Table of Contents

Cover Page

Praise

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

Dear Reader,

This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Harlequin Presents®, and it coincides with my own silver wedding anniversary. Little did I know on my wedding day that twenty-five years later I would be a romance novelist for Harlequin!

In fact, I had never penned anything lengthier than a wedding invitation at the time!

Now, twenty-two books later, I guess I’m as passionate about writing romance as I still am about my husband, Ian.

So, happy anniversary, Harlequin Presents®—and Ian, let’s do it again, all twenty-five years of it!

With love,

Natalie Fox

Promise of Passion

Natalie Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘THEY are all sold, I’m afraid,’ Caroline told the stranger as she stepped into the gallery.

The door banging shut after him had made her jump and rather impatiently she’d come out from her barn studio beyond the gallery, wiping her hands on her protective overall. Her mother had obviously forgotten to put the latch down on her way out for her afternoon walk with her granddaughter, Martha.

As the man turned towards Caroline her first thought was that she wished she’d leapt out of her filthy overall and into something more suitable for addressing a customer. He was a seriously attractive man, dark and tall with an air of sophistication about him that made her feel miserably shabby and wanting.

Not a local, she surmised as she stepped towards him, smiling now because anyone who crossed the threshold of the gallery door was a potential buyer. He was smoothing his hand down the back of her bronze Red Devon bull displayed on a pedestal. An art lover, Caroline mused, a sensuous man too by the look of the intensity of feeling in his touch. She never objected to people touching her work. Bronzes were for caressing and this man was milking the sensation for all it was worth.

‘The exhibition finished last weekend,’ she volunteered as she stopped in front of him. ‘But you are welcome to browse. It will give you an idea of the sort of work we do.’

He afforded her only half a smile but it was enough to have Caroline’s unaccustomed heart fluttering absurdly. His bone-structure was superb, very masculine with the firmness of arrogance. A nose any Greek god would be proud of. Wonderful mouth set off by a strong jawline beneath. Not conventionally good-looking but so darkly striking that Caroline was already casting the mould in her mind.

‘Do you have to scrutinise me quite so thoroughly?’ he said in a voice so smooth that Caroline was equally taken aback as she would have been if he had bawled at her.

Smiling to cover her embarrassment, she said, ‘I’m sorry. Sculpture’s what I do and studying bone-structure becomes a way of life. Most people don’t notice.’ She wondered if her scrutiny had been obsessively over the top and thought it probably had because he was an exceptional specimen. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you,’ she added as his eyes raked over her facial bone-structure framed by a crowd of tumbling tawny spirals that hung beyond her narrow shoulders. She wondered if he approved of the bane of her life, the hair that had a will of its own and rampaged wildly whatever she did to it. He was certainly taking full stock of it and now slowly letting his eyes descend down her long, slim body, shabbily clad as it was, not embarrassing her but certainly swamping her with awareness. It had certainly been a very long time since a man had looked at her that way.

‘I’m not embarrassed, not at all,’ he murmured at last as he moved on to the next sculpture.

Caroline watched him as he moved around the exhibits, only stopping to examine the bronzes. Her mother had exhibited with her, mingling her own pieces of delicate porcelain with Caroline’s more powerful, robust bronzes. The contrasting combination had worked and the exhibition had sold out on the bank holiday weekend just past.

‘If everything is sold, how come it’s all still here?’ he asked conversationally. He picked up one of her mother’s delicate pinch pots; eggshell-blue, it was as delicate as an eggshell. Caroline held her breath, her eyes transfixed on his fingers, gauging the possible clumsiness of them. Not a manual worker this man. His hands were strong but surprisingly sensitive. To Caroline’s relief he handled the delicate porcelain as if it was very precious, which it was, to her mother. She breathed again when he replaced it on its stand.

‘People don’t collect till an exhibition is over. I shall start packing up and dispatching in the morning,’ she told him.

‘Of course,’ he murmured absently, his eyes skimming over the rest of the exhibits. ‘Is it all your stuff?’

Caroline raised a brow, tensing slightly at his interpretation of her artistic products. ‘My “stuff” is the bronzes,’ she told him stiffly. ‘The other “stuff” is my mother’s.’

Another half-smile. He didn’t give much away, Caroline thought, the idea of a commission sliding away with his lack of enthusiasm for her and her mother’s work.

‘And it’s all sold?’ he echoed, as if not quite believing that possible.

Caroline felt her patience slipping with the declining thought of a commission. Not that she needed it desperately: it had been a successful year so far. But the winter months were drawing ever closer and without tourists it was sometimes a struggle to make ends meet from season to season.

‘Is that so surprising?’ she challenged brittly but not brittly enough to put him off considering a purchase at a later date.

His brows went up in surprise at her tone. ‘Did I give that impression?’ He gave her no space to answer but shrugged and went on. ‘To be frank I’m not au fait with all this…’ A hand came up in a sweeping gesture of the white-walled gallery.

So he wasn’t interested in buying, just whiling away the time, but sometimes a sale came from these time-killing browsers. Still, she couldn’t resist muttering under her breath, ‘And it’s not even raining.’

He heard and got the point and this time she was blessed with a smile that brought a hesitant smile to her own full lips. He turned away from her and left Caroline with a feeling that an introduction should have been made at that point and she wasn’t sure if it was her failure to execute one or his.

‘So what can I help you with, or are you just passing time till the next London train leaves?’ she asked bluntly. She really did have a lot of work on and he wasn’t going to buy, she felt sure.

He was a Londoner, she guessed, surprised at her own curiosity about him because, though her first impression of him had been one of awesome admiration for his dark good looks, she was now beginning to doubt he had anything to back it up. His manner wasn’t exactly warm and hospitable and his clothes—linen suit and mulberry-coloured silk shirt—were a far cry from anything she’d seen in this tiny Cornish coastal town.

‘No, I’m not merely passing time,’ he told her, turning back to face her, the smile gone and a coolness about him now that chilled Caroline. ‘Just weighing up your talent,’ he added smoothly.

Caroline defiantly held his eyes before speaking, wondering what he was getting at and wondering if he practised hard to achieve this haughty air about him.

‘Really? Well, if you’re not au fait with this sort of “stuff” you just might get your calculations wrong.’

‘Ah, but I did my homework before coming,’ he said mysteriously. ‘I asked around, found you were the best bronze sculptress in the south-west. So here I am.’

So he was a customer after all. She allowed her emotions to do an about-turn. She smiled at him encouragingly.

‘You have something in mind?’

She should have added ‘a commission’ to that query because she saw a suggestive remark looming on the horizon. But one didn’t materialise and she realised her assessment of him was punched with holes. Usually she was quite good at gauging people’s characters but this stranger was different. She had nothing definite to go on but he certainly wasn’t the usual run-of-the-mill man. Not a flirt but not a man uninterested in women either. Funny, but she doubted he was married.

His dark eyes locked with hers. ‘I’d like to offer you a couple of commissions,’ he told her.

Caroline pushed for a smile. ‘Two,’ she mused, careful not to sound too over-enthusiastic, careful not to sound sarcastic either. His tone had suggested she might fall at his feet in gratitude. But she found she was wrong again as he went on.

‘I realise that you must be very busy but I would like you to seriously consider the work. It is very important to me.’

Curiosity prompted her next words. Curiosity about what might be important in his obviously successful world. ‘In that case let me offer you a coffee and we can talk about it.’

She gave him another smile and led the way across the gallery, through her vast barn studio, which she had been in the process of tidying, and down a flight of flagstone steps to the main white-washed cottage. The cottage and the bits that had been added on over the decades were tumbled together on three uneven floors, tucked into the cliff-side. The front door was the door of the gallery off a narrow lane and the back door, two floors down in the kitchen, opened on to a patio and a poor excuse for a garden and the cliff-path. An unusual off-beat property that her mother had bought after the death of her husband, not able to face life in the draughty old rectory at Helston on her own. Caroline had moved down to live with her after the second tragedy in their lives, the tragic death of Caroline’s sister, Josie.

Caroline had settled in the seasonal coastal village, surprising herself because as a teenager she couldn’t wait to get away from Cornwall to study in London. And there she had stayed, completing her training and setting up with a group of like-minded friends in a converted warehouse in the Docklands area of London. It had been a wonderful existence, doing exactly as she pleased, gathering inspiration from a busy city and swapping artistic viewpoints with her friends. Then David had happened and her world had been complete and then suddenly with Josie’s death, it had all fallen apart. Her life was vastly different now; it couldn’t help but be with Martha. But all in all she had found a certain contentment and was absorbed with her work and happy that her mother was coping so beautifully at last.

‘Do sit down. I’ll make coffee. I won’t be a minute.’

She left him gazing out of the plate-glass window that stretched almost from wall to wall of the sitting-room. It was a modern window, alien to the rest of the property, one that previous owners had put in to take advantage of the stupendous views. The Atlantic rolled away forever beyond the glass, and below the cliff dropped away to a craggy cove with golden sands. A coastal path that only a few local residents knew about led down to the cove.

‘There used to be a path down to the cove years ago. Is it still there?’ he asked when Caroline came back into the room with a tray of coffee which she placed on a side-table.

She’d slid out of her overalls while the kettle boiled and had picked pieces of plaster out from her wild hair. Now she gazed at him in surprise.

‘Yes, it is,’ she admitted. ‘How did you know about it? Are you local?’

‘I grew up round here,’ was all he said. He took the coffee she offered him and Caroline nodded to the wing-chair by the window.

He sat down, only on the edge of the seat as if he wasn’t planning on staying long.

‘Can you do horses and people?’ he suddenly asked, taking Caroline by surprise again because she had honestly thought he might have settled into reminiscing about his childhood in the area.

‘Depends,’ Caroline said, perching on the win-dowsill, her back to the seascape beyond.

‘Depends on what—money?’ he suggested darkly and then added in a lighter tone, yet laced with cynicism, ‘I can afford you.’

A small rebellious bubble swelled inside Caroline. He had money and liked to show it and he had a contemptuous attitude towards women. She wouldn’t allow the bubble to burst, though; he was a customer, she reminded herself.

‘It depends on whether you want the people mounted on the horses, life-size!’

He smiled thinly and put his coffee-cup down on a side-table. ‘I read about you but I did warn you I’m not very well informed on this type of thing.’

‘So why the commission?’

He shrugged. ‘Personally I find the thought of a bronze bust of someone ostentatious, but I try to suffer my mother’s whims whenever possible.’

Caroline’s full lips parted in surprise. Well, I wouldn’t have put him down as a mother’s boy, she thought, but there you go.

‘She wants it, I jump. Life-size, of course; my mother will hear of nothing less. As for the horse, that’s my whim, my passion. He’s everything I’m not and I want him immortalised in a medium that suits the strength of his character. Can you understand that?’

Caroline wasn’t sure what she was expected to understand so she just nodded.

‘My mother doesn’t travel, neither does my stallion unless it’s to stud, so you will have to come to us, of course.’

Caroline shook her head. ‘I can’t do a full-scale horse,’ she told him. ‘I haven’t the facilities for such a size, but if a scaled version was acceptable I’m sure——’

‘Quite acceptable,’ he said, getting to his feet. He reached in his inside pocket and brought out a card. ‘Ten o’clock in the morning suits me well enough. I’ll pay your travelling expenses, of course——’

‘Just a minute,’ Caroline interrupted, startled now. He was going too fast for her. She stood up and took the card he held out to her but didn’t read it. ‘I can’t just put down everything to suit you and your mother’s whims.’ She saw a flash of impatience in his eyes but wasn’t in the least bit perturbed by it. She lifted her chin. ‘I’ve other commitments——’

‘Do you want this commission or not?’ he snapped.

Caroline’s green eyes widened. ‘Yes, I want your commission but I don’t need it, Mr…’ she lifted the card and read from it’…Mr Frazer.’ Her eyes went back to meet his. ‘This is a family business, not a hobby venture. My mother and I have other work on and——’

‘Name your price.’

‘It’s not a question of money,’ Caroline protested, her skin darkening with anger.

‘It’s aways a question of money,’ he said darkly. He reached in his inside pocket again.

Caroline held up her hands in protest. ‘Just a minute. If you’re reaching for your cheque-book, forget it!’ she almost shouted, then calmed herself. This was obviously something important to him and work was work, though she suspected working for him could never be a labour of love. ‘Look, I’m not refusing the work,’ she said in a placatory tone underpinned with firmness. ‘But I do have other commitments that must be dealt with first——’

‘Forget it, then,’ he said dismissively, his mouth a thin line of displeasure that someone wasn’t snapping at his hand for the work he was offering.

Caroline was just about to protest that he was being thoroughly unfair when she heard the kitchen door slam, followed by her mother’s voice calling. ‘Caroline?’

Caroline went to the door and shouted across the hall to her mother. ‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘Martha’s got something for you. I must dash down to the post. Be back in a minute.’

‘Mummy!’ Martha shouted, bursting through the door and launching herself into Caroline’s waiting arms. Caroline gathered her up, hugging her tightly to her. She smelled of the sea and sand and camomile that grew between the patio stones. Her faded denim beach-dress was powdered with sand and there were tufts of dry grass sticking out from her bare toes in her sandals. In her small, chubby brown hands she clutched a collection of flotsam from the seashore: damp seaweed, several pieces of bleached wood, a red sauce bottle-top and a brittle, sun-dried starfish.

‘Nanny said you’ll make a picture for me.’ She thrust her treasures at Caroline but she had no free hand to catch them and they spilled to the floor, at Mr Frazer’s feet.

Caroline looked across at him and shifted Martha to her hip, the child’s arms tightening around Caroline’s neck as she realised there was a man standing in the room. The man, Frazer, was staring at the child. This didn’t surprise Caroline: everyone stared at Martha when they first met her. She wasn’t a conventionally pretty child but her looks were stunning. Her skin was olive, her eyes huge, dark pools, the pupils only visible in a certain light; her lovely oval face was framed by hair too dark and salon-glossy for such a small, delicate child of three going on four, and it was straight, dead straight to her shoulders with a fringe lapping over her forehead. Not a curl, not a wave, not a kink to soften it against her creamy skin. Yes, she was an unusually lovely-looking child and Frazer obviously thought so too. His eyes hadn’t wavered from her.

‘This is Martha,’ Caroline told him. She turned her face to the child. ‘Say hello to Mr Frazer.’

‘No.’ Martha pouted rebelliously and buried her face in Caroline’s neck.

‘She’s not used to men,’ Caroline told him.

‘You don’t have to apologise——’

‘I wasn’t apologising,’ Caroline told him firmly. ‘I was explaining.’ Frazer frowned in disapproval and Caroline added, ‘It’s not for me to apologise for Martha’s rudeness. She’s quite able to do it herself. Have you something to say, Martha?’

The child lifted her head and grinned wickedly at Frazer. ‘Sorry, Mr Frazer.’ She wriggled to be free and Caroline set her down. Martha rubbed her sticky hands down her dress before offering one to the man who stood as tall as a giant in front of her. She said sweetly, ‘Hello. Are you my father?’

Vibrant colour rose to Frazer’s face and he actually took a step back in astonishment. He was still staring at the small child but his eyes were wild with panic now. It was all Caroline could do to stop herself bursting out laughing.

‘Now it really is for me to apologise for that,’ Caroline said with a grin. ‘And explain. Martha has a friend in the village who has a real father and she doesn’t really understand why she hasn’t got one too. The few men she meets are potential fathers to her. I’m sure when she’s old enough to realise what she is saying she won’t embarrass any more men.’

Martha was still holding her chubby hand up to him and Frazer felt obliged to take it. As he did he spoke for the first time since Martha had burst into the room.

‘Charmed to meet you, Martha.’ He forced a smile to grim white lips, a smile that didn’t fool Caroline for a minute. The child unsettled him—no, more than that, little Martha terrified him! So children were something else he wasn’t au fait with. He was probably an only child himself, one who doted on his mother and certainly hadn’t a wife in his life, Caroline mused as she watched a small muscle pulse at his jawline while Martha held on tightly to his hand, determined not to let him go till he admitted he was her father.

Caroline wasn’t too unduly worried about this phase Martha was going through. It was understandable in an intelligent, inquisitive child such as she was. There were no men in Caroline’s or her mother’s life, and the child was growing up in an all-female household. Martha was beginning to question why.

‘Are you my father?’ Martha persisted, sounding far more mature than her years.

‘N-no, I’m…I’m not…’

Diversionary tactics were needed, Caroline decided. The Frazer man was obviously extremely uncomfortable with Martha’s scrutiny and blatant demands for an answer. But before Caroline could intervene Martha herself saved the day. She pulled her small hand out from his and, looking up at him with eyes wide, she said, ‘You can’t be because my father is a foreign prince and princes wear crowns and you haven’t got one.’

With that, the child immediately lost interest in him, which was a great relief to Frazer and Caroline. She squatted down on the floor and started to gather up the treasure she had brought back from the beach and without another word she went through to the kitchen across the hall and they heard her depositing the collection on the kitchen table and a chair being dragged across the tiled floor.

Caroline realised the man was staring hard at her now. Explanations were on the tip of Caroline’s tongue but she held them back. Martha’s hearing was as sharp as her intellect and besides, their private life was no concern of his.

‘She’s an extraordinary child,’ Frazer murmured at last.

Caroline nodded. ‘Yes, she is,’ was all she said.

‘How…how old?’ he asked, obviously still quite taken aback by the little girl.

‘She’ll be four at Christmas,’ Caroline told him, feeling that she must add something more but not too much. ‘She’s advanced beyond her years but, as you have just seen for yourself, she can switch from reality to fantasy just like a three-year-old.’ She lowered her voice to a soft murmur. ‘Her father isn’t a foreign prince, of course.’

The stranger made a feeble attempt to smile through his discomfort. ‘Of course not,’ he said, also keeping his voice down. ‘I didn’t think for a minute he was .’

Caroline raised a brow in defiance of that. He obviously thought she didn’t swim in royal circles, foreign or otherwise.

‘I suppose that puts a whole new complexion on my commission,’ he went on, recovered now from Martha’s interruption of their negotiation.

Caroline steeled herself for the inevitable rejection, yet her chin came up in defence of all single parents, though her circumstances were not usual. Not for the world would she tell this arrogant stranger the true circumstances.

‘I suppose you want to retract your offer,’ she said bravely. She wasn’t going to fight for it; no way. It had sounded like a very nice commission and it had sounded as if she could name her price, but money wasn’t everything.

He looked at her quizzically as if he hadn’t understood why she had said what she had and then his face cleared as if he had realised what was troubling her.

‘Look, don’t get me wrong,’ he started, and then paused as Caroline’s shoulders squared. He sighed and raked his hand through his immaculate black hair, ruffling it into disarray, then immediately smoothing it back into place again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he went on. ‘The child took me by surprise. What I’m trying to say is that now I know you have a child I will fall in with your arrangements. You obviously have your hands full and it can’t be easy, but it hasn’t changed my offer. I still want you to do the work but in your own good time, though——’

And for God’s sake don’t patronise me, Caroline wanted to blurt, but didn’t. Instead she interrupted coolly and professionally, ‘Ten o’clock in the morning, then, Mr Frazer. We can discuss terms then. I’m sure you’ll find my work satisfactory.’

‘I’m sure I will,’ he agreed, his eyes fixed on hers so hard that she could do little else but glare back to match him. ‘Tomorrow at ten, then. You have my card. Phone if anything crops up——’

‘Nothing will,’ Caroline assured him firmly as she turned to the door to show him out.

At the gallery door, which Caroline had opened for him, he turned and looked at her. It was a while before he spoke, as if he was choosing his words carefully in his mind before speaking them.

‘She mentioned a nanny. You have staff and she will, of course, look after the child when you come tomorrow?’

‘She’, ‘the child’. Did he mean to insult with his choice of words to describe Martha?

‘She has a name—Martha,’ Caroline informed him tightly. ‘And Nanny isn’t the hired help. She’s my mother and the grandmother of my daughter and have no fear that I will impose Martha on you tomorrow. She’s an astute child and will know when she isn’t wanted.’

His eyes darkened. ‘I meant nothing of the sort,’ he told her crisply and Caroline realised she had been hypersensitive in taking it that way.

She let out a small apologetic sigh and lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

To her astonishment he lifted her chin and gazed deep into her green eyes. His touch was far warmer than she would have expected from such a cold man. His dark eyes too were suddenly so unexpectedly soft that she parted her lips in silent surprise and her heart seemed to squeeze for some unearthly reason.

‘I understand your protective feelings for your daughter,’ he said quietly. ‘But please don’t be on the defensive for her all the time. You’re a very lucky lady to have such a beautiful daughter. Some are not so fortunate.’ The words came out leaden and Caroline wondered at what had powered them but had no chance to try and analyse them for the moment. He went on, ‘I was simply trying to establish the facts for tomorrow. My mother is a frail lady and not used to young children. If you wanted to bring the…bring Martha I would have to prepare her in advance. That was the only reason I asked about a nanny.’

Caroline tried to nod but his fingers on her chin wouldn’t allow that. She felt a sudden crushing feeling in her chest as that touch smoothed into a caress and then he took his fingers away and she wondered if she had imagined it all.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he finalised, and turned away from her and was gone.

Caroline flattened herself against the back of the door, having shut it after him, and took long breaths and closed her eyes. She should have explained to him from the off, told him that Martha wasn’t her daughter but the orphaned daughter of her dear sister who had died so tragically. But how could she tell anyone, least of all that damned arrogant Frazer stranger? Martha believed her to be her real mother because it was Caroline who was bringing her up. That dear, sweet child, conceived by her irresponsible sister, father unknown, and orphaned at the age of four months, would have a lot to contend with in later life and Caroline was going to do everything in her power to smooth the way for her. If she was defensive over Martha she had reason to be.

Later, when she lay on the bed with Martha, reading her favourite bedtime story of the prince from a foreign land searching the world for a princess who had troubled his dreams since childhood, she couldn’t help her thoughts drifting to the stranger who had made such an impact on her that afternoon. Ellis Frazer: she had read the card property after he had left. She didn’t know if she liked him or not but she suspected not. He had an attitude that wasn’t so surprising. It reminded her of David, the man she’d thought was the one for her till baby Martha had come into her life. He had actually insisted on her making a choice—him or Martha. Though her heart had nearly broken she had made that choice and never regretted it. Martha had given her more joy than a thousand Davids could ever have, but with that choice had come a realisation that there wasn’t ever likely to be anyone else for her. A single woman with a child…

Well, she didn’t have to like this Ellis Frazer to do the work for him and he didn’t have to approve of her to commission it, so it wasn’t a problem.

‘Night, Mummy,’ sleepy Martha breathed in her arms as Caroline closed the book, everyone living happily ever after. I love you lots.’

‘I love you too, darling,’ Caroline breathed, holding her tightly and brushing a warm kiss across the child’s soft brow.

Caroline extracted her arm from beneath the now sleeping child and gazed down at her adoringly and yet with her heart dragging painfully. Why now? she wondered as she pulled the duvet up around Martha’s chin. The weight of responsibility for the child sometimes dragged at her but it hadn’t for a long time so why now suddenly? Probably because Martha was growing up and Caroline knew she would have to do something about a legal adoption before Martha went to proper school. She supposed that would raise emotional problems which her and her mother might not find easy to cope with. They both missed Josie so much. And Martha? She called her aunty ‘Mummy’ and one day she would have to know the truth—that she had no real mother and there wasn’t a princely father from foreign lands coming to find her.

With a sigh Caroline closed the bedroom door on the child she adored and turned her thoughts to tomorrow. In a way she was looking forward to it, in a way she wasn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHERE’S that wretched card?’ Caroline huffed impatiently as she searched the sitting-room, lifting cushions to see if it had slipped down the side of the sofa. She was running late and that wouldn’t go down well with Ellis Frazer.

‘Nanny had a card last night,’ Martha told her absently from the doorway. ‘Nanny isn’t well this morning.’

Caroline let out a ragged moan and raked her hair from her forehead. This was all she needed. Her mother had been out at one of her community meetings the night before and Caroline hadn’t had a chance to tell her about her new commission and her appointment this morning. There was no nursery school this morning and her mother’s not feeling well meant she wouldn’t be able to look after Martha.

‘Ah, here it is.’ She slid the card from the sideboard and tucked it into her jeans pocket. ‘Martha, sweetheart, get your books and your paper and pens. We’re going out.’

‘Out!’ Martha cried with excitement as if she’d never been out in her life and she tore into the hall and upstairs, making enough noise to wake the devil.

Caroline groaned, wondering if she had made the right decision—a snap decision to take Martha with her. But what choice did she have? Phone and cancel for one, she told herself as she went across the hall to her mother’s bedroom. But she might lose the job altogether if she did and she might lose it anyway if she turned up with Martha. Well, she’d have to take a chance on that, possibly leave Martha in the car while she did her preliminary sketches. That was all she’d be able to do this morning anyway.

Her mother was sitting up in bed when Caroline went in. She knew what was wrong with her and it wasn’t physical. Caroline knew she would have to be strong for her again.

Phoebe Maxwell was still a lovely lady but the tragedies in her life seemed to have shrunk her over the years. She sat pale and pinched in her bed, surrounded by old photos, her eyes red and watery with crying.

Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed and took her mother’s long, artistic fingers in her own.

‘Bad day?’ she murmured softly.

Phoebe nodded and let out a loud sigh. ‘It catches me up now and then,’ she whispered weakly.

‘I know,’ Caroline said quietly, squeezing her mother’s fingers.

The loss of Josie caught Caroline up too, so badly at times that she wondered how she ever coped with being strong for her mother. It had got better recently but something had set her mother back again; Caroline didn’t ask what. Sometimes it was the smallest thing—a smell, a piece of music, the sight of someone in the distance which reminded her of Josie. Caroline felt anger coupled with her grief at times for what her older sister had done to her mother’s life-given her more heartache than any mother deserved. She’d left home at seventeen, travelled to France with a fringe theatre company, at eighteen married a French actor, at nineteen left him. Three years later she had returned to Cornwall, pregnant, refusing to name the father, not in the least bit repentant for the anxiety she had caused her mother. Two months after Martha was born she’d taken off again, leaving the baby with her mother in Cornwall. Two months after that poor Josie died of meningitis in a clinic in the south of France.

But how could Caroline feel such anger for long? What had propelled her sister on that tragic path of self-destruction? The loss of their dear father whom Josie had adored? No one knew because Josie had always held so much back from them.

‘I’m going out for the morning,’ Caroline told her quietly, straightening the sheets. ‘You rest and I’ll bring something nice in for lunch.’

‘Don’t go,’ Phoebe pleaded, eyes swimming with unshed tears. ‘You might not come back and——’

‘Mum, please don’t,’ Caroline croaked, trying to sound firm but not being very successful. ‘Nothing will happen to me or Martha.’ She understood her mother’s insecurity, the fear she felt when she was as low as this. ‘I’m not Josie, Mum.’

‘I know, darling. You always were the good, strong one. I don’t know how I would have coped without you and Martha.’

Caroline kissed her mother lightly on the cheek. ‘Rest now and we’ll be back soon.’

She closed the bedroom door on her mother and closed her eyes briefly. Sometimes she wasn’t the good, strong one; sometimes she wanted what Josie had had—some excitement in her life, some love of some sort, however ephemeral. But look where that sort of life had led her sister. Caroline couldn’t be that way because she wasn’t born that way but sometimes…only sometimes…

She gave herself a mental shake as she bundled Martha into the back of her Escort, strapping her in and making sure she was secure. She had more than most, was more fortunate than most. Ellis Frazer had said that. Yes, she was very fortunate, in spite of her loneliness at times. And maybe one day she would meet a prince for Martha. Maybe.

She found his home easily enough, though it was in a part of the countryside she wasn’t too familiar with, the lanes deep and narrow. Ellis Frazer was waiting for her when she drew up outside Treverva Manor. Pacing, Caroline noted as she glanced at the dashboard clock. She was only twenty minutes late but late none the less.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she blurted as she leapt out of the driving seat, dragging her fingers through her hair, drawing it back from her face. ‘Something cropped up and——’

He stood powerful in front of her in riding gear—second-skin jodhpurs and black roll-necked sweater, a riding crop thrumming impatiently against his left thigh. No eyes for her, though. They were riveted on Martha, squirming out of her seatbelt in the back of the car, and he wasn’t looking pleased.

‘I had to bring Martha,’she went on in explanation. ‘My mother isn’t well this morning and I was running late and couldn’t make alternative arrangements. I know I should have phoned but didn’t think this morning would matter. I’ll only be able to do the preliminary sketches anyway and ‘

‘You have horses!’ Martha cried, jumping out of the car and glancing excitedly up and down Ellis Frazer, astutely taking in his riding gear and coming to the conclusion that her four-legged favourites were somewhere in close proximity.

Ellis Frazer’s eyes widened in surprise at the intelligence of the child. Caroline silently blessed Martha for diverting his obvious anger for her lateness away from her.

‘Yes, I do have horses. Are you old enough to ride?’

Martha gave Caroline a hesitant look and then made her own decision, which was so like her. She beamed up at him innocently.

‘Yes, but it’s a secret. Mummy takes me riding every week but we mustn’t tell Nanny. Nanny wouldn’t like it.’

Ellis Frazer raised a questioning brow at Caroline who could feel herself blushing with the effect of trying to think how to explain that.

‘Grandmothers can be over-protective,’ Caroline offered, which was very true in Phoebe’s case. She doted on the child but lived in fear that she too would be snatched from her.

‘And the mother isn’t?’ Ellis said, as if questioning her abilities as a mother.

‘At certain times, yes. Martha has an aptitude for riding and under the right sort of supervision I see no point in denying her something which gives her enormous pleasure.’

‘But you allow a certain deception where her grandmother is concerned. Is that healthy for the child?’ His tone was mildly accusing.

Caroline tensed against it. Just who did he think he was?

‘I do what I do to ensure a quiet life for all concerned, Mr Frazer. Martha understands that her grandmother has to be handled with care at times and if a small deception makes for a stress-free life for an older person I see nothing wrong in that.’

Ellis Frazer nodded silently as if he understood. The conversation was way over the top of Martha’s head so Caroline felt no guilt for what she had just told him; besides, Martha wasn’t listening, just fidgeting and gazing around her, her wide eyes searching for any suggestion of a horse.

‘Would you like to see my horses?’ Ellis asked Martha unexpectedly. A suggestion that took Caroline by surprise, but was it surprising? She remembered his frail mother who wasn’t used to small children. He obviously wanted Martha out of the way while he introduced Caroline to her.

‘That isn’t necessary,’ Caroline said quickly. ‘Martha brought books and she can wait in the car if you——’

A wail of indignation from Martha stopped her in mid-sentence. ‘I don’t want to stay in the car. I want to see the horses!’

Caroline could happily have throttled her. Ellis Frazer gave Caroline a sidelong glance and then, to her surprise, smiled at her. ‘I see no point in denying her something which gives her enormous pleasure,’ he echoed Caroline’s words, almost triumphantly, as if he had caught her out.

Heat rose to Caroline’s face and Martha gave a skip of delight. Caroline wished she were anywhere else but here.

‘Excuse me for a minute,’ Ellis Frazer said, and strode away, leaving Caroline and Martha standing on the gravel drive staring after him.

‘Perhaps he has a pony I can ride,’ Martha enthused, slipping a warm hand, trembling with excitement and anticipation, into Caroline’s.

‘Not without a hat, Martha,’ she told her, squeezing her hand.

‘Perhaps he has hats too, like the riding school. Does he have children?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Caroline murmured; in fact she’d bet her life savings he had no one warm and cuddly in his life. He looked and sounded the sort who got more pleasure out of thrashing a wild stallion around the countryside than bouncing a child on his knee.

He was back almost immediately, with a young girl groom in tow, and Caroline could hear the instructions he was rapping out to her as they approached across the gravel.

‘Keep her away from Blaize. Show her the foals and Misty and on no account let her mount any of them. Watch her like a hawk and keep her away from the house.’

Caroline felt her blood run cold and prayed Martha didn’t pick up on the hostility in his tone. But Martha was so excited that she wouldn’t even have noticed if a thunderbolt landed at her feet. She skipped happily away with Karen, the young groom, who was giving little Martha a wide grin of welcome which made Caroline feel a whole lot better. She reached into the car for her bag with her sketching gear and locked the car after her, which didn’t go unnoticed by the glaring Frazer. He obviously thought it an insult to his hospitality.

‘Force of habit,’ she returned to that look of disapproval.

‘Sign of the times,’ he muttered in return and turned to the house.

‘I’m really sorry about bringing Martha, Mr Frazer,’ Caroline said as she followed him a pace or two behind, trying to catch up.

‘Ellis,’ he corrected her. ‘What’s done is done,’ he clipped over his shoulder as he led her between the stone columns of the house and into a wide, spacious hallway that screamed out his wealth. She wasn’t surprised by the opulence but was surprised by the warm ambience of the place. She’d imagined him a man of marble and austere elegance but, as her feet sank into inches of luxurious Axminster and the smell of ancient beeswax assailed her nostrils, she guessed she’d got it wrong about him again.

‘You have a lovely home,’ she murmured as he led her through double doors to an equally spacious and luxurious reception-room.

He said nothing in return, obviously not a small-talker, but stopped at another panelled door with Georgian gilt hardware and before opening it said, ‘I’ll introduce you to my mother, but remember she’s a frail lady and I don’t want her tired. Be as brief as possible, do what you have to do and don’t antagonise her. She has a biting temper so be warned.’

Caroline stared at him in open dismay. She sounded an ogre—a family trait, no doubt!

Suddenly he lifted her chin and looked deep into her anxious eyes. ‘Do you think you’re up to this?’

Already he was having doubts about selecting her for this commission, but no more than she had about taking it on, Caroline told herself. Well, rats to him. She was a professional and besides, he didn’t know it but she didn’t suffer fools gladly either.

She twisted her chin away from his grasp and her eyes darkened to glare back at him.

‘Mr Frazer…Ellis, I’ve told you already, I want this commission but don’t need it. I see this as a two-way proposition. You have doubts about me and I have doubts about you. Let’s see who cracks first!’

A glint of humour crept sideways into his eyes. He leaned back against the door-jamb and crossed his arms over his chest, lightly tapping the riding crop against his shoulder.

‘I’m beginning to like you,’ he uttered under his breath.

Feeling her chest tightening, Caroline covered the sensation with a defiant jut of the chin he was so fond of lifting.

‘You have an advantage over me, then,’ she told him coolly. ‘For I fear I won’t live long enough to begin to like you.’

The humour in his eyes didn’t flag, which was curious to Caroline because she had expected him to rise to such an insult.

‘So what brought that on?’ he asked quietly, raising a teasing dark brow to accompany the query.

With difficulty Caroline held his quizzical look, but without difficulty she knew what was bothering her. He was an attractive man and she had acknowledged that in her heart but there could be nothing more. David had taught her a salutary lesson in what made attractive men tick. But she would have to be careful with this man. Her defences were spilling silly insults from her lips. If she wasn’t careful she could insult her way out of his commission.

‘Attitude,’ she said at last. She’d go for that. He was obviously very displeased with her for bringing Martha.

Both brows came up this time. ‘Oh, I have one, do I?’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said bravely.

‘Perhaps you’d like to expand on that.’

To be honest Caroline didn’t know where to begin because now that she had started all this she didn’t know where it was going.

‘You can’t, can you?’ he said when she failed to respond. ‘Allow me to try and analyse you, then. I suspect it has something to do with me not falling rapt at the feet of your small daughter. Appealing as she is, I’m afraid I have no rapport with females under the age of twenty-five. I don’t know any children, I’m not about to father any in this world or the next and frankly I find your daughter an irritating encumbrance I’d rather live without.’

Flushing hotly, Caroline opened her mouth to protest, but she wasn’t allowed such a pleasure.

‘But,’ he went on deliberately, ‘she is here and a part of your life and I accept that because I want you to do these commissions for me. Now I will make a deal with you. I will suffer your bringing the child with you when you need to be here but in return you will have to suffer my “attitude”. If we can put personalities aside and get on with the job I see no reason why we can’t both part happily at the end of it. Does that sound like a deal to you?’

It sounded like a deal between her soul and the devil! Of all the pompous, arrogant, child-hating, misogynist creeps it had ever been her misfortune to meet, he was the Prince of Darkness! Wild horses in his crummy old stables wouldn’t keep her here to immortalise his wretched stud horse and his wretched mother. Over and out Caroline.

With one last contemptuous look of disdain she turned to walk away but before she knew what had happened he had swept her back against the oak panelling of the wall, so imprisoning her, and his mouth came down to hers in a shocking kiss that was pure thousand-watt electricity.

The pressure was intense, searing with a heat she could never have imagined from such a cold, inhospitable Prince of Evil. It charged through her whole body, turning bones to jelly, skin to flame, sending emotions through the roof of her head. Her head swam dizzily as the pressure on her mouth eased and drifted and swirled into something more infinitely dangerous than the initial thrust, a softness that stilled her pulses till she thought her life’s blood had ceased to function her heart. Her heart was floundering badly and nothing else was working either. Suddenly she realised the pressure on her mouth had gone and she fluttered her eyes open. She stared at him in horror, shocked that he had done that, shocked that she hadn’t done anything to stop it.

His dark eyes were riveted on where his lips had just assaulted her, drinking in her heated lips with the same ferocity. Her tongue snaked out to balm those lips, to somehow smooth away the fire that stung as if he had used his riding crop on them. His eyes shifted up to meet hers and his voice when it came was soft and beguiling yet speaking arrogant poison that wrenched at her sensibilities, infuriating her even more.

‘I suspect that will go a long way to dispersing any animosity between us.’

Taking her upper arm, he urged her into the next room, pushing her ahead of him, kicking the door shut behind him with a highly polished riding boot.

Drunk with fury and frustration for not defending herself against those arrogantly spoken words, she spun dizzily into the room, the clicking of the door behind her going nowhere near to snapping her out of her shock. Her head started to clear as Ellis Frazer strode across the room to a silver coffee-service elegantly arranged on a side-table by long French doors overlooking a rose garden.

The scent of roses was the first sensation that registered with Caroline, then the heat of the room from a blazing coal fire in the Adam-style grate. It was a warm September day and a fire was unnecessary; then Caroline noticed the wheelchair positioned in front of it.

There was a sudden whirring sound as the chair moved and slowly turned to face her and it was in that moment that Caroline swallowed down her anger and frustration with Ellis Frazer.

The fragile lady that focused her gaze on Caroline took her breath away. Once she had been a raving beauty, Caroline recognised that immediately, but she still was beautiful, in a hauntingly pale, luminous way. Her hair was snow-white, piled high on top of her head, her face, though ravaged by illness, was perfectly made up. She was dressed in pale lilac silk which added to her appearance of delicacy and her jewellery was the finest of amethysts set in platinum around her fragile throat. She was a lady, a true lady in spite of the clumsy wheelchair she sat elegantly in. A light blue cashmere rug was draped over her legs, legs which Caroline instinctively knew were of no use to her now.

Ellis Frazer’s mother stared at Caroline for a full minute, a minute in which Caroline sensed she was being coolly assessed but not appraised. When she spoke, to Caroline’s dismay, it was with the same arrogant coldness which characterised her son.

‘You look nothing like a sculptress,’ she stated positively, as if, since she said it, it must be.

‘Caroline is, I assure you, Mother, the best, so don’t give her a hard time.’

That was good coming from him, Caroline thought, at the same time wondering if she should step closer to the woman. She stayed where she was, midway between that formidable wheelchair and the door Ellis Frazer had just propelled her through.

‘My mother, Vanessa Frazer,’ he told Caroline, pouring coffee as he spoke. ‘You might be honoured by being allowed to call her Vanessa—if she likes you,’ he went on, adding cryptically, ‘But don’t count on it.’ He spooned sugar in a coffee-cup and added a few drops of cream before taking it over to his mother.

Wide-eyed, Caroline gaped at the two of them, knowing deep in her heart that if she stayed and did this job it would be the most difficult of her life..

‘So what does she call you?’ Vanessa Frazer directed at her son, meaning Caroline but ignoring her as if she weren’t even on the same planet, let alone in the same room. ‘Not darling already, surely?’ she went on bitingly. ‘She looks far too sensible to fall for your disputable charms like the rest of them do. Heaven knows what they see in an ugly, whip-cracking tyrant like you but then most of them have been mindless society beauties only seduced by your money and your connections.’

Caroline listened in fascinated horror at the cutting words that spilled from her mouth.

Vanessa Frazer suddenly looked Caroline directly in the eye. ‘You wouldn’t be swayed into his bed by the thought of his wealth, would you?’ She immediately answered her own question before it had barely registered with a shocked Caroline. ‘Of course you wouldn’t. Far too sensible. Come closer; let me take a good look at you.’

Holy Mary! Caroline thought in utter dismay. This was a scene out of Dickens’ Great Expectations!

‘It’s for Caroline to scrutinise you, Mother, not the other way about,’ Ellis told her firmly. ‘Drop the Miss Havisham act and drink your coffee while I pour one for Caroline. Milk or cream?’ he asked her.

‘Neither,’ Caroline uttered weakly, still reeling at his perception in likening this scenario to the one she had been thinking of. But it wasn’t so surprising, she supposed; the two of them were as eccentric as any of Dickens’ characters.

‘So I live in a world of make-believe,’ Vanessa Frazer mused on, talking to no one in particular. ‘It’s all I have these days, that and memories. Nothing to live for because it’s all gone. I’m going out with a whimper because to fight is too wearing——’

‘Get out the violins,’ Ellis interjected quickly and to Caroline so cruelly that her hand shook as she took the coffee he brought to her. ‘It gets worse,’ Ellis told her, loud enough for his mother to hear. ‘She eats nurses for breakfast but before she does she reduces them to nervous wrecks with her demands and her insults. She enjoys it too.’

‘The only pleasure I have these days,’ Vanessa said sourly, burying her nose in her coffee-cup as if sniffing for poison. She lifted her head and nodded towards her son. ‘He gives me nothing but heartache.’

I can’t bear this, Caroline thought. I’ll never be able to work for these two; they’re awful to each other and to anyone who comes into contact with them. They are poison.

‘Darling,’ Ellis drawled, and stepped towards his mother, squatting down and taking a small, limp, blue-veined hand in his. ‘I give you the adrenaline that keeps you going from day to day, not heartache. Without our daily crossfire you would have crumpled long ago. Now stop giving Caroline a hard time and let her get on with her work. You’re going to like her, I promise you.’

He dropped an affectionate lingering kiss on the back of his mother’s hand and in that moment Caroline saw the deep love and devotion between them. Harsh words had flown around this room and now Caroline could see how wrong she had been in thinking the worst of them both. This was a game of survival. Vanessa Frazer was obviously a very sick lady and her arrogant son was her life support; whatever they said to each other wasn’t what it seemed.

It set a whole new scenario for this commission. It set a whole new problem for Caroline as she watched Ellis Frazer take the coffee-cup from his mother’s fragile hands and set it down on the floor while he rearranged the cashmere shawl around her legs. He wasn’t a cold, hard, arrogant man. Well, he was actually but maybe with good reason. He had his hands full. He wasn’t a mother’s boy, though; a mother’s boy wouldn’t have the nerve to handle his sick mother with such determined capability. So the man might be human after all.

But she had known that before entering this room. That shocking kiss had shown her just how wretchedly human he was. The kiss hadn’t swayed her thinking about the man, however. His mother had. Difficult she might be, but putting aside those difficulties which were sure to arise when she started the bronze of her, she knew it would be a challenge she couldn’t refuse. Vanessa Frazer was a fascinating subject from an artist’s viewpoint; and her son? He was just morbidly fascinating, Caroline acknowledged in her heart. An acknowledgement she wasn’t at all comfortable with but it wasn’t a problem, just a warning.

CHAPTER THREE

‘DID you bring a portfolio of your work for me to see?’ Vanessa Frazer asked at last.

Caroline nodded and lifted her bag from the floor where she had dropped it.

‘Haven’t you got a voice, young lady? You haven’t said a word yet,’ the not so frail lady said bitingly.

Ellis Frazer gave Caroline an encouraging nod from the side-table where he was pouring himself a coffee, a nod that Caroline didn’t need. She stepped towards the wheelchair by the fire, set her coffee-cup down on the hearth and sat down on a wing-chair across from her. She took her portfolio, photographs of her work, out from her bag.

‘Mrs Frazer, I’ve hardly had space to get a word in edgeways.’ She sat with the portfolio on her lap and looked at the lady. ‘And I think there is something you ought to know.’ From the corner of her eye she saw Ellis Frazer frowning at her and wondered if he thought she was going to mention Martha. ‘I don’t talk very much when I’m working. I’m usually concentrating hard on my subject so don’t expect scintillating conversation while I’m doing the preliminary sketches.’

Vanessa Frazer glared at her for an instant and then glanced at Ellis and pulled a face at him. It was a gesture that surprised Caroline but also delighted her. So she had a sense of humour. She wondered if her son had one too.

‘You haven’t got the job for sure yet, young lady, so don’t get clever,’ Mrs Frazer shot back at her.

It was a put-down, but Caroline didn’t take it to heart because she had faith in her own work. Without a word she handed the portfolio to the older woman and sat back while she leafed through it.

‘You can call me Vanessa,’ she murmured when she was halfway through the book, not looking up.

Caroline stole a glance at Ellis who gave her just the smidgeon of a smile.

At last Vanessa slammed shut the book and with tremulous fingers handed the book back to her.’You’ll do,’ she said. ‘You’re good, not exceptional, but I can’t expect better outside of London.’

‘I’ve seen the real thing,’ Ellis interjected smoothly, ‘and she’s exceptional, take my word for it, Mother. Now, Caroline, perhaps you’d like to explain to us both how you intend to work. Mother doesn’t travel so therefore a visit to your studio is out…’

Caroline felt a small glow permeate through her at the compliment to her work but quelled it when she realised it had probably been executed more for his mother’s benefit than hers. Yes, it was going to be a difficult assignment and she hadn’t met the stallion yet!

For the next ten minutes Caroline explained about the initial sketches she wanted to do and measurements she needed and the way she worked. She told them she used the lost wax method and would be able to show them her wax maquettes which would give a slightly smaller version of the completed work at a later stage and then she fell into silence and drew rapidly, taking careful and continuous observations of her subject. Not a difficult task, Caroline thought as she worked. Vanessa Frazer’s bone-structure was as interesting as her son’s.

When Caroline thought Vanessa was tiring she eased up and glanced across at Ellis who had stood all the while behind his mother, listening and occasionally nodding with satisfaction. Ellis gave her a look which suggested enough was enough. Caroline was glad. All the time she had been working a part of her had been worrying about Martha; now all of her was.

As if the child was psychic there was a sudden wail from outside the door. A wail that brought Caroline to her feet like a shot in panic.

‘I want Mummy!’

The door burst open and Martha tore into and across the room to Caroline before anyone could stop her.

‘Mummy, the horses are wonderful and there’s one that fits me——’

‘I thought I told you——’ In a rage Ellis Frazer strode across the room to Karen who stood helplessly in the doorway, her face flushed with embarrassment.

A heated exchange of words ensued behind Caroline as she clutched at Martha’s shoulders to hold her back, but she heard none of them clearly. Her total concentration was on the frail lady in the wheelchair who was staring with shock at the small girl in front of Caroline. Panic surged inside Caroline as the woman seemed to pale even more and visibly shrink back from the child.

The door slammed behind them and suddenly Ellis was there at his mother’s shoulders, steadying hands covering them in support. Caroline saw them tighten and then soften and she looked up at him in dismay.

‘I’m so…so terribly…sorry——’ she started to

whisper, but Ellis silenced her with a look that would have floored a giant.

‘I should have explained, Mother——’ he started, but didn’t finish because of an interruption from Martha.

‘Are you a queen?’ the little girl asked in awe.

Ellis snapped his eyes shut in sufferance and Caroline caught a gasp in her throat. Not now, she silently pleaded with Martha.

‘Do I look like one?’ Vanessa asked in a tolerant whisper, seeming to have recovered far quicker than Caroline or Ellis.

‘You haven’t got a crown but——’ Suddenly Martha stepped away from the restriction of Caroline’s hold on her and leaned across the wheelchair to touch the jewels at Vanessa Frazer’s throat.

Caroline noted Ellis’s hands moving down to the handles of the wheelchair as if he was about to pull his mother out of the reach of the inquisitive child. But mercifully he didn’t. None the less, his knuckles whitened as his grip tightened.

To her credit Vanessa Frazer suffered the scrutiny of the child’s curiosity with great control and dignity as Martha fingered the exquisite necklace at her throat. A true lady, Caroline thought, sensing that Vanessa had no time at all for small children. She sensed something more too but wasn’t sure how to interpret it. After the initial shock of Martha bursting into the room, Caroline thought she had seen a sign of sorrow in the old lady’s eyes but she could have been mistaken. Emotions were running high in the hot, claustrophobic room, more so Caroline’s for making that snap decision earlier to bring Martha with her. It had been an enormous mistake.

‘Do you like jewellery?’ Vanessa was asking the little girl.

Martha was now hanging over the arm of the wheelchair and kicking her legs behind her. ‘I want my ears pierced like my friend, Becky, but Nanny says I’ll look like a gypsy. I’d like to be a gypsy and then I could travel the world to find my father.’ The little girl took a deep breath before going on and Caroline felt faint. ‘My father is a prince and he’s looking for us.’

Vanessa’s watery eyes widened as she gazed at the child.

‘What an extraordinary child,’ she murmured, suddenly closing her eyes and leaning her head back.

Ellis moved her then, back a few paces away from the fire and away from Martha. ‘Time for your rest, Mother.’

A papery hand came up with surprising swiftness. ‘Leave me. I’ll rest when I’m good and ready.’ Without opening her eyes she went on to murmur, ‘So, you have a daughter, young lady. With or without a husband you are a very fortunate lady.’

Caroline’s eyes widened at the words which had echoed what Ellis had said yesterday and then her heart sank as the old lady added firmly, ‘Don’t bring her again. I’ve seen all I can bear.’

Dark undertones thrust Caroline back in time till she thought she must have stepped into a time warp when she’d entered this house. It was so wretchedly Gothic as to be unbelievable.

‘But I’d like to come again.’ Martha’s little voice filled the room when she realised the old lady had meant her. ‘I like the horses and I like you even if you don’t like me.’

Ellis cleared his throat. Caroline clawed at her drawing materials and thrust them into her bag and before she knew it had clutched at Martha with her free hand and was across the room with her before anyone could say anything else.

Outside in the hallway where a hundred years ago she had crossed the threshold, Caroline thrust her bag into Martha’s arms and the car keys into her small hand. ‘Get in the car, sweetheart. I’ll be out in a minute.’

Martha looked disappointed but for once didn’t protest. She turned to look up at Ellis who had followed them out and stood, just behind Caroline. ‘Thank you for letting me see the horses,’ she said politely, and turned and skipped out of the open front door, untouched by the old lady’s cool dismissal of her, obviously not having fully understood it.

In a fury Caroline turned to face Ellis Frazer. ‘Well, I’m the first to crack,’ she blurted. ‘Forget the com-mission, Mr Frazer. I would find it unbearable to continue one stage further——’

‘Just a minute——’

‘Not another minute more!’ Caroline rushed on. ‘I just don’t choose to go on with this. For a short time in there——’ her hand came up to wave towards the interior ‘—I warmed to your mother, but the feeling soon passed, I assure you.’

‘You don’t understand——’

‘Oh, but I do understand,’ Caroline interrupted again. She was going to get this out if it killed her. ‘So your mother isn’t a well lady but that is no excuse for her——’

‘That is every excuse for her,’ Ellis told her decisively, his eyes dark and defying her to question it. ‘She loathes being the way she is and living the rest of her life in that chair. Surely that’s understandable?’

With both hands Caroline scooped her hair from her forehead and tried to cool her temper but it was hard when she had been through what she had, witnessing those two clawing at each other’s emotions and then Martha rushing in that way.

‘I…I’m sorry your mother is so ill—truly sorry,’ she expressed sincerely. ‘But I have to be honest about all this…’ Her voice trailed away and she shook her head slightly as if she couldn’t find the right words.

‘Go on,’ Ellis urged tightly, making her feel bad.

She lifted her lashes and gazed at him, hoping he might understand. But then she supposed he wouldn’t. He was the sort to only see his own viewpoint.

‘I…I think I would find the work more stressful than I thought possible,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know either of you well enough to begin to comprehend what I’ve seen today. I thought at first I could, that I could see why you were the way you were with each other—a sort of survival package to get you through the stresses of the incapacity.’

He nodded. ‘Partly true but we’ve always been like that with each other and see no reason to change a way of life and slip into morbid routine because my mother is so sick. You caught her on a bad day today. It isn’t always like this.’

Caroline nodded, understanding. It seemed to be a bad day all round for everyone. She thought of her mother at home, having one of her bad days, and the thought weighed heavy.

She nodded towards the car where Martha had switched on the ignition and slipped a cassette into the dashboard player. Pop music blared out from the open door.

‘That’s a new life,’ she told him. ‘Vibrant, full of fun, ongoing and not looking back.’ She let out a small sigh and looked up at Ellis Frazer. ‘I walked into your mother’s sitting-room and felt I’d stepped back in time, between the pages of a Dickens pot-boiler…’

‘She had me late in life,’ offered Ellis with a small, apologetic smile teasing at the corners of his mouth.

Caroline gave him a weak smile in return. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that she was that old, but…but——’ another sigh ‘—I felt there were dark undertones between you, perhaps bitterness even, dreams not achieved, disappointments.’

He raised a dark brow. ‘You’re very observant,’ he smoothed.

So she hadn’t imagined it all. ‘But not curious. I don’t want to know them,’ Caroline said quickly. ‘I’m not prying and——’

‘And I’m not going to tell you anyway,’ he put in equally quickly. ‘Let’s leave it with both of us keeping our skeletons in our own cupboards, shall we?’

Oh, that remark was well below the belt but at least he had admitted he had some dark secrets too. Hers were different, though; they didn’t belong to her and she realised this was the root of what she was trying to get at. These last years she’d seemed to be bogged down with everyone else’s problems but her own. And what were her own? Loneliness for one thing—the thought that there would never be a prince in her life; but she had a princess and she was indeed fortunate, as the Frazers were fond of telling her.

Caroline gave herself the familiar mental shakedown and looked Ellis squarely in the eye.

‘I can’t do this commission for you,’ she stated honestly. ‘I can’t guarantee that there won’t be times when I might have to inflict Martha on you both again. You find her discomfiting and your mother obviously can’t stand children. You’ve already made it plain she isn’t welcome here. She’s my daughter and I’m biased, I know, because I love her so much but she is a delightful child. She hasn’t a spiteful bone in the whole of her little body. She’s innocent and untouched by all that’s wrong in the world and I don’t want her subjected——’

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