyes, and for the strangest reason discovered herself feeling young, hotheaded and a nuisance. All of which effectively silenced her as the lamp went off.

She wasn’t sure when she drifted off to sleep but it was some time in the middle of some curious thoughts about William Brady—a man who despised her, who was totally unaffected by her, but a man…

She woke to the sound of rain on the roof and the sight of weak morning light coming in and someone bending over her. She said drowsily, ‘David…?’

CHAPTER TWO

THERE was a moment’s silence. Then a voice said, ‘No. It’s William Brady.’ And the lamp flicked on, waking her completely and plunging her back into the incredible events that had overtaken her.

She said, ‘Oh.’ And simply lay there while William Brady put a cup of tea on her bedside table.

He straightened and their eyes met. ‘Who’s David?’

‘No one—’

‘You mean he’s not the reason you gave Neil the old heave-ho?’ he queried sardonically.

Georgia flicked her hair back and sat up. ‘He is not,’ she said crisply. ‘Neither is he any of your damn business, Mr Brady, and if you don’t want to have to drag me kicking and screaming all the way to Sydney you’d be wise not to say another word on the subject!’

William Brady inspected the luxurious disorder of her hair, the pale, perfect skin of her face, her elegant neck as it disappeared into a fun, hot-pink cotton nightshirt with big white daisies all over it, the imperious set of her mouth and her rather aristocratic nose, and said neutrally, ‘Sugar?’

But Georgia subjected him to a scathing scrutiny of her own—the blue shadows on his jaw, the rather weary lines of his face and the way his thick brown hair fell in his eyes—before she said regally, ‘One.’

He smiled slightly and spooned the sugar into her cup. ‘There you go—stay there; I’ll bring you breakfast.’

Georgia regarded his retreating back with utter disdain for a moment then collapsed back onto her pillows with a bemused sigh.

What could you do with a man who insulted you and threatened you, who planned to hijack you, but who brought you breakfast in bed, who, in an oddly laid-back but very adult way, showed his contempt for you but still aroused your curiosity? And made you wonder what he meant by ‘less flamboyant and a bit more tractable’—did he really like meek and mild little mice of girls?

She sat up again, shaking her head as if to clear it, and reached for her tea. Five minutes later he reappeared and presented her with perfectly cooked scrambled eggs on toast on a tray. ‘Thank you,’ she said this time, but with irony, and started to eat.

He sat down on the side of the bed, causing her to raise an eyebrow at him and say, ‘Well? What now, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘We have a slight complication.’

‘Don’t tell me—you’ve decided to believe me?’

‘No—’

‘Then you’ve reconsidered and decided that apart from the sheer impropriety of kidnapping a complete stranger against her will—’

‘It’s not like that,’ he broke in.

‘Oh, yes, it is, but I said I’d come and come I will, so—what?’

‘I rang to check our reservations earlier but the flight has been cancelled, as have all others, on account of a wildcat air traffic controllers’ strike. They don’t expect to be able to resume normal operations until this afternoon—and that might be an optimistic prediction. What I plan is to give them a couple of hours’ grace and then start to drive down.’

‘Drive down!’

‘It’s only a fourteen-hour drive. We could share it but we’d have to take your car.’

‘Look, it’s your brother—’

‘Georgia,’ he said quietly but dangerously, ‘bear with me, please. I thought it might even help you out a bit—to have a couple of extra hours to organise yourself in.’

Georgia stared at him, set her lips, then said, ‘How is he?’

‘The same.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were half-brothers right from the start?’

He shrugged and watched her dissect a piece of toast with her knife and fork, then lifted his eyes to hers. ‘It’s a long story, but I guess I thought it might adversely influence your decision if you thought you were also up against family disapproval. His family’s.’

‘Influence my decision?’ she marvelled. ‘You’ve blackmailed me, threatened me, insulted me—the only thing you haven’t done is allow me to make any sort of decision for myself!’

‘You told me a moment ago that you’d said you’d come and you’d come—’

‘Oh, look, go away, will you?’ Georgia commanded exasperatedly. ‘And take the tray with you. I want to get up.’

He stood up and picked up the tray, saying politely, ‘Very well, ma’am.’ But she knew he was laughing at her.

‘And close the door this time,’ she added through her teeth.

‘With pleasure.’

‘I’m going down to organise things with my staff, Mr Shakespeare. Do you want to come? It might give you a better understanding of how well run this spelling farm is and lessen the impression you have that I am a rich, lazy layabout who has had everything handed to her on a platter.’

Georgia stood before him, showered, dressed in jeans and a navy blue sweater, with her hair tied back neatly and her eyes challenging.

‘Yes, I would—if you wouldn’t mind me having a shower and a shave first.’

‘Oh, do make yourself at home,’ she said with irony. ‘Would you like to borrow one of my razors? They’re pink, unfortunately, but they work.’

‘Thank you very much, Georgia,’ he said gravely, ‘but I did bring my own.’ He indicated a small, battered grip.

Georgia tossed her hair. ‘Come down when you’re ready, then, Will!’

Her ‘staff’ was in fact quite an overstatement, although she was in no mood to acknowledge this. It was she herself who did most of the work involved in caring for the maximum of ten horses she was able to agist in neatly fenced paddocks while they were resting from their racing careers.

The work amounted mainly to feeding them carefully prepared formulas, watching over them as they luxuriated in the freedom of a paddock rather than a stable, and rugging them as the weather dictated. All the same, to do it as conscientiously as she did it was no mean task and she did have one part-time staffer.

Brenda was the daughter of her neighbours, a horsemad though surprisingly mature seventeen-year-old who was able to combine her love of horses with the earning of some pocket money by helping Georgia out. It was an ideal arrangement since she lived only a paddock away, and, moreover, on the odd occasions when she was left solely in charge she could call upon her father, an ex-jockey, for help if needed.

It was while Georgia was waiting for Brenda to arrive, and as she was making out some lists for her, that she stopped to think irritably, What do I care if he thinks I’m a spoiled little rich girl? Why should I care what this perfect stranger thinks of me?

Yet for some reason, she acknowledged, this perfect stranger had somehow contrived to get under her skin. How old was he? she wondered, and decided thirty something. And then she wondered why she should have accused him of being a ‘dry stick’ yet be unwittingly intrigued by him as a man…As a man? she pondered, and turned at a sound behind her to be confronted by the object of her somewhat mystified musings. It didn’t help her state of mind to feel a tinge of colour warm her cheeks.

‘Well, Will,’ she said tartly, ‘what do you think?’

William Brady walked over to the window of her small office and contemplated the view through it. It was pleasantly green and rural and populated by ten alert-looking specimens of the equine world in their paddocks, awaiting their breakfasts. ‘I’m impressed, Georgia,’ he murmured. ‘Do you have any horses of your own?’

‘Two hacks,’ she said. ‘I still like to ride and I give a weekly class at the local pony club. Otherwise all my energy goes into looking after other people’s horses. Do you ride, Mr Brady?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ride well?’ She put her lists in a pile and moved round the desk into the adjoining feed-room, where she started energetically to move buckets and feed bins around.

‘Well enough, although not nearly so well as you, I’m sure. Allow me,’ he added, and helped her to line up some more bins.

‘Thanks,’ Georgia said briefly, and pushed her sleeves up as she started to mix the feeds. She looked up once to see him watching her with a wry little smile playing about his lips. ‘What’s amusing you now, Will?’ she asked sardonically. ‘Or rather, it’s obvious I am, but in what particular way this time?’

‘I was thinking,’ he said slowly, ‘that you seem to have an enormous amount of energy, Georgia. It actually seems to leap out of you like an electric current—and that alone must be a problem for you sometimes. I mean how to channel it.’

‘Ah!’ Georgia straightened, winced and pushed a fist into the small of her back. ‘So you think I might not be such a rich, lazy layabout after all,’ she marvelled, and grimaced. ‘Don’t expect me to roll on my back and wave my legs in the air, though, will you, Will?’

‘It’d be the last thing I’d expect,’ he said gravely. ‘Have you hurt your back?’

‘No.’

‘It rather looked like it.’

‘Forget about my back,’ she said imperiously, and pushed past him to reach for something on a shelf.

‘Well, could I be of some assistance?’ he asked courteously.

‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘You need to know what you’re doing.’

‘I see. When do your staff arrive?’

‘She should be here any minute.’

‘She?’

‘Yes, she,’ Georgia said, then sighed irritably. ‘I only have the one, if you must know.’

‘You’re in a very prickly mood, even for you, Georgia,’ he observed, and she swung on him at close range, opened her mouth to demolish him but suddenly thought better of it as their gazes locked and held.

There was something strangely disturbing about being that close to William Brady, she discovered. Something in his hazel eyes that was both mocking yet amused, something in their proximity that made her feel curiously flustered and hot.

She swallowed, turned away and said crossly, ‘I don’t enjoy tripping over people when I’m working.’

‘My apologies.’

Georgia threw her head back haughtily and was oddly relieved to hear Brenda arriving—although that, unfortunately, was something that would later give her further cause for ire.

She introduced them briefly then asked Brenda to do the horses’ water-bins and to take Mr Brady with her to give her a hand. William Brady went compliantly, and with a perfectly sober face, but she knew he was laughing at her inwardly.

Half an hour later Brenda came back on her own with the news that he’d gone upstairs to make a phone call, and said breathlessly, ‘Georgie—who is he?’

Georgia compressed her lips. ‘Someone sent to try the life out of me,’ she answered coldly. ‘Why?’

‘I think he’s gorgeous!’ Brenda confided.

Georgia’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Gorgeous!’

‘Oh, yes! I mean, he’s not exactly handsome but he’s so interesting-looking, and he’s nice and he’s so tall and he…just gives me goosebumps.’

‘Brenda…’ Georgia had to laugh because of the look of ecstasy on Brenda’s face, but she said, although not unkindly, ‘He’s probably old enough to be your father!’

‘I don’t think so, but, anyway, I like older men,’ Brenda pronounced. ‘So…isn’t he a friend?’

‘He’s certainly not, and you probably won’t set eyes on him again—so don’t dream too much,’ Georgia replied with a mixture of irritation and amusement but with a slight softening of her tone because she was very fond of Brenda. ‘OK,’ she went on, in a more businesslike way, ‘as I explained last night when I rang you, I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone for—two to three days at the most—but I’ll ring you every day.’

‘I’ll look after them, don’t you worry,’ Brenda said earnestly. ‘And I’ll water your plants—and Dad’s always there if there’s a problem. It’s lucky it’s still school holidays so I can spend most of my time here.’

‘Thanks, kid. I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ Georgia said with a warm smile, and, after a last look round and a few more instructions, took herself upstairs to confront William Brady again.

‘Well, Will, what’s it to be?’

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to drive,’ he said quietly. ‘This strike doesn’t look like ending today.’

‘Damn,’ Georgia said, and then, ‘Look—is there anything I can say to convince you that you’re taking me on a wild-goose chase?’

‘No.’

She stared at him, read the determination in his eyes and turned away abruptly. ‘All right, I’m all packed. We’ll have to unhitch the car from the horse-box. If you’d care to go down and do that—if you’re capable of doing that—I’ll be down in a minute. Have you any objections—not that you’ll be able to stop me—if I ring my father and tell him where I’ll be?’

‘So long as he doesn’t make you change your mind, no. All the same, I’ll wait while you do it.’

‘What do you think I might be tempted to do instead?’ she taunted.

‘Heaven knows,’ he said drily.

Georgia glared at him then picked up the phone. But her father was already in court and unavailable, and all she could do was leave a message with his secretary to the effect that she was going to Sydney with one William Brady, as well as Neil Dettweiler’s name and the name of the hospital he was in. ‘Satisfied?’ she said coldly as she put the phone down.

‘Yes. Don’t you talk to your mother?’

‘Of course I do. I’m just not sure where she is—other than that she’s up on the Darling Downs visiting family, of which she has a whole army, and is due home late today or tomorrow. Besides…’ She paused.

‘Go on.’

‘Oh, well…’ She shrugged. ‘My mother worries.’

‘I see.’

‘Then off you go and unhitch the horse-box. I will be down, I promise you.’

‘Very well, Miss Newnham.’

* * *

When Georgia appeared with her bag, her car, which was in fact a powerful Landcruiser, was waiting at the bottom of the steps with William Brady in the driver’s seat.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said, striding round the driver’s door. ‘It’s my car and I’ll drive it.’

He simply shrugged, got out and got in the other side. ‘Let me know when you need a break.’

She flung her bag in the back, got in and revved the engine, called goodbye to Brenda and drove off spinning the wheels. The rain had stopped but it was still cloudy and cold. They said nothing to each other as she negotiated the western suburbs of Brisbane and the heavy traffic along Waterworks Road, until finally she gained the South Eastern Freeway.

Then he did say, casually, ‘You drive well, Georgia.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are we going to drive all the way to Sydney in a stony silence?’

‘Why not?’ she replied laconically, and switched on the windscreen wipers as the rain started to pour again. She was suddenly moved to add, ‘You don’t like me, I don’t like you—what point is there in idle chit-chat?’

‘You seem to like me even less today than you did last night,’ he commented.

‘I do,’ she said baldly.

‘Why?’

‘Well, I’m sure you don’t like me any more today than you did last night for one thing, and for another, taking advantage of little girls and sending them goosebumpy doesn’t recommend you to me at all.’

He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. ‘What—do you mean young Brenda?’

‘Precisely’

‘But I didn’t do anything,’ he protested mildly. ‘I give you my word.’

‘Nevertheless, it got done,’ Georgia replied—quite irrationally, she realised, but didn’t care.

‘I’m not quite sure what I can say to that—’

‘Don’t bother,’ she flashed at him, then swore beneath her breath as the traffic slowed to a crawl.

‘Georgia, you’ll be a nervous wreck if you don’t…just let go a bit,’ he advised.

‘Why should I let go? The last thing I want to be doing is driving to Sydney in this weather, with a man I don’t like, on a mission that’s not going to do any good, and with my back ki—’ She broke off abruptly.

‘Ah, I thought your back was killing you—why didn’t you say so?’ he said exasperatedly. ‘Look, pull up at the next lay-by and let me drive, at least.’

She set her mouth stubbornly, then sighed suddenly. ‘All right.’

‘How did it happen?’ he asked a few minutes later, after they’d made the change and were on the road again. ‘Your back?’

‘I fell off a horse,’ Georgia said bleakly. ‘It’s only a pulled muscle.’

‘Did you get straight back on again?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did—why?’

‘I don’t know why, but I was pretty sure you would have.’

‘What does that make me? Quite mad on top of everything else you think about me?’

‘No. Quite wise—isn’t that what one should always do?’

Georgia cast him a narrowed, frustrated glance. ‘You didn’t make it sound wise at all!’

He smiled faintly. ‘The trouble is, I’m valiantly trying to make conversation with you and not getting much help. Uh—let’s try another tack. You said you had two hacks?’

Georgia’s face softened despite herself. ‘Yes, Wendell and Connie. Her name’s actually Constancy, and she…well, we almost grew up together, so I’ve got a very soft spot for her.’

‘What about Wendell?’

Georgia’s expression grew indignant and fiery as she said, ‘Some people should be shot, you know!’

‘How so?’

She moved and settled her back against the improvised cushion they’d made of her coat. ‘He was abandoned, apparently, in a paddock with absolutely no feed. He was full of worms, thin as a rake and he’d damaged a tendon in his off-fore. He was quite pitiful when I found him.’

‘He looks a picture of health now.’

‘He does, doesn’t he?’ Georgia said contentedly, then grimaced wryly. ‘Whilst Connie is like my best friend, Wendell is a bit like my own kid.’

William Brady murmured, ‘Well, you’ve got quite a family, haven’t you?’

Georgia’s contentment faded and she looked away.

‘What have I said now?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’

About an hour later, he pulled into a service station, topped up the petrol and disappeared into the shop. He came out with a carton of food and two cups of coffee in plastic cups. They’d passed through the Gold Coast and were winding along the banks of the Tweed river towards Murwillumbah. He drove for a couple more miles then pulled off the road beside a picnic spot with tables and benches. The weather had cleared and it was pleasantly peaceful beside the river, surrounded by the cane-fields.

‘We’ll have a little break,’ he said.

‘I should have thought of bringing some food,’ Georgia said inconsequentially as she sat on top of one of the tables eating an indifferent ham sandwich—then grimaced.

William Brady contemplated her in silence for a moment, then said, ‘You’re a strange mixture, Georgia Newnham. A lot more domesticated than one would have imagined.’

Georgia eyed him sceptically. ‘I’m sure that’s not meant as a compliment, Mr Shakespeare.’

‘But it is,’ he said idly. ‘It’s almost easy to picture you with a large family, plenty of horses, of course, organising everything beautifully, cooking up a storm—that kind of thing.’

‘Well, it’s funny you should say that, Will, but that’s how I pictured myself once,’ Georgia replied breezily.

‘What went wrong?’

She’d been looking at the river and swinging her leg, but now she looked down into his eyes, opened her mouth, then changed her mind and said lightly, ‘I’m only twenty-three, Will. I could still have it all in front of me, don’t you think?’

His gaze held hers and there was something unusually intent in it as he murmured, ‘I wonder. Did David give you those roses?’

But Georgia had her defences ready. ‘Nope,’ she said promptly. ‘If you really want to know it was Harvey.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Who’s Harvey? He’s a solicitor. He has a tendency to be quite pompous and filled with his own importance and he’s laying siege to me in his own inimitable manner—which means to say—’ she raised her eyebrows comically ‘—just won’t take no for an answer.’

‘I find that hard to believe,’ William Brady said after a moment.

‘Believe me, if you ever got to meet Harvey you would.’

‘No, I mean that you haven’t found a way of dampening his pretensions,’ he said a shade drily.

‘Well…’ Georgia swung her leg again and looked into the distance, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘To be perfectly honest, he comes in handy sometimes. When one needs an escort one can…’ she gestured vaguely ‘…can handle.’

A faint smile twisted his lips. ‘Georgia, you don’t. Do you?’

‘Don’t what?’

‘String this man along?’

‘No, I don’t. I keep telling him there’s absolutely no future for us. I refuse to allow him to lay a finger on me yet he keeps popping up with dinner invitations, theatre invitations, flowers and so on. He has only himself to blame!’

‘How old is he?’

‘Thirty-three. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-three,’ William Brady said wryly. ‘And you’re right—he’s old enough to look out for himself, and if he lets you use him, he does only have himself to blame.’

‘Thank you,’ Georgia said with considerable irony.

‘I imagine David was a different proposition altogether, however. Did you fall for Neil on the rebound from him?’

Georgia jumped off the table. ‘You’re welcome to imagine what you like,’ she retorted. ‘But no, I did not, and your persistent interest in my love-life is beginning to annoy me considerably—particularly the insinuation that I’m some sort of scarlet woman. I’m much more like a nun these days, Mr Brady, so put that in your pipe and smoke it. Your concern for the men in my life, the men you imagine to be in my life, is—What are you, Will? Some kind of moral rights campaigner?’ she said scathingly.

‘Dear Georgia,’ he observed, ‘if you think I’ve mounted a campaign to rescue every stricken male from your clutches, you needn’t worry. You can do your damnedest elsewhere once Neil is strong enough to cope with it.’

‘So you don’t believe a word I’ve said—heaven knows why I even bother to talk to you,’ she said through her teeth.

‘There’s no need for us to be completely at logger-heads—’

‘There’s every need—I could be in danger of bursting a blood vessel,’ she answered candidly.

‘Why don’t you sit down and finish your coffee?’ he suggested.

She did, and bitterly contemplated the fact that William Brady succeeded in getting under her skin as few others did.

He watched her quizzically for a moment, then stood up and wandered over to the riverbank where he stood, half turned away from her, obviously lost in thought as he watched the water slide by.

And she found herself watching him. Watching and wondering as a breeze lifted his hair and fluttered his shirt but didn’t break his concentration. She realised he was a total enigma to her, and, in spite of everything, she was intrigued by that air of selfcontainment, by the growing awareness—reinforced by Brenda’s declaration, no doubt—that all the same he was a dangerously attractive man…

‘And what is going on behind those beautiful blue eyes now, Georgia?’ he said, making her jump.

‘I don’t know what you mean—nothing!’

‘Well, shall we continue on our merry way? Incidentally, I think we’ll go inland—through Tabulam, on to Tenterfield and the New England Highway.’

Georgia’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’

‘Weren’t you listening to the radio?’

‘No, not particularly.’

‘There’s another severe rain depression around Grafton, and, anyway, the New England is quicker, I think.’

‘Oh.’

‘Does that mean you approve?’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter.’

He looked at her impassively.

‘Don’t forget I’m the wicked, scarlet, fallen woman in all this, Will,’ she taunted, and tilted her chin at him.

He laughed, touched her chin lightly with his knuckles and said lightly, ‘Bravo, Georgia. That’s exactly how a wicked woman should look—as if she doesn’t give a damn. Ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ Georgia muttered, and stalked towards the car while he stowed their rubbish neatly into the carton then into the garbage bin—which annoyed her all the more, for reasons she was unable to identify.

The road was winding and tortuous as they took the Tabulam turn-off and snaked up the Great Dividing Range. Unfortunately, the rain depression they were trying to avoid on the Pacific Highway seemed to be well entrenched up towards the New England, and at times it was hard to see the road. Georgia resolutely said nothing and they passed through Tenterfield and Glen Innes in what should have been pretty, rolling countryside but was now soaked and desolate.

It was just after Guyra, a little town known for its lamb and potatoes, that another set-back occurred—and a rather terrifying one at that. They came across an accident that must have just happened, involving two semi-trailers that looked to have collided head-on and were now both lying on their sides, completely blocking the wet road, with their loads strewn far and wide.

William Brady swore as a police car with siren blaring and blue light flashing raced past them to draw up precipitately. Georgia stared wide-eyed at the scene of chaos and destruction and said shakily, ‘Will…’

But he pulled up beside the police car, turned to her and said abruptly, ‘Stay here.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘See if they need a hand.’

‘I—’

‘You just do as you’re told,’ he ordered, and swung himself out of the Landcruiser.

She did for a bit, then decided she couldn’t stand by and do nothing any longer, for, although one of the drivers was miraculously unhurt, the other was apparently trapped in his cab.

She arrived on the scene to witness an act of extraordinary bravery and strength on the part of William Brady as he crawled into the mangled cab, managed to prise apart with his bare hands the sections that were trapping the driver by his legs long enough for the policemen to pull him out, then retreated swiftly before getting trapped himself.

‘You’re a bloody hero, mate!’ one of the policemen said, and glanced gratefully over his shoulder as an ambulance skidded to a halt beside them. ‘If we’d had to wait for the jaws of life he might have lost his legs, by the look of it.’

It was a sentiment the ambulance driver agreed with rather fervently, while the other driver started to shake William by the hand most emotionally.

All of which he bore with a slight grimace until his gaze fell on Georgia, who was staring at him, transfixed. ‘I thought I told you to stay put,’ he said coolly.

She came out of her daze, set her teeth and stalked back to the Landcruiser.

He joined her a few minutes later, set the vehicle in motion and turned it back the way they’d come.

‘Am I allowed to speak?’ Georgia enquired.

‘Yes, why not?’

‘You seem to feel you can order me here, there and everywhere, Will, so I thought I’d check whether you feel your dominance extends to my verbal processes too. Why are we going back the way we came?’

‘I should have thought that was fairly obvious,’ he drawled. ‘The road is blocked.’

‘There must be other roads.’

‘There are two. One is an unmade road a very long way round and the other is flooded to a depth even a four-wheel drive might have trouble with.’

‘I see.’

He flicked her an ironic little look. ‘What do you see, Georgia?’

‘Nothing,’ she said politely. ‘It was a figure of speech.’

‘Then allow me to enlighten you. They’ve called for a crane to unblock the highway. It should take a couple of hours at the most. We’ll wait here in the meantime.’

Fifteen minutes later, Georgia was standing in the middle of a motel bedroom in Guyra. William Brady was on the phone.

She looked across the room at him expectantly as he put it down.

‘There’s a slight improvement—he’s still critical but stable.’

‘I’m glad,’ she said quietly, ‘but don’t forget I was prepared to go the long way round.’ She glanced around the neat, very basic but painfully clean little room.

William Brady surveyed her expressionlessly for a long moment then he said drily, ‘All the same, why do I get the feeling you’ve put a jinx on this trip, Georgia?’

She stared at him, then sank down wearily onto the double bed. ‘That’s ridiculous. All right! I was being bitchy just now, but I resent being treated like a child—and, in case you feel I didn’t appreciate how brave you were, I did. But I can’t control the weather, air traffic controllers or colliding semi-trailers. And I am here, after all.’

‘In person but not in willing spirit,’ he murmured, still surveying her. ‘And that means we need to talk some more, I think.’

‘What about? There’s nothing to talk about!’ she protested angrily. ‘Aren’t you even a little tired after your Herculean effort out there?’

Their gazes clashed and she bit her lip and coloured because it seemed she couldn’t help but compound her bitchiness at the moment, and she didn’t like herself particularly for it…‘Oh, hell,’ she said abruptly. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but you do ask for it sometimes. What do you want to talk about, Will? Why don’t we make it ‘“shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—and cabbages and kings” for a change? I might just be able to bear that.’

The faintest glint of amusement lit his eyes briefly, but he said gravely, ‘Why don’t you get comfortable—or at least get your back comfortable? Would you like a cup of tea?’

She sighed heavily, then, with a defeated gesture, because her back really was sore, pulled off her boots, piled the pillows up behind her and swung her legs onto the bed. ‘Go ahead and talk, Will, go ahead,’ she invited tiredly.

But he made the tea first. And not until she was sipping it gratefully did he say, ‘Neil was a bit of a Samuel Pepys—did you know?’

‘No, but I didn’t know a lot about Neil. So he kept a diary? Bully for him.’

‘Yes, although in a thoroughly disorganised, typically Neil manner, and like that other gentleman, not so much to record his appointments but to express his odd, impromptu thoughts.’

‘Well?’ Georgia drank some more tea.

‘Two of his more recent entries were particularly interesting in light of what you revealed this morning. The first one read, “Got disturbed by Harvey Wainwright, of all people. Is the guy for real?” And the other…’ He paused and his hazel gaze captured hers in a way Georgia was unable to resist. ‘The other read, “There’s some mystery to do with David Harper…” And three heavily scored exclamation marks followed.’

Georgia blinked and her mouth fell open. ‘Go on…’

‘I can’t. The entry ended there. Would that be the same David who was on your mind when you woke up this morning?’

‘But…but to my knowledge Neil didn’t know Harvey! And I don’t think Harvey would have wanted to know him—he likes his art all framed and preferably old, so he can rely on other people’s judgement, and he prefers to ignore any vaguely bohemian effort that may have gone into it.’

William Brady smiled unamusedly. ‘It’s not Harvey I’m worried about. On the other hand, David Harper is not…unknown to a lot of people—including me.’

‘Look,’ Georgia said tightly, ‘this is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. In fact I’m beginning to feel as if I’ve been framed somehow!’

‘Why don’t you tell me about David Harper—?’

‘It has absolutely nothing to do with you,’ she flashed back. ‘Why should I?’ But she stopped and ground her teeth as she saw him register the unspoken admission that there was something to tell. Then she said coldly, ‘You can go to hell, Mr Brady.’

William Brady didn’t reply, but he didn’t look greatly disturbed either. In fact it infuriated her to find that not only was he a dangerously attractive man but also, she was beginning to think, a dangerously clever one too, who could toy with her when he chose and then indicate that there was an unbridgeable gap between them—as if they existed on different planes not only physically but morally and mentally as well…

As if I am all the things he thinks I am, she thought. How does he do it? And suddenly it was too much for her.

She leapt off the bed, stifled a groan of pain and snapped, ‘I’ve had enough! Hand over my car keys, Mr Shakespeare; I’m going home.’

‘Georgia.’ William Brady stood up. ‘You—’

‘No! I’m not saying any more, I’m going, and if you don’t let me I’ll call the police. You’ve done nothing but insult me, and play on my finer feelings in between times, and I’m sick to death of it. Hand them over, Will!’

But he didn’t do that at all. He stared down at her flashing eyes and working mouth, her imperiously held out hand, and then, before she could believe what was happening to her, pulled her into his arms and lowered his head to kiss her.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, twisting her head away valiantly.

‘You could call it an experiment,’ he murmured, and added, ‘Don’t fight me, Georgia.’

Of course she did, but all to no avail. He simply resisted, and then something further snapped within her, as if to say, All right, if you won’t let me go, you asked for it. And she said through her teeth, ‘Well, kiss me, then, Will, if you’re so jolly well set on it, and see if I give a damn! Let’s just get it over and done with.’

He laughed softly down at her. ‘That’s my Georgia. I thought you might see it that way.’

What she was quite unprepared for was the way he did it, which was to say that he didn’t even commence until she’d stopped breathing heavily from her exertions.

He held her cornflower gaze captive for a while and she wondered warily what was to come, and began to regret her heat-of-the-moment gesture. At the same time she became aware of other things: the faint scar running to his temple, how tall he was and how wide his shoulders were, the warmth of his body on hers, the sudden urge she had to touch her fingertips to the little lines beside his mouth then slide them down his throat…

Things like that and worse—how his hands felt on her body, strong and knowledgeable, as if he knew just how she liked to be held and caressed, knew all her special places, which were suddenly alive and aching for his touch to be repeated, how she would dearly love to kiss this man and make him feel the same way—aroused by her expertise and desirability…

That was when he lowered his mouth to hers at last, and she found herself trying to do just that. With the result that what should have been a ‘close your eyes and think of England’ response on her part became something quite different—a passionate little encounter of leaping senses and a rather devastatingly intimate and pleasurable experience.

William Brady ended it, however, when he lifted his head, looked into her stunned cornflower eyes and drawled with a wryly lifted eyebrow, ‘You’d make a very troublesome nun, Georgia.’

CHAPTER THREE

GEORGIA opened her mouth as his arms relaxed around her, then closed it again because she could not find words contemptuous enough to express her feelings. She went to step away but tripped, and then tried to stand upright, only to find she couldn’t, and she clutched her back, this time with a heartfelt groan of pain.

‘Georgia?’ he said in an entirely different voice. ‘Is it your back?’

‘Of course it’s my back, you blithering idiot,’ she retorted with an effort. ‘What does it look like?’

‘Here, let me help you.’ And he picked her up and put her gently down on the bed against the pillows.

She groaned again and bit her lip.

‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘What?’

‘Do you think some heat would help?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said ungraciously.

‘Then why don’t you have a hot bath? We’ve got at least an hour and a half to fill. And I’ll try and rustle up a hot-water bottle or something for you to take with us.’

She couldn’t hide what the thought of soaking in a hot bath did for her, and without further ado he went into the small bathroom and started to run it. He also brought her bag in from the car and helped her across to the bathroom with it when her bath was ready.

‘Thanks,’ she said briefly at the door.

‘Can you manage?’

She glanced up at him and her eyes said it all.

He smiled with some irony but said nothing, and she locked herself into the bathroom.

She soaked for a good half-hour, and when she climbed out her back felt better. She decided to change into something more comfortable and less constricting and put on her blue tracksuit. It was still raining outside and looked cold and miserable.

What greeted her when she left the bathroom came as a bit of a surprise. There appeared to be a minor feast laid out on the Formica-topped table: a cooked chicken, some rolls, a bucket of coleslaw, some cornish pasties, some apples and oranges and a bottle of wine. And there were plates and glasses and utensils from her own picnic hamper, which she’d forgotten was in the car.

‘I hope you don’t mind.’ William Brady rose as she emerged.

‘You’ve been busy shopping, Will!’ she commented. ‘Why should I mind?’

‘I found your hamper in the car.’

‘Good work,’ she said drily.

‘I also got this,’ he said, and held up a tube of embrocation. ‘In case you didn’t have any.’

‘Super! I haven’t. I suppose you’re proposing to rub it all over my back yourself?’ she said witheringly.

‘It’s probably easier for me to do it,’ he replied gravely, ‘and it might just give you some relief.’

‘Now look here, William Shakespeare—’

‘Georgia, after the way we kissed each other just now,’ he said patiently, ‘this would be nothing. You wouldn’t even have to undress, just push your top up—why don’t you stop behaving like a spoilt child?’

She smiled at him through gritted teeth, hobbled over to the bed, lay down on her front and said, ‘Off you go, then, Will, but take one liberty and you’re liable to get a black eye this time.’

‘There,’ he murmured a few minutes later, and pulled her top down modestly. ‘How does that feel?’

Georgia opened her eyes. She could still feel his hands gently massaging the cream into her back and had to admit—to herself, that was—that it had been heavenly. ‘Better, thanks,’ was all she said briskly, and she turned around to sit up.

He put the lid on the tube. ‘You’ve got a couple of spectacular bruises.’

‘I thought I might have.’

‘Par for the course, I suppose,’ he commented.

‘Yep!’

‘Why don’t you stay there? Are you warm enough?’

She gazed at him, then leant back against the pillows. ‘Yes, Mum. Thank you, Mum,’ she murmured, and looked blandly into his hazel eyes as he handed her a plate of chicken and salad. ‘So, Will,’ she went on, ‘want to tell me why you did it? I really thought I wasn’t your type.’

He poured wine into two of her gaily spotted plastic glasses, handed one to her, then sat down at the table and looked meditatively across at her. ‘Why I kissed you? It amused me to do it, I guess. Why did you kiss me back, Georgia?’

She nibbled at a chicken leg, then said thoughtfully, ‘I can remember thinking at the time that I might as well give back as good as I got. I wasn’t getting anywhere doing anything else, now was I?’ She took a sip of her wine and gazed at him challengingly.

He said nothing and his expression was enigmatic.

‘And I suppose,’ she continued, waving the drumstick, ‘it amused me to think that someone like myself, so fallen and wicked, could tempt you out of your ivory tower, Will. Or at least—well, you can’t feel quite so superior now, surely? I mean, we did get a bit carried away together, didn’t we?’

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