Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

DESTINY

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

Copyright

“I’ve been waiting quite a while for this moment…”

István shut the door. “You and I are going to enjoy ourselves, Tanya. Just the two of us.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she grated.

“Don’t you?”

The sexual implication, the invitation, was plain enough. She whisked her damp palms down her hips, immobilized by her leaden body. And she knew then that he couldn’t be her brother.

DESTINY awaits us all, and for Tanya, Mariann and Suzanne Evans—all roads lead east to the mysteries of Hungary.

Tangled Destinies

As Tanya arrives in Hungary for her younger brother’s wedding, her older brother, István, lies in wait after four years. He’s the only man she’s ever loved—and he’s hurt her. But what he has to tell her will change the course of her life forever.

Unchained Destinies

Editor Mariann Evans is on a publishing mission in Budapest. But instead of duping rival publisher Vigadó Gábor, she is destined to fall into his arms.

Threads of Destiny

Suzanne Evans’ attendance at the double wedding of her sister Tanya and her brother, John, presents a fateful meeting with mysterious gate-crasher Lásló Huszár. He’s the true heir to a family fortune and he has a young family of his own. He is about to make sure that his complex family history is inextricably linked with hers, as all the elements of this compelling trilogy are woven together.

A Note to the Reader:

This novel is the first part of a trilogy. Each novel is independent and can be read on its own. It is the author’s suggestion, however, that they be read in the order written.

Tangled Destinies
Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Imre and Susan, and all my Hungarian friends

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE obsessed with István,’ said Mariann airily. ‘Of course he won’t be there! Him, go to a wedding?’

Tanya bent her chestnut head and moved pensively behind the queue that wound backwards and forwards like a slow-moving snake digesting a rat and István was brought even more intensely to mind. Snake, rat…

‘He might,’ she frowned. ‘He had a special…soft spot for Lisa.’ Her lips pressed together, holding back the information from her sister that it had been more serious than that: a fling of momentous passion with terrible consequences that had split her family apart.

‘He never had a soft spot anywhere,’ scoffed Mariann.

‘Heart and mind of stone,’ Tanya agreed and tried to make a joke of her fears. ‘Well, if he does turn up, I suppose I could rearrange that poker-face of his into something more human!’

‘You?’ laughed Mariann. ‘You wouldn’t hurt a fly!’

Tanya smiled thinly, the harder green of her hazel eyes deepening till their melting brown warmth had totally disappeared. No, she wouldn’t normally harm a living creature, but she’d make an exception for István and gladly squash him flat!

‘I refuse to think of him any more,’ she said decisively, and let a smile win through. ‘Not when there’s a fairy-tale wedding in the offing!’ She beamed. Her brother John, her best friend Lisa. What could be nicer? ‘Fancy them having the reception in a Hungarian castle! Nothing could be more romantic!’

‘Or expensive,’ said Mariann drily. ‘Unless he gets a discount because he works there. Well, since John’s so flush with money from his new job, he’d better pay back what he owes you.’ She gave her gentle sister a stern look. ‘You’re too quick to help us all.’

‘That’s what you do for family,’ smiled Tanya.

‘István is “family”. That means…you’d welcome him back if he appears?’ teased Mariann with a wicked grin.

‘No! He’s different,’ answered Tanya firmly. ‘He walked out on us—treated Mum like dirt. I can’t forgive him.’

Her sister’s eyes twinkled. ‘I wonder. He was your idol and you were his devoted slave once.’

‘I was a child, fooled by his daring. I didn’t know what he was really like,’ Tanya replied stiffly.

‘Did anyone? All those weeping maidens at our door only saw the brooding Heathcliff figure, galloping across the moors. None of them knew how difficult he was at home.’

‘Why are we talking about him again?’ complained Tanya.

‘You always do,’ answered Mariann gently.

She flushed. ‘Nonsense! He doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.’ But, she thought, it was sad that their family wasn’t complete. If only…

‘OK. Focus on the fairy-tale, hon. Give my love to baby brother John and his bride-to-be and start swigging the bubbly without me. You deserve some fun for a change.’

‘A week’s holiday!’ gloated Tanya. It seemed like an eternity. ‘After John’s wedding I’m going to spend it sitting in cafés eating pastries and——’

‘Simpering at handsome gypsy violinists!’

‘No, charming John’s boss,’ corrected Tanya. ‘I have to take a break from the violins and sticky buns and get that riding school business! But I mean to make the most of the trip and explore Hungary too. Oh…the queue’s moving again. Bye. See you at the castle later on.’

Mariann leaned over the barrier and kissed Tanya affectionately. Two sisters, so different in temperament, so similar in repose with their distinctive high Hungarian cheekbones and mass of dark chestnut hair.

‘Oh, boy, do these Hungarians know what’s coming? Wait till I’ve picked up Sue and they’ve got three Evans sisters to contend with!’ Mariann did a wiggle that caused a few male eyes to pop. ‘There’ll be you, tearing at their heartstrings with your dreamy looks——’

‘Hardly, with you and Sue around!’ laughed Tanya. ‘Just cast me as the Ugly Sister——’

Mariann’s squawk brought a score of eyes to rest on the blushing Tanya. ‘You? Take a good look in the mirror, hon, and see who’s “the fairest of them all”,’ she said fondly. ‘When Sue and I turn up, I expect some handsome Hungarian will have whisked you off on his white horse! Bye. Have a good trip!’

Tanya’s earlier sense of foreboding receded in the wake of her sister’s daunting cheerfulness. Sticking to her promise to herself, she firmly put aside her worries. István and Lisa’s old love-affair must be dead and buried, she reasoned, or Lisa wouldn’t have agreed to marry John. And so she turned her thoughts to the wedding, pushing back the nagging feeling that István might appear and ruin everyone’s happiness again.

When the plane approached the outskirts of Budapest it flew low over towering concrete apartment blocks-relics, perhaps, of the old Communist regime. Their forbidding exteriors made her think of István and how cold, ruthless and unbending he could be. Her brow furrowed. Mariann was right—she was obsessed with his memory.

Her hands became clammy. Maybe she was right to be apprehensive. After all, István had gone to Hungary when he’d vanished four years ago. He could have seen some announcement about the wedding. And he’d been forced to leave Lisa…

With her stomach churning, she walked gracefully through Customs, concealing only what was going on in her head: István; was he here? Two pink stains flushed her prominent, Slavonic cheekbones and her pace became brisker, almost as though the prospect of seeing him was filling her with a hot energy. People were lined up at the barrier, waving, crying, laughing…but not István.

‘Thank heavens!’ she muttered, then frowned at the swamping sense of loss that followed the realisation. No dark, cynical eyes on her. No hard, male mouth curled in brotherly contempt. No figure so compelling and yet completely self-contained that he made her feel nervous and awkward in comparison.

‘Tanya!’ came a familiar yell of delight.

‘John! John!’ she cried in relief. ‘Wonderful to see you!’ She embraced her fair-haired brother and her heartbeat returned to near-normal instead of galloping like a frightened colt.

‘Dear Tan! Welcome to Hungary! Have we got a party this afternoon!’ John enthused.

Tanya’s sweet smile brought a radiant sheen to her face. ‘A party! What fun!’

‘How’s Dad?’ asked John, taking charge of her luggage.

‘Much better in himself, though his arthritis is worse. He sends his love and his blessing,’ she answered softly.

‘Are you sure you can cope?’

‘Of course!’ she reassured him. Their father had been like a lost soul when their mother had died four years ago. It was as though the light had gone out of his life too and Tanya both envied and feared a love like that.

Taking early retirement on health grounds, he’d turned to her for comfort and companionship—perhaps, she was aware, as a substitute in some way for her mother. Tanya’s face grew tender. All her life she’d longed to make a stronger bond with her father and it was some comfort to her too, because her own grief was too much to bear. She needed someone to care for, a purpose in life beyond simply existing. Her mother’s death had occurred only three months after István had vanished and the double blow had numbed her completely.

At a family conference, she had quietly convinced her sisters that it made sense for them to continue their careers in London since she was able to work happily from home. It was she who’d persuaded John to follow Lisa to Budapest and given him financial help, explaining to her father that he’d be cruel to stand in his adored son’s way.

John gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I’ll give Dad a ring later. Skates on, Tan, no time to waste; it’s a fair drive…Something wrong?’ he asked, when she hesitated.

‘I—I half wondered——’ No István. She had expected him there. Something fluttered in her stomach. Disappointment, definitely. That was strange. ‘It’s daft, but I had this ghastly idea that István would pop up like Dracula from his grave and hover about, grinding his teeth!’ She giggled, seeing how silly that was.

John’s homely face went pale. ‘Let him try,’ he muttered grimly. ‘I’d take a sledge-hammer to his head and ram him back into the hole he crawled from! Bastard!’

‘John! He is our brother,’ she remonstrated gently, hurrying along beside him. John hated István. If he ever knew what István had actually done to Lisa, she dreaded to think what might happen.

‘Brother? I wonder,’ growled John. ‘It’s only because Dad’s a vicar and Mum was as decent as the day is long that I’ve never felt suspicious about his parentage.’

Tanya nodded soberly. She also had felt that István was different—as though he’d come from another background altogether. He bore absolutely no resemblance to anyone in their family. ‘Bit of a misfit, wasn’t he?’ she mused. More than a misfit: restless, insular, detached. And rather wild. She smiled ruefully, thinking what a tempting recipe that had been for the girls of Widecombe village!

‘Remember when they called him gippo at school?’ John said.

She winced at the reference to István’s dark, gypsy looks. More evidence, she’d once romantically imagined, that he must be a changeling! Nonsense, of course, given their parents, but he was so…so totally dissimilar in looks and character.

‘Oh, yes. I remember. They only tried that once!’ she reminded her brother wryly. ‘What an awful fight broke out! István in full attack was frightening to behold!’

‘He’s got a temper on him like a mad dog with gout.’ John grimaced. ‘Hell, why do we always discuss the bastard? What about you? How’s business?’

The extravagant bow of her mouth extended to form a rueful smile. ‘Rough,’ she admitted. ‘Everyone’s hanging on to whatever money they’ve got—and riding holidays in France don’t figure in their budgets. But I’m hopeful about this possible deal with the boss of your hotel. If I can get my prices low enough—and you say the cost of living is relatively cheap here—then I’m in with a fighting chance.’

‘You wouldn’t need to be struggling and I wouldn’t have had to borrow from you if István hadn’t bled Mother dry,’ grumbled John. He hurled her luggage in the boot of his hire car. ‘I don’t ever want to see him for the rest of my life. If he ever comes near Lisa, I swear I’ll kill him!’ He slid into the driver’s seat and settled her in. ‘I’m scared, hon,’ he muttered, staring blankly ahead.

She felt the chill of premonition spread down her spine. So was she. ‘Marriage isn’t that bad!’ she said, giving him a diversionary punch.

‘I mean I’m scared of István. You know how he and Lisa went around together.’ John cleared his throat, fighting for the words while his fingers drummed a tattoo on the steering-wheel and then stilled. ‘I’m afraid of comparisons…afraid that…that Lisa will——’

‘No!’ Tanya said forcibly, with a conviction she didn’t feel. ‘Don’t be a dimbo! Good grief, Lisa’s letters were filled with tedious descriptions,’ she cried, forcing a sisterly teasing, ‘of you two wandering the streets of Budapest and standing on the Chain Bridge holding hands in the moonlight. She loves you, John! Only a woman in love could write that stuff!’

But, thought Tanya, as the reassured John beamed and launched into an enthusiastic description of how happy he felt, how wonderful, how beautiful, how unique Lisa was, what would happen if Lisa did have the opportunity to match steady, stolid John against the devastatingly handsome, devil-may-care István?

Lisa had loved him once so deeply that she…

Tanya bit her lip while John rambled on. She was being crazy. Lisa and John had been engaged for nine months, long enough for any doubts to have crept in by now.

Beyond the Budapest ring road, the arrow-straight motorway took them through lush countryside and Tanya did her best to unwind and enjoy the glorious autumn colours. Eventually they left the motorway and travelled on country lanes. The sharp smell of woodsmoke focused her attention on a village they were now passing through where a stork’s nest graced the top of a telegraph pole, flower borders edged the wide street and the water pumps had been painted a bright sky-blue.

‘Kastély Huszár,’ said John proudly, naming the hotel where he worked as manager.

Ahead, instead of the castle with turrets she’d expected, she saw a grand, eighteenth-century mansion, its steep roof and small turrets set picturesquely against a backdrop of butter-yellow beech woods.

‘Wow! Impressive!’ she said admiringly, and leant forward as John drove through a pair of fancy wroughtiron gates. ‘Pretty classy! They trust you to manage this?’ she teased.

‘I was a bit amazed when I got the job,’ he grinned. ‘Oh, look, Tan, there’s Lisa——’

The car screeched to a stop as John’s foot slammed on the brakes. Tanya’s body jerked painfully against the seatbelt but she hardly noticed. Shock, hatred—she wasn’t sure which—had already slammed the breath from her lungs.

Beside the diminutive, blonde-headed Lisa on the stone stairway that swept to the drive, for all the world as if he were the lord of the manor, stood the unmistakable saturnine figure of their elder brother István. Tanya felt her muscles tighten and suddenly she had the extraordinary urge to jump out of the car and run as far as she could in the opposite direction.

But, ‘Drive on,’ she grated through her teeth. ‘Drive on!’

‘Oh, God! What’s he been doing with Lisa?’ John shakily put the car in gear and it shuddered forwards.

Dreading the answer to that question, she flicked an anxious glance at his cold, pale face. It mirrored her own fears but she wouldn’t help the situation if she let on how worried she was.

‘Finding out how deliriously happy she is about marrying you, I expect,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing to worry about. Keep calm.’ Her aim was to convince herself as much as her younger brother. ‘He’s history. You and Lisa love one another. He can’t touch that.’ She prayed that were true. And quailed at the havoc István could wreak. Chaos followed in his tracks as sure as night followed day.

‘He’d better not! Do me a favour: keep him occupied while I talk to Lisa and see what’s going on,’ muttered John.

‘Me?’ Her mouth opened in dismay. She’d sworn never to speak to István again. She hated him. Yet John’s face was so stricken that she knew she had to agree. ‘OK,’ she said quietly. ‘Leave him to me.’

‘Look at her! I’ve never seen her so excited!’ hissed John.

‘Why shouldn’t she be? She is getting married to you tomorrow!’ Tanya said huskily. Her explanation sounded hollow. Lisa was dancing about, her eyes shining with…happiness? Exhilaration?

She pressed her icy fingers to the bridge of her nose where a headachy pulse was beginning to throb. István looked so contained, so impregnable as he waited motionless beside the gleefully bouncing Lisa that the prospect of spending any time with him at all was utterly daunting. But she’d do it for John, for the sake of his marriage and for the sake of her dear friend’s happiness.

Her legs trembled and she paused to steady herself before she left the car. She’d taken too long, however. The door was opened and István was hauling her out bodily as though she were still his kid sister, paying no attention to the fact that she was now a woman of twenty-four and perfectly capable of manoeuvring her aged body out of a car on her own.

‘Welcome,’ he murmured, hands of iron firmly under her armpits as he lifted her into the air till she hovered helplessly above his cynical dark face. ‘You’re quite a woman! he declared admiringly.

Seething at the insult to her dignity, she kept her expression blank and tried not to let his piercing black eyes unsettle her as he slowly, insolently, assessed the changes that the four years had brought to her appearance.

‘Please,’ she protested, slanting her eyes anxiously to where John and Lisa were greeting each other like wary acquaintances. She groaned and looked back to István. ‘Put me down!’ she said sharply.

Annoyingly, her shoe fell off her dangling foot and for a brief moment her eyes blazed with an unguarded fury at the way he’d deliberately put her at a disadvantage and rattled her composure. He had no right to handle her with such familiarity!

‘Temper’s still simmering away under the haughty exterior, I see,’ he observed in an infuriatingly sardonic drawl.

‘It’s not surprising!’ she grated. ‘Do you honestly imagine that you can cause pain to my entire family and be welcomed as though nothing had happened?’ She felt her anger threatening to escape from way down inside her and ruthlessly clamped irons on it. ‘For heaven’s sake, put me down!’ she ordered. ‘I’m not a Barbie doll—or one of your doe-eyed bimbos!’

He did so, slowly, his eyes challenging hers with an unnerving amusement as though he had some dreadful plan in store for her. She responded with an icy glare back, trying to balance on one rather shaky leg. And all the while she was uncomfortably aware that her heart was thudding crazily with a frightening excitement. It seemed, she thought hazily, that she actually relished the thought of tangling in a battle royal with her devilish brother. For a vicar’s daughter, that wasn’t seemly!

‘Allow me,’ he murmured, reaching out for her shoe and bending down to ease it on to her foot. ‘Hmm. You don’t get these in a charity shop,’ he said from a crouching position, capturing her foot and caressing the leather thoughtfully.

Oh, yes, you do! she thought in amusement. The suit, too. ‘An ‘impress John’s boss’ purchase. But her gravity seemed to be faulty and she was forced to place one nervous hand on his shoulder. Just as well she did. The realisation that its width was all him and not padding as she’d imagined seemed to disconcert her. There was a lot more of him, muscle-wise, than when he’d left—and he’d been pretty well-built even then. She wobbled. ‘So?’

He smiled faintly. ‘Since I know you’ve hardly two pennies to rub together——’

‘Who said?’ she interrupted, bristling.

‘Lisa.’ He smiled again, when she gritted her teeth to conceal her involuntary groan of dismay.

‘You’ve been chatting,’ she said flatly.

‘Among other things. She told me that you lent John the money to come over here and to keep himself for a few weeks while he looked for work. I gather it left you a bit short. I hope you haven’t got into debt.’

‘No.’ She had intended to leave it there but his lifted eyebrow suggested he was waiting for an explanation. So she gave him one. ‘A man was generous to me,’ she said, thinking of the elderly manager of the charity shop in Exeter who’d let her have a reduction on the outfit. And then she wondered why she wanted István to believe that men trailed after her as eagerly as women crawled after him. In actual fact she’d been too busy to do more than occasionally go out with old schoolfriends who still lived locally. No, not too busy…lacking in interest.

‘Serious affair, is it?’ he murmured.

It was serious that she, someone who longed to be a mother one day, had no interest in becoming anyone’s wife. ‘Very,’ she answered soberly. ‘Didn’t Lisa tell you?’

István’s thick black eyebrows drew together in disapproval as though news of her affair annoyed him, anger tugging down the corners of his mouth and tightening the strong lines of his jaw. ‘No, she didn’t. I must admit, I’m surprised any man’s got past the impressive defence works.’

Tempted initially to grab a fistful of his raven-silk hair, she glared down at the top of his head and felt a ridiculous urge to stroke it instead. Then, inexplicably, came a fear of touching him at all. He seemed much more male than before, and she frowned at the discovery.

‘The drawbridge does get let down on occasions,’ she said with a shrug.

His long black lashes fluttered then lifted to reveal his wicked, probing glance. His fingers rested briefly on the sheer stockings her father had bought for her and she quivered indignantly at his touch. ‘Extravagant…Do hope you stung him for some decent underwear too,’ István purred.

The blush stained her face before she could even think of stopping it. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say!’ she cried in surprise. ‘That’s hardly the kind of question my brother should be asking!’ she added in reproof.

‘I agree, he said with suspicious amiability. ‘You’re so right. Not brotherly at all, was it?’ He paused, contemplating her with a huge grin on his face. That secret again! she thought, intrigued. ‘Only underwear salesmen or lovers speak of silk knickers, stocking-tops and black lace bras in low, passionate voices.’ His eyes mocked her disapproving expression. ‘I know, I know,’ he murmured. ‘It’s very improper for any brother of yours to be concerned with what lies hidden beneath that blue linen barrier. Perhaps,’ he suggested in wide-eyed innocence, ‘I’m not your brother after all.’

‘Some hopes!’ she said bitterly. ‘I see the same arrogant bully, the same sardonic face, I hear the same cynical cruelty in your voice and I feel ashamed we have the same blood. You’re no different. Unfortunately.’

‘I think you’ll find I’ve changed,’ he said enigmatically.

‘Hope springs eternal. Now return my foot,’ she said icily, finding his touch on her leg highly disturbing. What was it that bothered her about him? she puzzled. ‘I came here to see Lisa, not to stand around like a stork.’

István studied her impassively for a moment, his fingers absently caressing her ankle, and she mused that he must have powerful thigh muscles to stay crouched in that position for so long. A small shiver curled through her, though she wasn’t cold.

‘You have nicer feet than a stork,’ he remarked idly. ‘Smoother, sexier——’

‘István!’ she protested.

He smiled and released her foot, slowly uncurling his body till he was towering over her again. ‘Takes you back, doesn’t it?’ he mused. ‘Me, unbuttoning your little Noddy slippers at bedtime, singing some nonsense rhyme——’

‘That’s quite enough!’ she husked, hastily interrupting his reminiscences.

She had no wish to remember. István had won their childhood adoration by singing throaty lullabies in a funny language they thought he’d made up. It had been Hungarian, of course. Why their mother should have taught him to speak her native tongue and him alone, she could never fathom. They were all half Hungarian, after all, but their mother had spoken of her background to no one but István. The rest of them she’d discouraged whenever they’d shown any interest in her homeland. Favouritism, she sighed to herself. It still rankled—and she still felt ashamed that it did.

She had an overwhelming sensation of being crowded by him, and moved back a step to lean against the car. Her eyes slanted to see if John was ready to take her inside. To her alarm, she saw that he and Lisa appeared to be arguing. Adding to her anxiety, István placed both his hands on the car either side of her and leaned forwards in what might have been a friendly intimacy but had the effect of seeming rather unnerving because she was effectively trapped.

‘I wanted to remind you of the good times,’ he said softly.

‘There weren’t many—and they were totally overwhelmed by the bad times,’ she muttered, shrinking back. ‘Why remind us of things we’d rather forget?’

‘I’m trying to prepare you,’ he said enigmatically.

‘For what?’ she asked with deep suspicion.

‘Changes,’ he said silkily. ‘Interested?’

She scowled. Fascinated! ‘In you?’ she fended.

‘I thought you might be,’ he said lazily. ‘From the moment you could toddle, you were jealous of the secrets I shared with Ester,’ he added, using their mother’s first name as he always had.

‘None of us liked you closeted with Mother for two hours every single day,’ she said coldly. ‘What were you doing exactly?’

‘Playing music, talking.’

So intently, she thought resentfully, that once when she’d fallen over and had wanted her mother’s arms around her she’d had to bang on the locked door for ages before her mother had finally heard her piteous cries. She’d always been second-best. István had come first, everyone else a long way behind. That had hurt.

‘Look, István,’ she said huskily, ‘You must have some idea of the furore you caused when you disappeared and what you did to our family. This is a happy occasion and we don’t want any gatecrashers——’

‘I was invited,’ he said surprisingly and moved back a little, giving Tanya air space at last. ‘Isn’t that right, Lisa?’ he called out. ‘Didn’t you invite me?’

Tanya flung an appalled glance at her apologetic, guilty-looking friend, who broke away from what looked alarmingly like a full-scale argument with John and ran over to hug her tightly. ‘Oh, Lisa,’ Tanya said, feeling emotional. ‘It’s wonderful to see you again, but…what on earth are you doing asking him here?’ she groaned.

‘Wait and see. Please keep István occupied as long as you can,’ whispered her friend. ‘I’m persuading John not to thump him!’ She beamed at István encouragingly and hurried back to placate the thunderous John.

Tanya reflectively ticked off three unnerving facts. Lisa glowed. István was trying to hide a self-satisfied smirk. And he was definitely concealing a secret that Lisa knew about. The omens weren’t good.

‘Whether you had an invitation or not, you should have stayed away,’ she muttered, her face pinched with anxiety as Lisa drew John further and further away, out of earshot. The prospect of a long bath and a cup of tea was receding rapidly—but she’d put up with discomfort while John’s happiness was at risk. ‘It’s hypocritical of you to come. What do you care about weddings?’

‘I’ve developed a sudden craving for them,’ drawled István.

‘You liar!’ she retorted. ‘Father was right. You just enjoy making trouble, seeing people squirm——’

‘No, Tanya,’ he growled, a hard glitter in his eyes. ‘When he said that, he was being unreasonable. He wasn’t entirely rational where I was concerned.’

Tanya took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Rational? What was rational about Mother’s determination to give you everything and the rest of us nothing? What do you think it did to him, when you got brand new riding boots and we were all hunting for clothes in jumble sales?’

The dangerous glint she’d seen in István’s black eyes was extinguished as his lashes swept down to conceal whatever he was thinking. ‘It was…difficult, I appreciate that——’

‘Not difficult. Impossible!’ she bit. He didn’t understand. She’d have to be more specific. ‘Maybe you were the first child, the first-born son; maybe there is some archaic Hungarian custom that obliged Mother to empty the contents of her whole purse into your piggy bank, but by golly we got resentful, and no wonder!’ she said bitterly.

‘My education must have cost a great deal,’ he agreed quietly, his eyes on her like a watchful hawk.

‘Vast sums,’ she said unhappily. ‘Lavished exclusively on you. No wonder we were poor. Mother even quarrelled with Father about the way she spent her money!’

‘I know. I heard them. Did you ever wonder where Ester got so much money from?’ he enquired idly.

‘She brought it with her when she escaped from Communist Hungary as a young woman,’ she snapped.

‘And worked as a daily help in the vicarage. It’s a strange thing to do, when you have such savings, isn’t it?’ he murmured.

Tanya frowned. She’d never thought of that before. ‘She—she always liked to be busy——’

‘Another thing. She never spent the money on herself at all. The only person she gave it to was me. Odder still, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Unfair! What are you trying to tell me?’ she asked warily, unsettled by the inconsistencies of her mother’s behaviour.

‘To think beyond your resentment. A sense of injustice has robbed you of your brains. Was the money so important to you?’ he probed.

‘No! The injustice, like you said!’ she muttered. ‘And the fact that Mother was besotted with you to the exclusion of the rest of us.’

‘Besotted?’ His eyebrow arched in disagreement. ‘Did she hug me? Kiss me as much as she kissed you and John and your sisters?’

She frowned at the detached way he’d spoken about them all, as if he was talking about someone else’s family. In a way that was true. Her father had disowned him. ‘Of course she…’ Her voice lost its initial confidence and her frown deepened as she struggled in vain to recall any moment of affection between her mother and István. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, she didn’t! In fact…I can hardly remember her cuddling you at all!’ Her amazement apparently pleased him. Something made her think that he was coaxing her towards some extraordinary conclusion.

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ murmured István.

‘Not particularly,’ Tanya retorted quickly, loyal in defending her mother’s behaviour. It had been strange, though. What their mother had felt for István was an unusual kind of love. Nearer to a slavish devotion. ‘No hugs,’ she mused, after a moment. And felt sorry for him.

‘Why do you think that was?’ he queried.

Her huge eyes lifted to his, catching a glimpse of the raw emotion he was obviously feeling. No hugs. Her understanding of his character deepened. ‘I don’t know, it’s inexplicable. Mother was a warm and loving woman to the rest of us. I can’t…’ She wrestled with the discovery. ‘Perhaps you weren’t the cuddly sort,’ she suggested feebly.

‘Not everyone was of that opinion,’ he said softly. His eyes were fixed intently on her, but almost immediately they swivelled to where Lisa stood pleading with John.

Tanya froze. The implication was all too plain. Lisa had once found him eminently huggable. ‘I hope you’re not here to make trouble,’ she breathed, alarmed to see a slow, sensual smile of wicked promise curve his lips. ‘Are you?’ she demanded.

‘All I’ve done is to turn up for a family wedding,’ he said with disarming innocence.

‘You can cause trouble even when you’re not around!’ she complained.

His dark gaze swept back to fasten on her accusing eyes. ‘Meaning?’

‘Like when you never turned up for meals, or never came home at night,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Don’t you know how upset Mother was? We stayed up all hours, waiting for you——’

‘So you were worried!’ he husked.

Drat him, how did he work that one out? Her tone, probably, she thought morosely. She’d betrayed the anxiety she’d felt. The last thing she wanted was for István to know she’d idolised him!

Happiness had once been doing anything that her elder brother did. Like a fool, she’d trailed all over the moors, fifty careful yards behind him, the victim of her own hero-worship. She’d fished the same river, had ridden to the same rocky crag. But then her riding lessons had been cancelled, she remembered with a sigh. Hell hath no fury like a thirteen-year-old girl denied her pony!

Worse, he’d stopped tolerating her quiet adoration and had begun to snap and snarl at her as though she irritated him. The early, childhood days of affection changed almost overnight to a bad-tempered rejection. Her own brother didn’t want to be bothered with her any more and pride had made her pretend she didn’t care.

‘Me? Worried about you? Good grief,’ she said lightly, ‘I’m well aware that the Devil looks after his own. I stayed up to keep Mother company,’ she added, skirting around the truth.

She knew only too painfully what her mother must have been feeling when István failed to turn up. A deep, searing anxiety that was as intense as a physical pain. He could have been lying somewhere in a ditch after falling off his motorbike. Concussed from being thrown by his horse. Drowned in the river. Even now it angered her to think of the needless hours of worry.

‘All those times when you rolled in without an explanation or an apology,’ she continued, ‘I could never fathom why Mother put up with your thoughtlessness, why she always welcomed you back with open arms and a mug of cocoa and digestive biscuits!’ she finished crossly.

‘Well, she understood me better than the rest of you,’ he said with a slight shrug of his big shoulders. ‘She knew what I was doing and that I could take care of myself. And that there were times when I had to get out and roam the moors or drive till I was exhausted. I can’t stand being fenced in. Don’t you know that by now? I need a free rein——’

‘Freedom!’ She fought back the angry tears, struggled to crush the hurtful memories and lashed out blindly. ‘How can you say you were fenced in? You had all the freedom you wanted! You were spoilt rotten!’ she seethed. ‘And you gave nothing back but heartache!’ Flinging a hasty glance in John’s direction, she saw he was well out of earshot and recklessly let her tongue take her further. ‘You seduced Lisa!’ she hissed. ‘You put her life in danger. You——’

‘Yes? Go on,’ he goaded, his eyes glittering. ‘Say it.’

Her teeth ground together, preventing the hot spurt of angry words. If she spoke of the time Lisa lost István’s baby, she knew she’d howl her eyes out because she was on the brink of losing control of her emotions. He’d been twenty-four and should have known better. Lisa, nineteen, almost three months pregnant. Tanya’s body trembled.

‘You never showed an ounce of family feeling!’ she grated, chickening out of the direct accusation. ‘That’s why I fail to see why you’ve come here at this time. You’re not here to celebrate the wedding, are you? You and John have always loathed each other.’ That left Lisa as the reason, she thought in dismay. Her voice rose half an octave. ‘What…what did make you turn up here?’

‘I decided I had to make a play for what I wanted,’ he said softly.

Her heart thudded. ‘That’s what I was afraid of!’ she said jerkily. ‘István——’

‘Pleading will do no good. My mind is made up.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘I refuse to be rushed by you, or anyone. I’m very much my own man, Tanya. I’m calling the shots and in time all will be revealed,’ he drawled, and turned to go.

‘Running away again?’ she taunted, half out of her mind with despair at his intentions. He froze and she knew she’d actually reached a vulnerable part of that apparently impenetrable skin. It gave her no pleasure, however. Somehow he always turned her into a shrew—and that was awful. She hated herself for complaining and whinging, for letting her raw emotions bubble to the surface, for being bitchy. He made her feel less good about herself. That was why she hated to be near him.

Slowly he turned and walked towards her again. ‘I didn’t run,’ he interrupted, a thinly disguised anger underlying the soft tones. ‘I left of my own choice. Why don’t you say it, Tanya? Say what you must and get it out of your system.’

She took a deep breath, the pain swelling to the surface while she struggled with the souring hurt that had destroyed her happiness. ‘All right. You claim that you left?’ she echoed bitterly, blurting it all out in a spurt of spitting flame. ‘Call it what you like, blame who you like; you went without warning, without leaving any address—and—and—you—drove Mother into her grave and—and for that I’ll never, ever forgive you!’

He remained motionless. Her heart rolled over in sickening lurches because she’d voiced the words that had become engraved on her heart and because she had finally faced him with one truth after all the years of nursing its canker inside her.

István’s eyes flashed dangerously. ‘How could I kill her?’ he growled. ‘I was in Budapest at the time.’

‘But she didn’t know that! You were special to her and you’d vanished without trace. She went into a decline. Soon after, she died. Isn’t the connection obvious?’ she asked huskily.

Waves of remembered distress made the muscles in her stomach clench as if a ruthless hand gripped her there. A sob lurched from her tremulous lips. Her pained eyes lifted to his and saw…pity.

‘Tan,’ he began, tight with strain.

‘No! Don’t look at me like that! I don’t want it! It’s too late to show sympathy!’ she cried hoarsely. ‘What do you care that Mother was beside herself because you’d vanished?’

‘What did I care?’ he roared. And suddenly, his eyes burning with an intense light, he grabbed her arms in an explosion of movement, his teeth bared in a furious snarl as he shook her violently. ‘What the hell do you know about me?’ he seethed.

Nothing, that was the pity of it all, she thought in silent answer before her brain stopped functioning. Pain erupted in her head, her bruised arms, her neck where it snapped back and forth. ‘István, István!’ she gasped above the roaring in her ears.

Mercifully he came to his senses and held her steady. Her shocked, accusing eyes lifted and widened at the pallor and the gauntness of his face. ‘Twenty-seven years…’ he muttered through bloodless lips. ‘And of all the women I have to vent my frustration on I choose you.’

So he wanted to hurt her. Hearing him, the once-adored elder brother, coldly admitting that he was targeting her was unbearable. Her resolve to be remote and unemotional collapsed under the weight of her own terrible emptiness.

To her total dismay, hot tears overflowed from her stricken eyes and emptied in scalding torrents down her cheeks. With a harsh exclamation, he growled some words in Hungarian then bewildered her by gathering her in his arms and holding her tightly in a bear-hug. The embrace was so welcome, so comfortable and so achingly familiar that she sobbed even harder.

‘I know how much you loved Ester. You did your best to love us all,’ he stated in a harsh mutter. Her shoulders shook and he stroked them. ‘You’re so like her. Strong sense of duty. Loyal. Dogged in your determination and totally blind to anything but what you have to do, like a blinkered horse.’

He was absently stroking the chestnut river of her hair and speaking to her in the same kind of voice he’d once used when she was small and needed comfort in those far-off and innocent days before he’d taken an inexplicable dislike to her. Longing for that time again and disturbed by his gentleness, she buried her face deeper into his warm chest.

Shame filled her. It was a shame brought on by the realisation that the death of her beloved mother had been as traumatic an event as István’s disappearance. That shouldn’t be. He didn’t deserve her regrets. Missing her mother dreadfully, she’d missed István just as much. Two people she’d loved profoundly had gone from her life with a shattering finality.

‘Hush, Tan. I’m here.’

Desperately she tried not to cry. When her mother had died, she hadn’t shed one tear. Her sisters had been inconsolable and she’d cuddled them in her arms till they’d fallen asleep but she’d remained cold, her feelings frozen.

Her hands curled against István’s chest. Safely in her wallet were pictures of him and her mother which comforted her somehow to know that they were there. She could touch the wallet and project her passionate hatred of him to wherever he was in the world. And now he was here and she was in his arms and feeling as if she’d come home. It was all wrong!

István’s strong hand lifted her chin and he stared deeply into her eyes while gently wiping her face with his handkerchief. ‘I’m glad you’ve cried,’ he said huskily. ‘I heard you’d never shed a tear.’ His hand faltered. There was a softening of his mouth that disturbed her, a light in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. ‘You’re more ethereal than ever. I’ve never seen you look more beautiful, Tanya,’ he breathed, a frightening hunger in his voice.

Her throat dried. Beneath the pale suit, her breasts rose and fell with the shallow breath that sought in vain to oxygenate her depleted body. He had an animal magnetism, an intense sexuality that even she, his sister, could feel. Lisa would be a pushover to that unholy, electrical force emanating from him. With barely a thought for the consequences, he switched it on and flooded anyone in his path in a dazzling display of male power.

The blood began to drum in her veins. She couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it. He held her gaze with the sheer force of his personality and all she could do was to stare at the incredibly sexy mouth and wonder…

Oh, dear heaven! she thought in horror. What is it about István?

And he told her.

‘I feel it too,’ he growled softly.

‘Feel…what?’ she croaked in a revealingly high-pitched voice.

István breathed heavily a few times before elaborating, his wicked black eyes relentless. ‘Desire.’

‘What are you saying…? No!’ she whispered in horror, her mouth only just managing to shape the denial as he moved forwards to close the gap between them. ‘No, István!’

But her speech was slurred and he smiled in triumph. ‘Poor Tanya,’ he said soothingly, his warm breath torching across her face. ‘I think I’d better put you out of your misery.’

Her skin prickled with tension. ‘You’re depraved! Heaven help you, István!’ she rasped, her voice shaking with raw emotion. ‘Your mind is twisted. I wish we weren’t related! If only there were no ties between us—and never had been! I wish—oh, dear God, I wish you’d never been born and that you weren’t my brother!’

‘That last wish is granted,’ he said silkily, dropping a light kiss on her parched lips. ‘I’m not.’

‘What?’ she croaked, bewildered. And all the time she was thinking, No, no! No, it can’t be true…

‘I’m not your brother.’ There was something terrible in the depths of his eyes but his tone was light-hearted. ‘Opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it?’

CHAPTER TWO

TANYA’S senses reeled. For a moment she didn’t grasp what he was saying and then the full impact of his statement hit her. And by then he was halfway up the castle steps. Numbly, paralysed with shock, she watched his tall, lithe figure in the woman-baiting white shirt and tight black jeans disappear into the hotel.

But it wasn’t true. It was impossible. He’d made a cruel joke to torment her.

She would have run after him if she could move. She would yell at him to leave them all alone if she could succeed in pushing her voice past the awful lump that blocked her throat. Not her brother—a terrible thing to say—a slur on her parents’ integrity!

And yet…

Voices impinged on her consciousness. John’s bitter anger, Lisa’s agitated wails. Her entire body trembled with anger as it dawned on her that István was set fair to ruin the fairy-tale wedding they’d all planned for and had looked forward to with such excitement.

John’s needs fought with her own. His had a greater priority and her instincts were always to respond to her family’s needs. Grimly she forced herself to dismiss István’s outrageous claim as pure, wicked fantasy and to contain her own chaotic feelings. István she could deal with later. This was infinitely more urgent, though at the moment she wasn’t sure whether she should break up the argument or let it blow itself out. Curse István! She scowled, hating to see her brother so upset.

As for that dizzy sensation she’d felt…She was tired. Getting her father comfortably settled, cooking masses of meals for him and freezing them, watering the plants, worrying about leaving him and then worrying even more about Lisa’s love for John—all this had tired her emotionally and physically.

Someone spoke to her. A young woman, dressed entirely in black and carrying a basket of freshly baked bread that smelled deliciously warm and doughy. Tanya registered hunger as she absently returned the woman’s greeting and it suddenly became clear that much of her confused thinking had also been due to her early start that morning without a proper breakfast.

A wry smile touched her pale lips. Hunger pangs, mimicking sexual desire! And then her smile faded as she realised more fully what István had said. He’d casually disowned the mother who’d devoted her life to him. He deserved nothing but contempt for his behaviour. Her hands shaped into fists.

‘Not your brother.’ Ridiculous! Her mother would have told her if he’d been adopted…Wouldn’t she? At the very least, her father would have said something when István had vanished. Bitterness and resentment would have drawn such a fact out of her father, surely? Or he would have told her recently in one of those long, companionable heart-to-hearts.

Crushing the rebellious nagging doubts that kept whispering slyly in her ear, she marshalled her thoughts together. At the moment, Lisa and John needed her. Making sure their wedding went ahead was the most important thing on the agenda and anything that was between herself and István could wait—must wait.

‘Here goes,’ she muttered, heading towards John and Lisa. Ignore István, she told herself. Think only of the wedding. But smiling was more difficult than she’d hoped.

‘Are you going to show me this hotel of yours or am I camping out here?’ she asked John jokingly in a rather stiff little voice that went with the rigid smile.

‘Sorry, I——’ began John.

‘You and István didn’t get on,’ sighed Lisa despondently, slumped rather inappropriately against a statue of Cupid. ‘I heard you arguing.’

Tanya looked at her anxiously. Now István was gone, the light had left Lisa’s face. ‘Good grief! He and I will always be at daggers drawn!’ she said lightly. ‘That doesn’t matter a scrap. Pretend he’s not here. I’m dying to hear all the arrangements. Can you take my luggage, John?’

Conscious of the need to reassure Lisa, to remind her friend that John was reliable and steady and loved her, she tucked her arm in Lisa’s, pushing her towards the hotel steps. John remained stony-faced as he stalked along beside them so she sought ways to break the deadlock between them and lift the funereal atmosphere.

‘It’s thrilling that you two are crazy about each other!’ she continued warmly. Was that overkill? she wondered. ‘All that gush in your letters, you old romantic! The lights on the Danube, the candlelit dinners…isn’t it just great that you’re marrying my kid bro?’

‘Great,’ said Lisa dutifully.

Tanya hid a wail of despair. She’d sounded less than overjoyed. As if…as if her mind was elsewhere. ‘So, what’s the plan? I thought I’d go to my room and unpack first,’ she continued, managing to sound quite cheerful. Poor John, she thought miserably. He looked ashen. She must act, act, act! ‘Then I’ll do us all a favour and get rid of the wretched You-Know-Who. I thought an acid bath might do the trick, John!’ she joked.

‘I’ll empty a few car batteries,’ he muttered, his eyes dark with worry.

Tanya tried to give a tinkle of laughter but it wasn’t too convincing. She knew instinctively that he and Lisa would argue again when they were alone. And somewhere in the hotel, with any luck, she’d be throwing crockery at the incorrigible István. Some family reunion, she thought morosely.

‘If I’m not camping under the stars, I suppose you’ve put me in some dark cellar!’ she said with painful brightness.

‘Got it in one. The best cellar we have, on the first floor. Lisa’s next door in the bridal-suite cellar,’ John jokingly answered, rallying himself with an effort and forcing a faint, brave smile.

‘Lovely,’ Tanya enthused, scanning the big windows above. A figure in white moved away quickly, as though the person didn’t want to be seen. Not István, someone smaller. Probably a curious maid, she thought dismissively.

And, as they walked up the steps with John trying for her sake to be normal and talking about the range of facilities at the castle hotel, Tanya saw that Lisa’s eyes were searching for something or someone and she knew who it must be.

István.

She quailed. He still dominated their lives, even in his absence. It was quite plain that Lisa felt his magnetism far too strongly for a woman on the brink of marrying someone else. Poor John! mourned Tanya. He’d adored Lisa from the very first and had resented any time that Lisa had spent with István. John had tried desperately to drag himself out of his elder brother’s giant shadow—without success. Who could? Shadows were elusive, impossible to pin down. Impossible to hurt, too.

‘…here in the old hall,’ John was saying with quiet pride.

Guiltily, she pulled herself together and looked around the high-ceilinged room, genuinely delighted to see that it looked like the interior of an exquisite eighteenth-century mansion, with none of the usual trappings of a hotel.

‘John!’ she cried warmly, admiring the mirrored walls. ‘I’m quite staggered! How clever of you to get a job here! It’s absolutely beautiful—especially the flower displays and romantic garlands. And look at this furniture! By golly,’ she added in awe, ‘it’s all antiques!’

‘Every stick,’ nodded John. ‘It was all inherited by the countess, my boss.’

‘I’m surprised this stuff wasn’t looted and transported back to Moscow during the Communist Occupation,’ mused Tanya.

Her brother smiled absently. ‘Perhaps she hid it. She’s a very astute and nice lady. You’ll like her when we get together to talk about the riding school. She lives on the estate.’ His smile turned to a frown. Lisa was rather obviously searching for István. ‘I’ll get the key and sign you in,’ he ground out tightly, reining in his temper.

Tanya waited till he’d reached an antique desk before she took the bull by the horns and rounded on her miserable-looking friend. ‘Lisa, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re hurting John!’ she whispered in exasperation. ‘Can’t you ignore István even for one moment?’

‘Can you?’ retorted Lisa.

‘No-yes!’ Tanya heaved an impatient sigh. ‘You’re confusing me,’ she muttered. ‘How long’s István been here?’

‘So you are interested in me,’ came his satin-smooth voice just behind her and suddenly there were two dozen Istváns in the hall with them, dark, menacing and devilishly handsome from every angle.

‘Only as a porter,’ said Tanya crisply, annoyed that Lisa had abandoned her and crept away to John’s side—and because her pulses had inexplicably leapt into life. The reason for that was so unthinkable that she dismissed it out of hand.

‘A porter? Doesn’t seem to be one around. Must be a coffee-break,’ said István, unperturbed by her put-down. ‘How cool you are. What control!’ he said in admiration. ‘Don’t you have one or two burning questions to ask me?’

Millions, she thought—but not with John and Lisa around. Ignoring him then, she pretended to be surveying the lovely wedding swags and garlands that hung everywhere.

‘Admiring the orchids?’ he enquired softly.

The flowers registered more fully on her conscious mind. Her head jerked up. ‘Orchids!’ she exclaimed sadly.

An ache weighed down her heart. Poignant memories were associated with the bouquet of white orchids that István had sent for their mother’s funeral. Her father had thrown the flowers in the dustbin and so István’s tribute had never taken their rightful place on her mother’s coffin. That fact had deeply distressed her.

‘Ester’s favourite flowers,’ ruminated István quietly, apparently unaware of the drama inside her head.

‘I know,’ she said huskily. He’d been the only one to remember. He’d always given her mother orchids on her birthday. She’d once said that they reminded her of the ones that had been grown in the hothouse close to her old home in Hungary.

István touched her shoulder to regain her attention because she’d averted her face from his. No way did she want him to know how close she was to tears.

‘Tell me something,’ he said gently. ‘What do you think of Kastély Huszár? Intimidating? Alien? Not to your taste, perhaps?’

Glad he’d turned to more mundane things, she eyed him scornfully. If he was trying to play down the attractions of John’s hotel, he’d find her unresponsive. ‘Friendly, welcoming and quite the loveliest place I’ve ever seen,’ she answered, warmth seeping into her tone. ‘Hasn’t John done well?’

‘Oh, he’s landed himself a good job all right,’ admitted István.

‘I’m glad you realise it,’ she said drily.

‘I’m glad you do. I want you to be quite aware of his good fortune.’

Her forehead wrinkled with a puzzled frown. ‘I imagine all these deep, meaningful remarks are leading somewhere?’

‘I hope so,’ he said silkily, his sensual mouth quivering with amusement. ‘I sincerely do hope so.’

It was as if he wanted her to find him seductive, she thought dazedly. And blinked. Alarmed, she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘I do think he’s organised the foyer well,’ she burbled. ‘A shiny reception desk with pigeon-holes for keys and people in uniform and badges would have been out of place. With those books and hats and things scattered about, it’s like someone’s home.’ Mercifully she ran out of breath.

‘Home? Not like our home used to be, I hope. There’ll be tears before bedtime, if so,’ he said enigmatically.

Tanya stiffened. ‘What precisely do you mean by that?’ she demanded, her eyes dark and wary.

‘I’m talking from my own point of view, of course,’ he replied smoothly. ‘I found the family remarkably divided.’

‘You left the family divided,’ she corrected tartly.

‘I’m flattered you imagine it was all my own work,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Of course,’ he reflected, ‘you were incapable of really seeing anyone’s faults. Everyone loved you because you accepted them, faults and all, and were more concerned for others than yourself. You were the mediator.’

‘I was?’ she said, surprised. It hadn’t been a role she’d been aware of.

‘You tried a little too hard to see the best side of each and every one of us and I admired that,’ he told her idly. ‘Though you gave up on me.’

‘Hardly surprising,’ she said coldly. Her curiosity got the better of her, though. ‘What—what faults did everyone else have—yours being glaringly obvious?’

‘Well, despite all your gentle hints, you never managed to modify your mother’s odd obsession with me, or to change the fact that your father favoured John far more than you three girls. As for Sue, well, you never curbed her passion for cutting up any clothes left lying around and returning them with every inch re-designed and embroidered. I had a bit of explaining to do at boarding-school when the under-matrons unpacked two shirts with smocking on the front!’

Tanya laughed and then felt guilty that she’d done so. ‘Mariann?’ she prompted.

He smiled. ‘You worried unnecessarily over the fact that she sent out totally unconscious signals to every male within a radius of a hundred miles. You worried that she’d become a fallen woman if you didn’t protect her and form a human barrier against the young men who hung around her. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that they were rather taken with you, too.’

‘Of course they weren’t!’ she said hotly. ‘Mariann’s got the looks, not me. And yes, it did worry me for her sake, but she seems to take men’s admiration in her stride and isn’t vain or promiscuous at all.’

Tanya thought that it was extraordinary that he should have noticed so much, because he’d always seemed quite indifferent to family life. Those thumbnail sketches of them all made her feel rather uncomfortable. It was as though he’d watched them from a stranger’s viewpoint and judged them with clinical detachment. Your mother, he’d said; your father. Had that been deliberate or unconscious? All at once, she was beginning to entertain serious doubts about his relationship to her.

‘You—you were joking about not being my brother, weren’t you?’ she asked shakily.

‘No.’ The word vibrated through her body.

Suddenly she was too scared to believe him. Scared of the way she was beginning to respond, scared of the churning emotions working away inside her, destroying all caution. ‘It can’t be true! Mother would have told us when she knew she was dying,’ she said huskily. ‘You’re up to something! Why are you here, István?’ she asked with passionate intensity. ‘Tell me!’

‘In time. This is not the moment.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘When you’ve been parted from someone and you’ve both gone your separate ways, you don’t rush the reunion. It’s too volatile a situation and calls for a more delicate, less impulsive touch.’

She gulped in dismay at the husky threat in his tone. He was admitting that he was playing a cat-and-mouse game and meant slyly to work his way into Lisa’s affections again. However, her intended protest was shelved when she realised that John had returned.

‘All done?’ She smiled wanly. Not long now, perhaps a sharp show-down with István in a moment, and then she could be alone to gather herself together. She put a hand on John’s arm affectionately. ‘Don’t bother to show me my room. Let me have the key. You spend time with Lisa,’ she continued, a meaningful look in her eyes, ‘while this reprobate with the designer muscles makes himself useful by carrying my case.’

If she did anything, she decided, she’d make sure the bride and groom-to-be sorted out their differences. Meanwhile, once she and István were less in the public eye, she’d insist on knowing what he was doing here. And how soon he was going. Perhaps she could help him on his way, she thought grimly, contemplating the toe of her shoe with malicious intent.

‘So, the fun begins,’ murmured István, swinging the key backwards and forwards.

‘With bells on!’ she agreed tightly, planning plans.

He picked up her case, and the piece of hand-luggage that she’d nursed throughout the journey, double-stacked them porter-style and imperiously grabbed Tanya’s hand. ‘Let’s go upstairs and ring a few of those bells, then,’ he smiled, hauling her across the vast expanse of black and white chequer-board tiles so fast that she had to cling on to him like mad or slip on the glassy surface.

‘Let me go, you brute!’ she cried, afraid. Afraid of falling. Afraid of the contact. Her skin prickled.

Her hair was coming down in thick chestnut hanks over her shoulders and she was in danger of ricking an ankle if she didn’t wrench free. On an impulse, she scooped up a delicate porcelain vase from a glossy fruitwood table and prepared to aim it at István’s head.

‘You want bells, now hear them ringing!’ she fumed.

‘Mistake,’ he murmured. Because she’d given him time to drop her luggage straight to the floor with not an atom of regard for their contents, grab the vase and unwrap her fingers from it. ‘A little over the top, wasn’t it?’ he enquired smoothly.

She flushed, horrified at what she’d intended. ‘A girl has to defend herself from rogue bell-ringers,’ she muttered in excuse.

‘Sure. But do it some way that doesn’t involve one of Napoleon’s favourite bits of porcelain,’ he said drily.

‘His what?’ she scoffed. ‘Stop this endless make-believe! You can’t possibly know anything about the contents of this building! You’ve only been here…how long is it now?’

‘Long enough to know my way around,’ he answered, dodging her sly question. ‘Hope I haven’t broken anything in your cases.’ He lifted them and jiggled them around a little. ‘Chastity belt, is it?’ he asked wickedly, at a rattling sound. ‘Dear, oh, dear! What are you going to do if it’s broken?’ And he sauntered on up the stairs, leaving her steaming at his outrageous behaviour.

Since he had her luggage and the key to her room, and—she sighed—since it was up to her to get rid of him somehow she had no alternative but to follow. With the distinct impression that she was dancing to every tune he called, she stomped up the stairs so fast that she managed to draw level with him before he reached the top landing.

‘I’ve got Lisa’s present in there!’ she said angrily. ‘If you’ve ruined it, you can get a replacement. It cost——’ She bit her lip. Far too much, more than she could afford, but she was so thrilled for John and her dear friend. Distressed by his carelessness, she felt crosser than ever. ‘You’re like a hurricane!’ she bit. ‘Blasting your way through people’s lives, destroying anything in your path. You ruin everything you lay your hands on——’

‘I’ve lain hands on you a few times, heaving you out of the danger you got yourself into, and you look OK,’ he observed, giving her a rather insulting once-over. A shiver curled, unbidden, right the way through her body at the smouldering in his dark, bottomless eyes. ‘You’re all in one piece,’ he said in a soft, husky growl, ‘all the appropriate bumps in the right places——’

‘István!’ she protested, knowing she must be pillar-box red by now. Her blushes had even heated through to her loins and that had never happened before. But then no other man had ever shaken her out of her comfortable, ordered world. ‘Don’t talk like that!’ she said crossly.

‘I’m trying to wake you up to the truth as gently as possible,’ he said mildly.

‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘You’ve got to be my brother. Stop tormenting me like this——’

They turned down the long landing and István put an arm around her shoulders. As she shrugged it off irritably, she saw a flutter of a guest’s white skirt as a door ahead shut abruptly.

‘You’re looking a little flushed,’ he crooned.

‘I’m angry,’ she seethed.

‘Anger, is it? I thought I might have reached some…soft centre, some responsive core of that gorgeous body.’

She gasped. ‘Stop it!’ she grated.

‘When I do,’ he said softly, ‘you’ll wish I were still talking.’

She stumbled. The evidence was increasingly stacked against the fact that István was her brother. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she snapped, when his warm hand steadied her. Her pulses had started a riot all of their own. Some of them had decided to throb in her throat, where he could see them. So she clenched her jaw together and tried desperately not to think of István’s beautiful, wicked mouth.

‘You’ll grind down to the gums if you don’t give your feelings some release,’ he murmured.

Her almond eyes slanted viciously at his laughing face and away again, hastily. He was too darn handsome! Too arrogant. Too…impossible! ‘I don’t think so,’ she said frostily, determined to stop him trying to dent her armour with sly insinuations and outrageous teasing. ‘For your information, there’s a core of steel all the way through me.’

‘Malleable stuff, steel,’ he ruminated, nodding towards a medieval breast-plate on the tapestry-hung wall to illustrate his words. ‘It’s strong and cold to the touch, of course. But build up a fire hot enough underneath it, and when it reaches melting point…’ His eyes glimmered. ‘Now there’s a thought!’ he exclaimed. ‘Some man could come along and mould you to any shape he wants!’

Irritated by the way he twisted things to his own purpose, she gave a derisive laugh. ‘I’m well aware that’s what you’re trying to do to all of us,’ she snapped. ‘But this time we’re wise to you. If you’ve come——’

‘Maybe I’m a reformed character, come to make my peace,’ he said quietly, with a sideways glance at her grim profile.

Her astonished glance caught his and was momentarily trapped before she summoned up enough willpower to look.away, unable to withstand the alarmingly intense message of warmth there.

She gave her head a little shake, frantic to dispel the terrible thoughts that crowded her head. Her eyes skimmed the dauntingly broad shoulders, the swell of his chest with its bunched muscles, the narrow hips

‘I ride,’ he said suddenly.

Tanya jumped, startled. ‘Should I be interested?’ she retorted guiltily.

‘You were staring at my body,’ he said, deceptively as mild as milk. ‘I thought you were wondering how I kept fit. Am I mistaken? Were you staring because you feel attracted to me?’ he suggested wickedly.

‘Of course not!’ she cried, hot and bothered by the mere idea. Questions hovered on her lips—were almost blurted out. But a fear held her back. She was afraid to learn that her parents had lived a lie, that her father in particular had betrayed his strict adherence to truth and honesty.

‘Well, then.’ He smiled and paused, still smiling. If he were a woman, she thought in exasperation, she’d call it a full Mona Lisa effort. An ‘I have plans for you’ smile. ‘As my clothes aren’t special enough to fascinate you for the prolonged assessment you were giving me, and since you strenuously deny a sexual interest, your…intent scrutiny,’ he said insolently, ‘must be because you’re wondering if I’m a fitness freak. The answer is that I indulge myself in almost every sport I can,’ he told her in a conversational tone. ‘I like to keep supple because I need strength and stamina. Perhaps I’d better not tell you what for.’

‘No. I’d rather you didn’t,’ she agreed with enough frost injected in her voice to burn peach-blossom.

Strength, suppleness, stamina. She thought of the ease with which he’d lifted her when they’d met outside the castle and then more wistfully of the occasions in the past when he’d tossed her in the air to banish her tears. He’d barely tolerated her following him on his lonely walks like a devoted puppy. Yet if ever she got stuck in a bog on the moorland or fell into the river he’d always be there, whisking her up, tending to her injuries and heaving her on his shoulder with a half-irritated, half-amused sigh and bearing her back to where her sisters played together, oblivious to her adventures.

But she’d been younger then and it was before his domination of the Evans family had begun in earnest. Which reminded her.

‘Are you here to make trouble?’ she persisted, while he jiggled a heavy iron key in the brass lock of a room labelled ‘Madách’.

‘Of course!’ he said airily, as if that went without saying. ‘Ring a few bells, expose old wounds to the air——’

‘Break a heart or two,’ she ventured apprehensively.

He paused and thought for a moment. ‘Break into one, perhaps,’ he acknowledged slowly and she felt her spine become a pillar of ice at the thought of the vulnerable Lisa and her dear, lovesick brother. ‘You’re honoured. I have a feeling this is one of the best rooms in the hotel,’ István went on in a conversational tone and opening the door, ‘because it’s named after a famous writer——’

‘Whose heart?’ she said huskily, not interested in a lecture on Hungarian notables.

There was a brief silence while he appeared to be considering his words. In placing her cases on the rack provided a raven lock of hair fell on to his high, smooth forehead. Tanya almost reached out to lift it back in an affectionate, sisterly gesture but clenched her fist instead, recognising angrily that he was deliberately spinning out his answer to torment her.

Nervously she strolled around the spacious room, pretending to be admiring the period furniture: the heavy four-poster bed with its fairy-tale stack of duvets and outsize pillows, fit for any Princess and the Pea illustration; the polished floorboards; the expensive white silk drapes at the high floor-length windows. Lavish was the only word that described it all. John’s prospects would be wonderful if it weren’t for István.

‘Whose heart?’ she repeated harshly, unable to bear the wait any longer. This was like pulling teeth!

‘That rather depends on how many bells I get to ring. Some people,’ said István in a voice so rich with sensuality that she was forced to grip the swagged bed-curtains to stop herself from turning around, ‘hide their feelings with such success that no one knows whether they’re in anguish inside or merely wondering if it’s going to rain. Others opt for the danger of total openness——’

‘Not you,’ she whispered, attempting to control the rapid beat of her pulses by breathing deeply. Odd how nervous she was, she reflected.

‘No. Not me,’ agreed István, coming to stand inches away from her and sending her pulses haywire again. His eyes glowed as dark and as warm as a black stallion’s coat. ‘I play my cards close to my chest till I know I can come up trumps.’

Disconcerted, she moved to her cases and flipped them open. ‘Some would question whether you had a heart at all,’ she muttered.

He’d broken the hearts of their father, mother, Lisa and herself as if no blood, no ties bound them together. Only her sisters, bound up in each other, had been partly protected from István’s brutal determination to dominate and crush everyone around him.

‘Is it broken?’ he enquired softly.

For a moment, fooled by his sympathetic tone, she thought he’d meant her heart. She spun around so fast in alarm that she teetered briefly on her high heels, and he reached out to save her from falling.

‘Take your hands off me!’ she rasped, horrified by the electric shock that had passed through her. Why? Why? she thought frantically.

‘OK, I apologise for saving you from landing on your neat little bottom!’ he drawled. ‘I merely thought you’d want to preserve that oh-so-dignified, nose-in-the-air haughtiness you’ve acquired. Is it broken?’ he murmured. ‘Have I…cracked it?’

He was laughing at her! Deep in the molten pools of his damnable eyes she could see glints of amusement! And once again there was a wealth of meaning in his words. More than she could fathom. ‘If you mean my present to Lisa, no, it isn’t.’

‘I’m glad. Want to know what I’m giving her?’ he asked with a sinister, iazy drawi.

At the implication, her heart seemed to stop beating and then it roared into life again, double-quick, as a protest. ‘No!’

‘It’s not silk underwear.’

Clenching her teeth, she said through them, ‘I should hope not! Stop hinting that you’re going to stir up trouble!’

‘You used to be so intensely curious. Are you indifferent to what I’m giving Lisa, or afraid I’ll say something you don’t want to hear?’ he asked, satin-smooth.

‘Indifferent,’ she lied angrily. ‘And I should have thought that even you would have had the good taste not to give Lisa and John a present. They won’t want to be reminded of you during their marriage. And while we’re about it, it’s tactless in the extreme for you to lurk about at a time like this—rather like a spectre at a wedding feast!’

Glittering lights danced from under his lowered lashes. ‘You think I should leave before I do any harm?’

‘Yes,’ she bit out.

‘Ask me nicely.’

She checked a rude retort. This was her chance to plead on behalf of the young lovers. ‘I——’ She bit into her full lower lip. The plea stuck in her throat.

‘Beg me,’ he drawled lazily. ‘I’d love to see that pride of yours dented with humility. It might remind you of your more appealing gentleness when you were more——’

‘Malleable?’ she suggested icily. ‘Good grief, István! All you want is for women to be obedient and adoring! Everyone has to play second fiddle to you, don’t they? Just because I don’t——’

‘Follow me like a dog?’ he supplied helpfully.

She coloured up angrily, her mouth grim. ‘Any flash young man who can do circus tricks on horseback would gather admirers, especially in a sleepy village like Widecombe-in-the-Moor in deepest Devon!’ she cried hotly. ‘As soon as I learnt discrimination, I realised that anyone who tried to go further than skin-deep with you would find that there wasn’t anyone at home!’

‘Amusing, acerbic, bitchy. Quite a change from the Tanya I knew, the woman beneath. What’s making you so vicious?’ he said in quiet disapproval.

‘Bitterness,’ she rasped. I hate myself! she thought helplessly. What’s happening to me? What’s he doing to me?

‘It’ll ruin you,’ he said shortly. ‘Take it from one who knows. Feel it by all means, then put it aside and get on with your life. I don’t like——’

Tanya let her eyes harden. ‘Good,’ she said miserably, wanting to be the exact opposite of anything he liked. ‘Suits me. You want to know what’s changed me? In a nutshell, you!’ The words began to flow again; everything she’d felt and thought over the years and had been ashamed to admit. ‘I can’t bear the way I feel, I wish I could change, but you’ve soured my life and made me bitter!’ she cried jerkily.

‘Then tell me how,’ he breathed, his face hard, his body tense.

Her chin lifted high. ‘I became bitter when Mother died. She was distraught when you vanished. I don’t need to point out the connection with you and her death again, do I?’

‘She knew where I’d gone,’ he said gently.

Tanya rounded her eyes in outraged disbelief. ‘What?’

‘She knew,’ he repeated firmly. ‘And you must be careful about jumping to conclusions as far as her death was concerned. You see, Tanya, she was dying when I left her.’

His compassionate expression at her stunned reaction hit her with a knee-weakening force, making it hard for her to collect her thoughts. ‘No!’ she wailed. ‘If that were true, it means she told you—but not us…!’ Her voice trailed into nothing. A nagging thought had struck her. If true, this would be another secret he alone had shared. Tanya felt deeply hurt that her mother might have put her trust only in him.

‘Ester didn’t want to burden any of you with her illness till it was impossible to hide it any longer. At the time I left, she was dying of cancer and it was too late for surgery,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Now you must realise that I couldn’t have known the cause of death unless she’d told me before I left. I never saw her again, did I?’

‘Lisa could have told you——’ she said, desperate to prove him wrong.

‘No,’ he said quietly, and something in his eyes convinced her.

Tanya pressed a hand hard against her cheek to ease the pain there. ‘Father didn’t know till almost the last week—none of us did! Why on earth would she confide in you?’ she croaked.

‘To persuade me to stay.’

Her breath rasped in sharply. ‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘You…knew and…still you left?’

‘I had to go. Now will you believe I’m not your brother?’ he asked softly. He looked white, the sharp ridge of his high Slav cheekbones standing out beneath the dark hollows of his eyes. ‘She wanted me to stay and pretend that I was her son. I refused.’

Confused, she walked to the window to think; her world, the past she’d known was frightening her in the way it was slipping and sliding in all directions. Things she’d thought to be true weren’t true. She gripped the white silk drape tightly then turned, her eyes wary beneath her wet lashes, and she realised she’d shed tears.

‘I became so bitter when Mother died,’ she said in a distant voice. ‘Father lost all interest in life and abandoned everything he’d worked for…all the things he’d believed in, like forgiveness and love for others. He had no emotional energy left and lost his concern for other people. It made him bitter too.’ And his hatred for István, who they all thought had hastened her mother’s death, had been frightening to see.

‘I’m so sorry,’ István said quietly. ‘Lisa said you look after him now.’

‘He’s no trouble, and besides, we can’t afford help.’ Tanya spoke without resentment though the tiredness came through in her voice. ‘Mariann and Sue work in London and send what they can. Mrs Lane—the new vicar’s wife, who lives in the new vicarage—is looking after Father while I’m away.’

‘It’s a huge mausoleum of a house,’ commented István. ‘Too big for you to cope with alone, I’d have thought.’

‘I can manage. I’ve learnt to run my business and the house by tight organisation,’ she said curtly. ‘If I’ve lost my malleability and gentleness, well, it’s not surprising. It takes drive and grit and initiative——’ She stopped in embarrassment, seeing that he was watching her curiously.

‘Go on. I am interested. In your business. Let me guess. A riding school?’ he hazarded.

‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Riding holidays. I thought you and Lisa had done a lot of talking? You know remarkably little about us.’ And she could have bitten her tongue out. Of course they hadn’t been discussing life in Widecombe!

He smiled faintly. ‘We didn’t have the time. Are these riding holidays on Dartmoor?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said proudly, keen to show him that she’d triumphed in difficult circumstances. No wonder she wasn’t the same person he’d known. ‘I set the whole thing up on the small business scheme. I sell holidays that I’ve packaged myself—riding in the Camargue and gypsy-caravan tours in France.’

There was nothing in his face to indicate that he was impressed with her venture or thought it small-time and doomed to failure. ‘It’s a bad time for the holiday business, I hear,’ he remarked casually.

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