“Lukas!” she gasped, delight shooting through her body.

Lukas pulled back to look into the depths of her violet eyes, his gray ones smoldering with desire for her. “We should stop?” he asked her throatily.

She swallowed hard. She didn’t want to stop.

She wanted more of his kisses, more of his touch.

“Do—we have to?” she asked.

Jessica Steele lives in a friendly English village with her super husband, Peter. They are owned by a gorgeous Staffordshire bull terrier dog called Florence, who is boisterous and manic, but also adorable. It was Peter who first prompted Jessica to try writing, and after the first rejection, encouraged her to keep on trying. Luckily, with the exception of Uruguay, she has so far managed to research inside all the countries in which she has set her books, traveling to places as far apart as Siberia and Egypt. Her thanks go to Peter for his help and encouragement.

Books by Jessica Steele

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3588—THE FEISTY FIANCÉE*

3615—BACHELOR IN NEED*

3627—MARRIAGE IN MIND*

3643—THE BACHELOR’S BARGAIN

A Suitable Husband
Jessica Steele

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS not unusual for Jermaine to work late. She was part of the sales support staff at a busy plant and machinery manufacturers and was used to working under pressure. Her work was varied, but mainly she dealt with reports from Masters and Company’s top-notch sales executives when they either rang in or visited head office in London.

This week she had nothing in particular to rush home for. It didn’t matter that it was going on for eight o’clock when she let herself into her small flat.

She had been going out with Ash Tavinor for three months now, only for the last two weeks Ash had been working away from home in Scotland, too far away for him to return to London, or for them to spend any time together. He could have flown down, of course, but he preferred to work at the weekends, the sooner to get his business done.

Jermaine smiled as she thought of him. She had missed seeing his happy sunny face. She would be glad to see him again. He was tall, good-looking and—her smile dipped a little—had broached the subject a month ago of some kind of ‘commitment’ from her. In fact Ash had called her old-fashioned in the extreme, because she was not prepared for them to become lovers in the true sense of the word.

She had wondered herself, since knowing him, if it was time to yield her stand. The stand she had taken six years ago when her beautiful sister, Edwina, had clapped her eyes on Pip Robinson, Jermaine’s first boyfriend, and decided that she’d like him for herself.

Jermaine recalled again the hurt she’d experienced then. She supposed she couldn’t have been all that fond of Pip because it hadn’t been his defection that had hurt so much. She had been more bruised by the fact that her sister—whom, it had very soon became apparent, had had no particular interest in Pip other than as another conquest—didn’t care that he was Jermaine’s boyfriend.

Suddenly Jermaine didn’t feel at all like smiling. Pip hadn’t been the only boyfriend Edwina had clapped eyes on and taken from her.

Jermaine made some coffee, musing that it wasn’t any wonder that, over the years, her decision not to make the sort of commitment Ash wanted her to make had become deeper and deeper entrenched.

But her smile came out again; all that had been before Ash. Ash was different. When she had been going out with him for about a month, she had grown to like him so much that she had begun to ponder occasionally about introducing him to her sister and taking the risk of everything falling apart.

She had pondered needlessly. Ash had met Edwina and—nothing. Not that Jermaine had ever come to any decision about introducing him to Edwina. Neither of the Hargreaves daughters lived with their parents any longer. But Jermaine and Ash had been driving through the Oxfordshire countryside one early September afternoon when she had happened to mention that her parents lived close by.

‘Don’t you think it’s time I met them?’ he had teased, as ever smiling. She had smiled back—most men ran a mile at the thought of meeting a girl’s parents.

She had tensed up, however, when, turning into her parents’ drive, she’d seen that she and Ash were not the only visitors that Sunday afternoon. Edwina’s sports car had been parked outside.

‘My sister’s here,’ she’d informed Ash, and had hidden her reluctance to go into the large old house she had been born in.

She need not have been concerned. Ash had been pleasant and courteous to her parents, and had smiled and been polite to Edwina, and that was all. Jermaine hadn’t missed the way her sister had gone into action—the smile, the breathless laugh, the big blue eyes attentive, absorbed in every syllable Ash uttered.

Ash had been unmoved as Edwina had flattered his choice of car and enquired—after an interval—what sort of profession he was in. ‘I’m in computer software,’ he had answered, and, probably because he was proud of his elder brother, ‘I work for my brother’s company, International Systems—I don’t know if you’ve heard of them?’

Edwina hadn’t, but Jermaine hadn’t doubted as her sister’s glance had taken in Ash’s discreetly expensive shoes and clothes, that she would soon be finding out all about the forward looking company—and its wealthy chairman—not to mention Ash, the chairman’s far from impoverished brother. Edwina liked money. Regretfully, Jermaine realised, that had been one of the chief reasons for Edwina calling on their parents that afternoon: because her bank account could do with topping up. Their father thought the world of Edwina and, although Edwin Hargreaves’s income had greatly reduced when the stock market had received something of a massive hiccup, Jermaine guessed that her father’s cheque was already residing in her sister’s purse.

Jermaine made herself some cheese on toast to go with her coffee, reflecting how more than two months had passed since that Sunday. It was now the beginning of December and, although she had since paid quite a few more visits to her family home—especially when her mother had gone down with flu—she had not again met Edwina there.

Jermaine’s thoughts drifted to her parents for a moment or two. She was aware that she was not her father’s favourite, but her mother had always sought to be scrupulously fair to both her children. Though, thinking back, Jermaine realised her pain over the Pip Robinson business had caused her mother pain too. Even then, though, when annoyed at her twenty-year-old daughter’s heartlessness, she had not remonstrated with her beautiful blonde off-spring but had striven instead to bolster up the shattered confidence of her younger platinum-haired daughter.

‘She doesn’t want him!’ Jermaine recalled complaining, vulnerable, shaken by Pip’s behaviour and hardly able to believe her sister could have acted in the way she had. ‘Just because she’s beautiful…’

‘You’re beautiful too,’ he mother had cut in gently, much to Jermaine’s astoundment.

‘Me?’ she’d gasped, conscious only that she was thin and seemed to be all arms and legs.

Grace Hargreaves had given her sixteen-year-old a hug. ‘You,’ she’d smiled, and, at Jermaine’s look of surprise, ‘You’re losing that gangly look, filling out in all the right places. Give yourself another year and you’ll see.’ And when Jermaine hadn’t looked convinced she’d added, ‘Your complexion is flawless, match that with your lovely violet eyes and you’re going to be outstanding.’

Jermaine had never known her mother tell her a lie, but wasn’t very sure about ‘outstanding’. ‘You don’t think the colour of my hair’s a little bit weird?’

‘Not in the slightest. Learn to love it,’ her mother had urged. ‘You really are a sight for sore eyes, sweetheart.’

Over the next couple of years, when her burgeoning curves had fulfilled their promise, Jermaine had come to accept and quite like her white-blonde hair. By that time, however, Edwina had used her wiles on any male friend her sister brought home, and it had soon become clear to Jermaine that, while there might be only four years’ difference between their ages, there was a vast difference between their natures. She would never, and could not ever, behave in the way Edwina did.

Edwina had not been at all happy when her father’s finances suffered a reversal—though not unhappy so much for him as for herself. Jermaine had been sixteen then, and had left school at once and got herself a job, but Edwina had no intention of working for a living. Her father had indulged her—she regarded it as her right.

Edwina was greedy but, when in sight of men, could be most generous if, by being so, it would get her what she wanted.

After another couple of boyfriends had succumbed to Edwina’s charms, Jermaine had known that she was never going to commit herself to any man unless she was certain that he wanted her and nobody else. There was no way she was going to give herself or go to bed with any man until she was two hundred per cent positive that it was her, and her alone, that he wanted. She was just not interested in any fickle affair where her sister could waltz in, bat her big blue eyes, smile that particular smile kept for such occasions—and take over. Good grief! Jermaine came to with a start, realised she had finished her light meal without being conscious of having eaten—and wondered what on earth had sent her off into reflective mode of things past.

Ash and the commitment he wanted from her, very probably, she realised. But Ash was different. True, her own tastes had changed. She had moved on from the lightweight males she had been drawn to up until a couple of years ago.

She supposed it was all part and parcel of growing up. Two years ago the company she worked for had invited her to transfer from their Oxford branch to their head office in London. It had been a very flattering offer. To go had not been a difficult decision to make. Edwina, while returning home when it suited her, had already moved out several times. She had then, however, been back again, and was lazy, untidy and given to treating Jermaine’s wardrobe as her own. Edwina was, in fact, generally a pain to live with, and at that time had shown no sign of moving out again.

‘Will you mind very much if I go?’ Jermaine had asked her mother—her one regret about leaving.

‘It’s not as if you’re going to Timbuktu,’ her mother had smiled—and with her blessing Jermaine had left Oxfordshire for London, and had taken residence in the small flat that Masters and Company had found for her.

Two years on, Jermaine was an established member of the sales support team. She worked with, and liaised with, the best field people in the business. Hard-working family men in the main. Sophisticated executives who had come to rely on her input, trusting her to follow up anything they initiated. She was good at her job, and loved it, and enjoyed the maturity of the men she worked with.

Three months ago she had been at a party with Stuart Evans—a man she shared an office with—when she had met Ash Tavinor. They had immediately got on well, and Jermaine hadn’t been totally surprised when a few days later Ash had phoned her at her office and enquired would he be stepping on anybody’s toes if he asked her out?

She’d liked him, and dined with him the very next evening. In no time she’d learned that he had just sold his apartment, more quickly than he had anticipated, and had not as yet found anything that had everything he wanted. He was still looking. In the meantime his brother had said he could move into his place and was welcome to stay as long as he liked.

‘That’s very good of him and his wife,’ Jermaine had remarked, only to learn that Ash’s brother, Lukas, was not married.

‘Lukas is away more often than he’s at home so we’re unlikely to see each other all that often,’ Ash had smiled.

A month later Ash had met her parents and—her sister. He had been totally impervious to Edwina’s charms, and from then on Jermaine had allowed herself to grow fond of Ash.

But now Ash had grown weary of her backing off every time the amorous side of his nature reared its head. He wanted that commitment from her. And she—wasn’t she being just a tiny bit stubborn? Hadn’t Ash proved himself? He was sincere. It was her and her alone that he wanted. Wasn’t she, as he’d said, being just a little bit old-fashioned? Wasn’t it time she…? The phone rang. Ash!

It must be him. He had been away two whole weeks now and she had thought every day that he might think to give her a call, but he hadn’t. True, he had told her he was going to be extremely busy…

She hurried to answer it. ‘Hello?’ she enquired brightly. It was Ash.

‘Jermaine—um…’ he began, though not cheerfully, not in his usual sunny tone. She was eager to talk to him, to ask how he’d been, how was work—she thought they knew each other well enough by now for her to ask when was she going to see him again. But—something wasn’t right! Instead of sounding eager to talk to her, Ash was sounding reluctant to talk to her at all and had said nothing after that ‘Jermaine—um…’

‘What’s wrong?’ she enquired, ready to help, wanting to help if he had a problem—or so she thought then!

‘I’ve—er—I’ve been putting off making this call,’ he confessed, and sounded so much as if he would by far prefer to be talking to anybody else but her that, as shaken as she was suddenly feeling, Jermaine felt her mammoth pride spring urgently into life.

She and Ash had spent some very good times together, but if his silence this past fortnight—no matter how busy he had been—meant he had gone off the idea of her and commitment, then she wasn’t about to let him think she’d be broken-hearted if he’d rung to say that this was ‘byebye’ time.

‘Let me make it easy for you,’ she answered lightly. ‘While I’ve truly enjoyed the good times we’ve shared, your absence this—er—past couple of weeks has shown me that, well, to be blunt, I’m not ready to make the commitment you spoke of. In actual fact,’ she hurried on, pride to the fore, ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that it would be better if we didn’t see each other again.’

‘Um…’ Ash still seemed stuck for words. ‘Actually, Jermaine, I wasn’t calling to—er—um…’ She waited. She still liked Ash, was still fond of him, but if he wasn’t phoning to say ‘It’s been nice knowing you’, then she hadn’t the first idea what his fourteen days of silence, or his stated, ‘I’ve been putting off making this call’ was all about. ‘The thing is…’ he seemed to gather himself together to begin to explain ‘…Lukas came home unexpectedly on Saturday.’

Two days ago. ‘You’re phoning from home? Your brother’s place?’ Jermaine questioned. Ash was still looking for the right property to purchase. ‘You’re back from Scotland?’

There was a tense silence from the other end. Then, to her surprise, Ash confessed, ‘I didn’t go to Scotland.’

He’d been away two weeks but hadn’t been where he had told her he was going? ‘Your plans changed?’ She concentrated on keeping her tone light. She still had no clue as to why Ash, if he hadn’t called to say goodbye, had put off making this call. But she was more astonished than surprised when at last he answered.

‘I never intended to go to Scotland,’ he confessed.

‘You never…? You lied to me?’ The lightness had gone from her tone.

‘I—couldn’t help it,’ Ash admitted. Jermaine’s feeling of astonishment went up tenfold and, at his next three words, it mingled with a sudden familiar sickness in the pit of her stomach. ‘Edwina and I…’

‘Edwina?’ Her voice had risen in her shock. ‘Edwina, my sister?’

‘We couldn’t help it. We fell in love, and…’

‘You’ve been seeing Edwina?’ Jermaine couldn’t take it in. ‘All the time you’ve been ringing me, dating me, you’ve been…’

‘It didn’t start out like that,’ Ash jumped in quickly.

Jermaine was reeling, but holding on—just. ‘I’m sure it didn’t!’ Oh, weren’t we on familiar territory! ‘It started out with me introducing her to you at my parents’ home over two months ago—have you been dating Edwina since then?’ Jermaine questioned sharply.

‘No!’ he protested. ‘And it didn’t start out as a “date”.’ Tell me about it! ‘Edwina was near my home, Highfield, Lukas’s place, when she had a puncture. You must have given her my phone number because, poor darling…’ Poor darling! I’m just loving this! ‘…she rang me with no idea what to do.’

Jermaine knew for a fact, since she had seen nor heard nothing from her sister this past couple of months, that by no chance had she passed on the telephone number of Highfield. ‘You had, of course?’

‘Yes,’ Ash answered.

‘You never mentioned Edwina’s “puncture” to me.’

‘She asked me not to.’ I’ll bet she did! ‘She thought you might be upset that she’d bothered me. I said you wouldn’t be but Edwina said she’d feel better if it was our little secret.’

How sweet! ‘So you asked her out and…?’

‘I didn’t. We—er—that is, Edwina found a glove in her car—it was your fathers, but she didn’t know that then. Not until after she’d called in at my office one day when she was passing. And, since it was close to lunch time, suggested that the least she could do after the inconvenience she’d put me to was to take me to lunch.’ Hook on to my line and let me pull you in! Edwina obviously hadn’t lost her touch. ‘Then you couldn’t see me—that weekend you went home to look after your mother when she had flu—and…’

‘Thank you for at last having the decency to tell me!’ Jermaine chopped him off. She didn’t want to hear any more; she could guess the rest. ‘Goodbye, Ash,’ she added with quiet dignity.

‘That wasn’t why I phoned!’ Ash cried in panic before she could put the phone down.

She hesitated. She needed time, space to lick her wounds. Edwina had done it again! ‘It wasn’t?’

‘Edwina’s had an accident!’

Fear struck her. She did not particularly like her sister—but that didn’t stop her from loving her. ‘What sort of an accident? Is she badly hurt? Where is she? Which hospit—?’

‘She isn’t in hospital. It isn’t as serious as that. She’s here—at Highfield.’

Highfield! ‘Your brother’s place? Edwina’s at your brother’s home?’

‘We’ve—er—had a little holiday here,’ Ash owned reluctantly. ‘She intended to go back to her place yesterday, but…’

Edwina had been holidaying with Ash! A two-week holiday! Jermaine was shaken anew. She supposed she shouldn’t really be shaken by anything Edwina did, so perhaps it was the fact it was Ash—her own boyfriend—correction, ex- boyfriend—who was her sister’s holiday boyfriend that was the real shaker. All this while Jermaine had thought him too up to his ears in work in Scotland to get near a phone—and he had been holiday all the while with her sister at his brother’s home in Hertfordshire!

But—Edwina was hurt in some way. ‘What’s wrong with her—what sort of an accident?’

‘As I said, Lukas came home unexpectedly on Saturday. He’s been away for about a month and was pretty shattered. So, to give him a chance to unwind a bit, I took Edwina down to the local riding stables and we hired a couple of horses. Only Edwina’s mount was a bit more spirited than we were told, and galloped off with her. When I caught up with them, Edwina was lying on the ground, stunned. She’d taken a dreadful tumble and hurt her back.’

‘What does the doctor say?’ Jermaine asked urgently.

‘Poor darling, she’s so brave—she’s refused point-blank to see a doctor.’

‘She’s refused…? Can she walk?’

‘Oh, yes. But with great difficulty. Between us, Mrs Dobson and I—she’s Lukas’s housekeeper—’ he explained, ‘got Edwina upstairs and into bed. She’s there now. She tried to insist on getting up, but when she fainted I made her stay exactly where she was.’

Fainted! Suspicions which she did not want began to stir in Jermaine’s mind. How well she remembered how conveniently Edwina would limp with some knee injury or other should she be called upon to do some errand she wasn’t keen on. Jermaine clearly recalled when she had been thirteen, Edwina seventeen, and Edwina, who had had her own small car, had been in a fury because her mother wouldn’t allow her to borrow her much larger and zippier car. There had been a fearful screaming match, Jermaine remembered. It had ended with Edwina flouncing out of the drawing room. Her mother had gone after her a minute later—and had found Edwina in a dead ‘faint’. Only Jermaine, who had rushed out at her mother’s call, had seen the way Edwina had surreptitiously peeped beneath her lashes to see how her ‘faint’ was going down. Not many weeks afterwards Edwina’s car had been changed for her first sports car.

‘So you see, Mrs Dobson has looked after Edwina, but now she’s busy with her other duties,’ Ash was going on. ‘And although I know I’ve got a colossal neck to ask it of you, I just had to ring to ask if you’ll come down to Highfield and look after your sister?’

‘Colossal neck’ was putting it mildly. ‘I’d better have a word with her,’ Jermaine answered coolly, feeling mean for her suspicions, but years of living with her sister had left few blindfolds.

‘She doesn’t know I’m ringing!’ Ash exclaimed. ‘She’d have a fit if she did. I didn’t want to ring at all, which is why I’m ringing so late after her accident. But Lukas has just asked what family Edwina has and seems to think that you, as her only sister, would be sure to want to come down to Highfield to look after her, so…’

‘Now wait a minute!’ Go down to Highfield? Go to look after her back-stabbing, excellent horse-woman sister who, more than probably—if past knowledge of her was anything to go by—had not hurt her back as badly as she was making out? ‘I’ve a job to go to. I can’t drop everything and come dashing down to Hertfordshire just because…’

‘Just because?’ He sounded horrified. ‘Edwina’s your sister…’ he began to remonstrate.

‘And she’s your girlfriend!’ Guilt at the small percentage of doubt that remained, because maybe Edwina had seriously injured her back, made Jermaine’s voice sharp. ‘You look after her!’ she told Ash, and discontinued the call.

She couldn’t rest, of course. Jermaine paced her small flat, furious with Ash, angry with Edwina—but plagued by conscience. Drat, and double drat. Then she remembered the mobile phone from which Edwina was never parted. In seconds Jermaine had dialled the number.

‘Hello?’ enquired a sweet, totally feminine voice.

‘Thanks for pinching Ash. How’s your back?’ Jermaine opened with sisterly candour.

‘He rang you?’ Edwina was clearly outraged, her sweet tone swiftly departing, sounding not the slightest abashed that Jermaine knew about her and Ash. ‘He had no right…’

Edwina could talk of right! ‘Why wouldn’t he ring—with you “suffering” the way you are.’

‘Stuff that—you should see his brother!’

Click. In that one sentence Jermaine, who knew her sister so well, had it all worked out. The wealthy elder brother, bachelor brother, had returned home unexpectedly and Edwina—never one to miss a chance and already established at Highfield—had no intention of removing herself from his orbit. Due to leave Highfield the next day, Edwina must have had her greedy little brain working furiously in her endeavour to find some way of lingering on at Highfield. Jermaine saw it all. Lukas Tavinor would be a much better catch than his brother. Poor Ash; like the proverbial hot coal, he would be dropped.

‘You’re a better rider than Ash?’

‘He’d barely settled in his saddle when I took off,’ Edwina boasted.

‘He wants me to come down and “look after” you.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Edwina shrieked.

‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to,’ Jermaine retorted, and hung up.

Well, she had no need to feel guilty any more, Jermaine fumed. All too plainly there was nothing wrong with Edwina’s back. Her ‘accident’ had merely been a means to an end. By the sound of it, the globe-trotting Lukas Tavinor was back in England for a short while—Edwina wanted to be ‘on the spot’ while he was still around, and before he went away again. And what Edwina wanted, she invariably got.

Jermaine was familiar with her sister’s tactics, yet even so it still shook her that there had not been a scrap of remorse from Edwina, or apology, for ‘holidaying’ with her younger sister’s boyfriend. Edwina had cared not a bit, nor felt any need to pretend when they’d been on the phone just now. She had not hurt her back, but took Jermaine’s loyalty for granted, assuming without question that she would not tell anyone what a humbug Edwina really was.

And the devil of it was, Jermaine fumed, Edwina was right. Edwina had done nothing to earn her loyalty, but she had it. She knew Jermaine wouldn’t be telling Ash what a fraud she was. But he had enough to learn. Jermaine went to bed wondering if he knew yet that he and Edwina were history.

By morning Jermaine was coming to terms with her ex-boyfriend’s duplicity and was starting to feel a little incredulous that she had ever given more than a passing thought to the sort of commitment Ash had wanted. Good grief, he was as fickle as the rest of them! She had been so sure about him too. So sure that he wasn’t remotely interested in Edwina.

Well, it was doubly certain now that the next man who dated Jermaine Hargreaves had better not try the ‘commitment’ angle. She positively was not interested. Come to that, she wasn’t interested in dating again either. She had a good job; she’d concentrate on that.

Thinking of which, Jermaine left her flat and drove to her place of work, aware as ever that something seemed to cut off in her when her boyfriends strayed in her sister’s direction—Jermaine was no longer attracted to them and Edwina was welcome to the spoils. One or two had come back, pleading for a second chance, but Jermaine just hadn’t wanted to know.

It was the same with Ash—she had lost interest in him. She had enjoyed his company but should he ever again ask her to go out with him then she would tell him, quite truthfully, thanks, but no thanks.

And, having moved on, Ash Tavinor would become someone she once knew, and would be no more than that—Jermaine got on with her work.

‘Coming for a swift half?’ Stuart Evans invited when they were clearing their desks for the day.

She had nothing else pressing, and Stuart was more a friend than anything else. No way could his invitation be construed as a date. ‘Since you ask,’ she accepted, and the ‘swift half’ turned out to be a bar meal. Jermaine arrived home around nine to hear her phone ringing.

‘It’s Ash,’ he said as soon as she answered.

Ash who? or Hi? Since she knew full well that there was nothing whatsoever the matter with Edwina, Jermaine simply couldn’t bring herself to enquire how she was. ‘How’s Ash?’ she enquired instead.

‘Look, Jermaine, couldn’t you come and look after Edwina? Not that there’s a lot to do,’ he added quickly. ‘The poor darling’s talking of going back to her place—she doesn’t want to be a nuisance. But I can’t let her do that and…’

‘In case you didn’t hear me last night—I have a job to go to.’ Jermaine cut him off, with no intention at all of going down to Highfield to hold her sister’s hand.

‘I never knew you were so hard!’ Ash complained.

Hard! ‘Let me put it this way. Edwina’s your holiday companion—take an extended vacation.’ There was a brief silence, but if Ash was drumming up some kind of an argument, Jermaine didn’t want to know. ‘Goodbye, Ash,’ she bade him, and had barely put the phone down before it rang again.

‘Have you no concern at all about your sister?’ enquired a harsh voice she had never heard before—though her mind was working overtime as to whom her caller might be.

Jermaine only just managed to bite back a snappy retort. She swallowed hard. ‘Good evening,’ she managed pleasantly.

‘Your place is here, looking after your sister, not staying out half the night.’

It was only a little after nine o’clock! Which monastery had he sprung from? Jermaine strove hard for control. ‘Have we been introduced?’ she tossed in shortly.

‘Lukas Tavinor!’ he barked—as she’d surmised, Ash’s brother. ‘Ash has an important meeting he can’t miss tomorrow. You’d better come now and…’

At which point Jermaine lost the small control she had over her annoyance with the whole lot of them. ‘ I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow!’ snapped she who hadn’t, not caring at all for his tone, much less his orders. ‘Edwina’s your guest—you look after her.’

A tense silence was her immediate answer. Followed by a clipped, ‘Ash was wrong to suggest I should try ringing you. You are as hard as he said you were.’

Jermaine’s breath caught. She didn’t even know this man, yet here he was ready to brand her—when all she’d done was to go out with his brother. This, and his brother’s duplicity, was what she received for her trouble!

‘That’s right,’ she agreed.

‘You won’t…?’

‘I won’t.’

‘My…’ He seemed to find her insensitivity beyond words.

‘Oh—go and play with your train set!’ she erupted, and abruptly terminated his call.

Suddenly she was the bad lot in all of this! Jermaine felt like throwing something. She didn’t even know the man. He didn’t know her. Yet, even so, he was ready to believe her to be heartless!

Well, on reflection she supposed it did look bad. But it wouldn’t look half so bad if Lukas Tavinor knew the truth—that all time she’d believed his brother was her boyfriend he had been dallying with her sister. Not that Jermaine was likely to tell him. And it certainly didn’t sound as if Ash had. But she could sit back with a feeling of relief; at least her parting remark had ended any odd chance that Lukas Tavinor Esquire might telephone her again.

Strangely, when the day before Jermaine had thought frequently of how when she had been cosily imagining Ash slaving away in Scotland he had been cosily having a fine old holiday with her sister, it seemed the following day to be his brother that occupied quite a few spare moments.

She’d got the impression that Lukas Tavinor had rather a nice voice, though there had been little to hear of it in the harsh way he had spoken to her. Who did he think he was anyway? He didn’t know her. In fact, he knew nothing about her. Other, of course, than what Ash and Edwina had told him.

While Jermaine wouldn’t put it past her sister to put a little poison down if it would elect some sympathy from Lukas Tavinor, Jermaine couldn’t think that the three months she had gone out with Ash counted for nothing. She had always thought him to have honesty and integrity. Which, if that was true, must mean he was pretty besotted by Edwina to have been carrying on a liaison with her while still going out with her sister.

All of which meant that Ash was going to be the one to be hurt when all of this was over. For, as sure as night followed day, Edwina was going to dump him when it suited her.

It was at that moment that Jermaine, finally over her shock at Ash’s behaviour, all at once realised that she would never have made that commitment to him which he had at one time wanted. She had been fond of him, but her emotions, she now knew, had not been any deeper than that.

Jermaine went home from her office having come to terms with Ash’s duplicity and realising that she still felt a little fond of him. Fond enough anyway to know that she didn’t want him to feel very badly hurt when Edwina gave him the big heave-ho.

Jermaine made herself something to eat, wondering again about his brother. Lukas sounded a particularly nasty piece of work. She smiled. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Edwina pulled it off? From the little she knew of Lukas—and, thank you very much, she didn’t want any more communication with him—they seemed exactly right for each other.

She was still having rosy dreams of one Edwina Hargreaves and one Lukas Tavinor giving each other hell when there was a ring at her doorbell. Thinking it might be one of her neighbours, Jermaine went to the door. But, on opening it, she saw not a neighbour but a tall, dark-haired, firm-jawed, mid-thirties man standing there.

The fact that he was immaculately suited told her he hadn’t come to read the electricity meter. Add to that the grim look about him, and Jermaine’s own anticipatory welcoming smile went into hiding.

He said nothing, this man, until those steady grey eyes had fully taken in her platinum-blonde hair—loose about her shoulders—her large violet eyes, and her slender yet curvaceous body.

‘And you are?’ She hadn’t intended to say a word.

‘Tavinor!’ he clipped.

Her insides gave a funny little squiggle. Grief—and she’d not long since decided she didn’t want anything further to do with him! ‘Which one?’ she snapped right back, knowing full well he had to be Lukas—surely there couldn’t be three of them!

‘You’re already acquainted with my brother, Ash, I believe.’

Like we’d had something going from strength to strength before I introduced my sister—oh, does she have a nice surprise waiting for you, Lukas Tavinor! How fast can you run? ‘We have met,’ Jermaine concurred.

‘Are we going to have this discussion on your doorstep?’ he demanded.

It wouldn’t have taken much for her to have said no and shut the door; end of discussion. But manners were manners, and, regrettably, she had a few. ‘Come in,’ she invited, and led the way to her small but, thanks to her mother’s insistence, very pleasantly carpeted and furnished sitting room.

Jermaine knew why he’d come. She opened her mouth to tell him ‘Not a chance’ but he got in first. ‘I thought perhaps I should call to personally appeal to you to come to Highfield to do your duty to your sister,’ he said without preamble.

You don’t appeal to me personally or any other way, Jermaine fumed, not taking kindly to that ‘duty’ dig. ‘I trust you haven’t come very far out of your way, for nothing,’ she hinted.

‘Aren’t you interested in your sister’s well-being?’ he demanded, her hint not lost on him.

For a moment she was stumped for a reply, but, since loyalty forbade her from telling him what a fraud her sister was being, Jermaine settled for, ‘I’m sure Edwina must be feeling better by now.’

‘Is that all you can say?’ he enquired harshly.

Jermaine had suddenly had enough of the whole of it. Ash, Edwina, and now him. ‘Look,’ she said snappily, ‘if you’re that concerned somebody should look after her, hire a nurse!’ He’d got pots of money—he could afford it.

‘I’ve offered to get a nurse in. Your sister wouldn’t hear of robbing some other patient of a nurses’ expert services.’

I’ll bet she wouldn’t hear of it. It wouldn’t take a nurse very long to realise that there was very little the matter with Edwina’s back. ‘Then Edwina will have to put up with it without a nurse!’ Jermaine stood her ground to tell Lukas Tavinor.

He didn’t like it; he didn’t like her tone. Jermaine could tell that from the slightest narrowing of his eyes. She had an idea that few opposed this man and got away with it. Oh, my word, that jaw looked tough.

‘And that’s your last word?’ he questioned grimly.

‘“Goodbye” seems a better one,’ she said sweetly, and didn’t miss the glint that came to his suddenly steely grey eyes the moment before she moved round him and went and opened the door wide.

Without a word he strode straight past her, and Jermaine closed the door after him and went back to her sitting room—and found that her hands were shaking.

For heaven’s sake, what was the matter with her? She’d repeated to Tavinor what she’d told him on the phone last night, that she was not going to go anywhere near Highfield, his home, to look after her sister. And that was the end of it—so why did she think that, somehow, she hadn’t heard the last of it?

CHAPTER TWO

MEMORY of a pair of grey eyes glinting steel made Jermaine leave her bed the next morning well before her alarm went off. Ridiculous, she fumed, as she showered and went over yet again Lukas Tavinor’s visit last night. She was giving the man far too much space in her head. For goodness’ sake, she hardly knew him—and no way on this earth could he make her go down to Highfield to ‘look after’ her sister.

Jermaine tossed him out of her head. Overbearing pig—who did he think he was? She went to work, however, with the feeling starting to creep in that she wasn’t too happy that anyone should think her the unfeeling kind of monster that Tavinor, and his younger brother, obviously believed her to be. But, since she couldn’t very well tell either of them what an utter sham her sister was, Jermaine knew that she was stuck with the ‘unfeeling monster’ label.

‘Come out with me tonight and make all my dreams come true?’ Tony Casbolt, ace flirt, waltzed into her office with his usual Thursday offer.

‘I’m shampooing the dog,’ she answered without looking up.

Tony knew as well as everyone else that she didn’t have a dog; he never gave up. ‘One of these days you’ll say yes, and I’ll be shampooing my cat,’ he threatened.

She laughed. She liked him. But she wasn’t laughing a half an hour later when she took a call from her mother. Her mother rarely phoned her at her office.

‘Are you all right?’ Jermaine asked quickly; her mother sounded rather strained.

‘I think so—but your father’s getting himself into a state.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jermaine questioned, ready to drop everything and dash to her parents’ home.

‘We’ve just had a visit from Ash Tavinor’s brother.’

‘Lukas!’ Jermaine exclaimed in absolute astonishment.

‘Oh, you know him?’ her mother asked, but didn’t wait for a reply as she went on, ‘I know you went out with Ash several times; you brought him here once. But he’s apparently been going out with Edwina since you stopped seeing him. Anyhow, she’s been staying at the Tavinor home, and has injured her back slightly. Since Lukas was passing this way, he called in to personally tell us not to be alarmed, but that she might feel better if one of us went to see her.’

He’d been to see her parents! Jermaine couldn’t believe it. The utterly unspeakable swine. Since Tavinor was passing, my aunt Mabel! The devious toad had made a special journey or she was a Dutchman.

‘I’ve spoken to her on the phone, and she’s fine.’ Jermaine immediately put her mother’s mind at rest.

‘You have? But you’ve not seen her?’

‘No,’ Jermaine admitted carefully.

‘I shall have to go and look after her. Your father won’t rest until one of us does, and you know how hopeless he is in a sickroom.

‘Mum, there’s no…’ ‘Need’ she would have said, but her mother interrupted.

‘I’ll have to. You know your father.’

Indeed she did. And at that point Jermaine knew, galling though it was to accept, that Tavinor, L. had won. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, as she knew she must. Her father would go on and on until one of them had seen and reported on Edwina. He would be beside himself if anything happened to her—it would be pointless telling him that his eldest daughter hadn’t hurt herself at all.

‘Will you love? I’ll go if…’

Jermaine wouldn’t hear of it. The bout of flu her mother had suffered had been particularly exhausting and she was only now getting back to her former strength. No way was Jermaine going to have her fetching and carrying for Edwina—as she knew full well Edwina would let her.

‘I’ll go and see her tonight after work. How’s that?’

‘And you’ll ring as soon as you can?’

Jermaine promised she would, and ended the call with steam very nearly coming out of her ears. How could he? How could he? Okay, so her parents weren’t in their dotage, but Tavinor hadn’t known that when he’d gone to see them.

Barely knowing what she was doing, she was so incensed, Jermaine grabbed the phone and dialled the number she had occasionally dialled when she’d needed to delay meeting Ash when work had taken precedence.

‘International Systems,’ answered a voice she remembered.

‘It’s not Ash I want this time—’ Jermaine put a smile in her voice ‘—but Lukas Tavinor. Is he in?’ Too late Jermaine realised what, in her fury, she had overlooked. If her parents had only just had a visit from Lukas Tavinor, then he couldn’t yet be back at his office.

‘I’m afraid he’s not answering, and his PA is off sick. Is it personal, or can anyone else…?’

‘May I leave a message for him to ring me? Jermaine Hargreaves.’ She gave her name, and also where she might be reached.

She was still angry when she went out for some air at lunchtime. Seeing the brightly lit shops all festive with Christmas decorations did nothing to calm her sense of outrage. In fact the more she thought of what Tavinor had done, the more furious she became. Suddenly a date with Tony Casbolt that night seemed a better idea than what she was committed to do.

She was still kicking against what she had to do when Stuart left the office, saying he’d be away about fifteen minutes. Only seconds later her loathing of what she had to do peaked, and she quickly dialled her sister’s mobile phone.

Unbelievably, Edwina wasn’t answering. Jermaine let go an exasperated sigh. So much for her notion to get Edwina to phone their parents to tell them she was fine. Not that there was any guarantee that Edwina would phone, even if she said she would.

Hating that Lukas Tavinor should dominate not only her thoughts but her actions as well—no way did she want to make that journey tonight—Jermaine rang his home. Ash answered. She put the phone down without speaking. What was the point?

It was just after four when the phone on her desk rang. Jermaine was glad that she again had the office to herself—her caller was Lukas Tavinor.

She did not thank him for returning her call, but in less than a second went from standing still into furious orbit. ‘How dare you descend on my parents?’ she blazed. ‘How dare…’

‘You have my address?’ Obviously a very busy man, he chopped her off mid-rant, and Jermaine hated him with a vengeance. This arrogant pig of a man, this overbearing, odious rat, was totally confident she would be going to his home that night. She was too choked with rage to speak. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer me to call for you on my way home,’ he suggested smoothly.

Jermaine took a deep and semi-controlling breath. ‘I’ll make my own way!’ she snapped. ‘Where do you live?’

She hated him afresh, because there was a smile in his voice as he gave her directions. And she wasn’t sure, had he been near, that she wouldn’t have hit him, when, silkily, he added, ‘Don’t forget your nightie and a toothbrush.’

Jermaine slammed the phone down. What a skunk! She wasn’t staying that long. A quick look at Edwina so she could truthfully tell her parents that Edwina had ‘fully recovered’, then she would be back in her car and on her way. She would be sleeping in her own bed that night.

Events, however, transpired against her. She was ten minutes away from leaving her desk to go home to grab a quick bite to eat—no way was she going to dine at that man’s table—when Chris Kepple, one of her favourite executives, phoned in asking her if she could get a quote and some brochures out that night.

‘I’m sorry to drop it on you this late, but I’ve been with my client all day and I wouldn’t like him to feel our efficiency is any less brilliant than he’s sure it is. You can scold me the next time you see me,’ he promised.

Jermaine laughed. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she answered, and took down the details of his day’s business and got on with it. She eventually finished her day’s work at seven-thirty, and was halfway to her flat before she unwound sufficiently from that last couple of hectic hours to consider she might have done better to have driven straight to Hertfordshire. It was a foul night—wind, rain, storm and tempest—and she could have been part way there by now.

Rain lashed the windows as she stood in her kitchen eating a hasty sandwich and drinking a quick cup of coffee. She still had not the smallest intention of staying overnight at Highfield but, just in case she hadn’t found the place by midnight and had to put up at some hotel, she tossed a few things in an overnight bag and went out to her car.

The rain had lessened as Jermaine headed her car in the direction of Hertfordshire. She drove along reflecting that, for the sake of her parents’ peace of mind, she was going to have to fulfil this wild goose chase—and realising that no matter how late she got there she would have to telephone them; they were waiting for her call.

Rain began again before she was anywhere near to Highfield. Deluging down thick and fast, too fast for it to drain quickly away from the country roads on which she was travelling. The result being that she had to check her speed and cautiously make her way.

She mutinied against her sister, she mutinied against Ash Tavinor, but most of all she mutinied against Lukas Tavinor, who that day had had the unmitigated effrontery to go and see her parents.

By the time Jermaine eventually came to Highfield she was not very taken with any of its inhabitants. This was ridiculous, totally ridiculous. There was nothing in the world the matter with Edwina. Nothing at all. It was only because of wretched sisterly loyalty, Jermaine fumed, that she had been unable to tell anybody about it. That Edwina did not feel the same loyalty to her, or she would never have made a play for Ash, didn’t seem to alter anything. Jermaine sighed. Stupid though she knew it was, she couldn’t help remaining loyal to Edwina.

Highfield, as its name suggested, was built on highish ground, and as Jermaine steered her way she was glad to find there were no more stretches of water to negotiate around; all water was running downhill.

Her feeling of mutiny against the house’s occupants dipped slightly when she noticed that someone had left the porch lights on, as if to guide her. She studied the stone façade of the elegant old building; she found it truly quite lovely.

But this would never do. Giving herself a mental shake, Jermaine left her car and sprinted for cover from the torrential downpour. Under the cover of the stone-pillared porch, she rang the doorbell. She was not kept waiting very long.

Lukas Tavinor himself pulled back the stout front door and for several seconds just stood looking at her. But Jermaine had had enough of this. He might be tall, he might be dark, he might be good-looking, but rain was pelting in at her and she did not want to be here anyway.

‘You want a discussion on your doorstep?’ she questioned disagreeably, and disliked him some more when she actually thought she saw his lips twitch. If he was laughing at her she’d…

‘Where’s your case?’ he asked.

Jermaine, confused that he might be laughing at her, angry at him and this whole wretched business, and having fallen instantly in love with his house, found she was telling him, ‘It’s in my car.’

In the next second she had got herself into more of one piece, but by then he was ushering over his threshold while telling her, ‘I’ll get it later. Come in out of this rain.’

The inside lived up to the outside, all lush warm wood panelling hung with various oil paintings. But as she stood there while Tavinor closed the door Jermaine reminded herself that she wasn’t here on any pleasure trip, and her case, in this instance her overnight bag, was staying exactly where it was—in her car.

‘Where’s Edwina?’ Jermaine questioned promptly. Get this over with and she was out of here.

‘In the drawing room.’

She’d managed to drag herself out of bed, then? Though, of course, since Lukas Tavinor and his bank balance were what Edwina cared about, she’d hardly be likely to ensnare him while hiding herself away in bed.

‘You’ve told Edwina I was coming?’ Jermaine asked as he escorted her along the hall.

She was looking at him as he glanced to her and shook his head. ‘I thought we’d give her a nice surprise,’ he answered blandly, so blandly that for a fleeting moment Jermaine had an uncanny kind of feeling that this clever man staring down at her so mildly had seen through Edwina. Had seen through her and was on to all her wiles.

Oh, heavens! Though before she could blush from the embarrassment of thinking that Edwina was making a fool of herself, Jermaine countered any such idea. Men fell for Edwina like ninepins. Lukas Tavinor might be clever in business, but he was a man, wasn’t he? Besides which there was nothing in his expression now to so much as hint that he knew Edwina was playing to the gallery.

Then he was opening the drawing room door. How cosy! There was Edwina, feet up on the sofa. There was Ash…Though, come to think of it, Jermaine had seen him looking happier.

‘Jermaine!’

It was not her sister who exclaimed her name but Ash, as he beamed a smile at her and hurried over. ‘You came!’ he cried, and appeared so pleased to see her he bent as if to kiss her.

Jermaine gave him a frosty look for his trouble, but as she pulled back of out his reach she caught his elder brother speculatively observing them. She met Lukas’s gaze full-on, and let him have a helping of frost too.

She wanted out of there! None of these people were doing her blood pressure the slightest good. One way and another she seemed to have been in a permanent state of anger ever since Ash’s phone call three days ago. Since his brother had joined in the act, two days ago, she had gone from mere vexation to a constant state of uproar!

Jermaine decided to ignore both men and approached the sofa where her sister was so prettily draped. Edwina was too good an actress to show her displeasure while the others were in the room, but Jermaine knew her well enough not to miss the hostility in her ‘What are you doing here?’

‘How are you feeling?’ Jermaine asked, hating the role she was forced to play—but it was that or show her sister up as the fraud she was.

‘Oh, I’m much, much better.’ Edwina smiled fragilely.

‘Edwina’s been so brave.’ Ash joined them to look down at his new love.

There didn’t seem much of an answer to that, Jermaine fumed. But she’d already had enough of perjuring her soul by asking Edwina how she was. Jermaine turned and saw that Lukas Tavinor was still silently observing the tableau. Though, since his expression was inscrutable, what he was thinking was anybody’s guess.

‘May I use your phone?’ she asked, tilting her chin a proud fraction. It was humiliating having to come here and start play-acting—but it was all his fault. If he hadn’t deliberately gone to see her parents…

‘There’s a phone in the hall,’ he replied evenly, and went with her from the drawing room and out into the hall. Though his tone had toughened, she noticed, when, as she looked about the wide and splendid hall for a phone, he abruptly challenged, ‘Won’t the boyfriend wait?’

Get him! ‘For ever, if need be,’ she answered snootily—like she was going to tell him she’d been dumped by her boyfriend, his brother, in favour of her sister.

‘You’ve only just got here—did you promise to ring him as soon as you’d landed?’

Jermaine stared at him, her lovely violet eyes going wide. What was this? ‘Thanks to you, and your colossal cheek in alarming my parents, I need to ring them to tell them that Edwina isn’t as badly hurt as you must have made out to them,’ she hissed.

He smiled. She hated him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make your call in the privacy of my study?’ he offered, and was leading the way before she could hit him.

She hadn’t seen him smile before, though. And, while she was still angry with him, she had to admit there was something fairly shattering about him when he smiled. His smile seemed infectious, somehow. Not that she was going to smile back—perish the thought.

Nor was she smiling a minute later when—so much for privacy—he closed his study door—but with him on the inside. ‘Thank you,’ Jermaine said nicely. He didn’t budge. She looked pointedly at the door—he seemed to find his turned-off computer of interest. Jermaine turned her back on him, picked up the phone and dialled. Her father answered straight away. ‘Edwina’s fine,’ she told him, knowing that that was what he wanted to hear in preference to anything else.

‘You’ve seen her?’

‘I’m with her now.’

‘Can’t she come to the phone herself?’

‘Well, I’m not actually in the same room,’ Jermaine explained. ‘I’m at Highfield, Ash’s place.’ She was aware of the elder Tavinor breathing down her neck and, though when she never, ever got flustered, she started feeling all edgy inside. ‘Well, it’s his brother Lukas’s place, actually,’ she corrected.

‘That would be the man who came to see us this morning?’

‘He shouldn’t have,’ she rallied. If he was staying to hear her private conversation, he could hear this as well. ‘He had no right at all to call and to worry you so. He…’

‘He had every right, Jermaine,’ her father retorted sharply. ‘I’ve since spoken to Ash, and he tells me you knew on Monday that your sister was injured. You should have told me straight away!’

‘But…’

‘It was you who had no right not to tell us. Your mother said you’d spoken to Edwina, but I thought it was only today you’d spoken to her. Ash Tavinor told me you’ve known she was injured since Monday.’

Jermaine was not very happy at being taken to task by her father, and, had not Lukas Tavinor been listening to her every word, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have told her father that his dear Edwina was only pretending to have hurt her back for her own ends. He’d be furious with his younger daughter, of course, but, while he had never been able to see any wrong in Edwina, surely he couldn’t be so completely blinkered to some of his eldest daughter’s less loveable traits?

But Lukas Tavinor was listening and all Jermaine could think of to say to her father was, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So you should be. Ash wants you to stay with Edwina—just mind that you do.’

Jermaine sighed. She was used to coming second where her father and Edwina were concerned. ‘I’ll get Edwina to ring you tomorrow,’ she promised.

‘Not if it’s going to cause her pain to come to the phone. You can ring me to tell me what sort of a night she’s had.’

‘Give my love to Mum,’ Jermaine said quietly and put the phone down ready to strangle her sister—and not feeling too well disposed to the man who strolled into her line of vision either. ‘I hate you,’ she snapped, tossing him a belligerent look.

‘That makes a change,’ he replied urbanely. ‘Women are usually falling at my feet.’ Jermaine added seething dislike to her look. He grinned. ‘Did your father give you hell?’

‘Thanks to you.’

‘You should have come when you were called,’ Lukas replied, totally unabashed.

‘I came, I saw,’ she answered shortly, ‘and I’m going home.’

‘Oh, your father wouldn’t like that,’ Lukas mocked.

‘You’d tell him?’ she questioned, staring at him in dis-belief.

‘You bet I would.’

What a swine the man was. ‘Why?’ she asked angrily.

‘Why?’ He shrugged. ‘Because Mrs Dobson, my treasure of a housekeeper, is getting on in years, that’s why. Because she gets upset at the thought of retiring and wants to keep on working, I wouldn’t dream of letting her go. That doesn’t mean I want her running upstairs ten times a day to attend to your sister when that job is so obviously yours—that’s why!’

Jermaine came close then to telling him that there was nothing wrong with her sister. But he wouldn’t believe her anyhow, would again think her hard and unfeeling and prepared to blacken her injured sister’s name rather than stay and do her sisterly duty. Jermaine felt then that she had taken enough. But, having come near to denouncing her sister and letting them all go to the devil, she discovered that family loyalty was still stronger than her own fed-up feelings. Because she couldn’t do it. Instead, her tone firm and unequivocal, she told him bluntly, ‘I’ll stay tonight. But I’m going to work—at my office—in the morning.’

Grey eyes stared hard into her wide violet eyes. Then he smiled, a gentle smile, and her insides acted most peculiarly. ‘Allow me to show you to your room,’ he suggested quietly.

That gentle smile, his quiet manner, seemed to have the strangest effect on her. Because, instead of mutinying some more that her plans appeared to be getting away from her, Jermaine found she was standing meekly by while he went out into the foulness of that stormy night and collected her overnight bag from her car.

Unprotesting, she went up the wide wooden staircase with him, turning right and going along the landing with him to a room at the far end. He opened the door to a beautifully furnished room with not a speck of dust to be seen, the double bed already made up. Jermaine did protest then.

‘I shouldn’t have come.’

‘I asked you to come. Pressed you to come,’ Lukas reminded her.

‘All I’ve done is given your Mrs Dobson more work.’

‘My Mrs Dobson has help during the week,’ he answered, a teasing kind of note in his voice, his grey eyes fixed on Jermaine’s regretful look. ‘Sharon probably “did and dusted”. Now, you get settled here and I’ll get you something to eat.’

That surprised her. ‘ You will?’

‘Knowing you were on your way to look after your sister, I have given Mrs Dobson the night off. What kept you, incidentally?’

‘I worked late,’ Jermaine replied—before it abruptly came to her that she was being far too friendly with someone who had more or less coerced her to come to his home that night—a man she had not so very long ago declared she hated. ‘And I’ve already eaten,’ she added snappily, ‘so you can leave your chef’s hat on its peg!’

His eyes narrowed at her tone, and he took a step towards the door. ‘And there was me trying to be pleasant,’ he commented, and she guessed he had more from instinct than desire accidentally fallen into the role of host—ensuring that his guest wanted for nothing.

‘You don’t have to bother on my account,’ she retorted. And just in case he thought she might be joining them downstairs once she had ‘settled’, ‘I’m going to bed!’ she announced firmly. ‘I need to be up early in the morning.’

‘Presumably you intend to help your sister comfortably into bed before you put your lights out. That, after all, is why you’re here.’

Jermaine glared at him. Ooh, how she hated him. She was here because she had no option. She did not thank him that he had just reminded her that, but for her being there to do her family duty, he wouldn’t have given her house room.

She sent him a seething look of dislike, which speared him not at all, and he favoured her with a steely grey-eyed look and went from her room.

Men! She hated the lot of them. Well, perhaps that was a bit sweeping. She liked the men she worked with, and her father most of the time. But the Tavinor brothers—pfff!

Because she knew she was going to go and have a few words with her sister at whatever time the ‘invalid’ decided she must return to her room, Jermaine unpacked her bag, showered and donned her nightdress and the lightweight robe she had thought to throw in. A very short while later she heard sounds that indicated that Edwina was being ‘assisted’ up the stairs.

Some minutes later Jermaine was wishing she had thought to ask Tavinor which room was her sister’s. She didn’t fancy going along the landing trying all doors until she came to the right one—though she wouldn’t mind waking up Tavinor if he was already fast asleep.

Then someone came and knocked at her door. She discounted that it might be Edwina—she’d be ‘struggling’ to walk at all. Jermaine went and opened her door, and as Lukas Tavinor stared down at her, his eyes going over her face, completely free of make-up, so she felt stumped to say a word.

He seemed pretty much the same, she thought, then immediately cancelled any such notion. Because, although that gentle look was there about him again, he wasn’t at all stuck for words. However, what he had to say was the last thing she would have expected him to say.

For softly it was that he murmured, ‘You know, Jermaine, you’re incredibly beautiful.’

Her heart gave a jerky beat and she wasn’t sure her mouth didn’t fall open. She firmed her lips anyway, when she saw his glance go to her mouth, and from somewhere she gained some strength to tell him acidly, ‘I’m still not falling at your feet!’

He was amused; she could see it in his eyes, in the pleasant curve of his mouth. He didn’t laugh, but stared at her for a moment longer before, ‘Damn!’ he mocked. ‘In that case—your sister’s in the room three doors down. The first one at the top of the landing.’

Which, Jermaine realised as he turned and went back the way he had come, was what he had come to let her know. Clearly he didn’t fancy his sleep being disturbed if she tried his room when she decided to go looking for her sister.

Jermaine found Edwina’s room without any trouble. Her light tap on the door before she went in ensured that Edwina was sitting down looking suitably helpless when Jermaine had the door open. By the time she’d closed the door after her, however, Edwina was angrily on her feet, her glance on Jermaine’s night attire having made it plain she was staying the night.

‘It didn’t take you long to get established,’ she snorted.

‘I didn’t expect you to be thrilled.’

‘Why did you have to come at all?’ Edwina demanded hostilely.

‘You think I wanted to? Lukas went to see Mum and Dad this morning. He…’

‘Did he now?’ Edwina was soon smiling. ‘He must be worried about me to do that. Perhaps he’s falling in love with me.’

Jermaine was side-tracked. ‘What makes you say that? Has he…?’

‘There are signs,’ Edwina purred. ‘Little looks here and there. Small indications.’

Jermaine didn’t want this conversation after all. ‘What about Ash? I thought he was your “man of the moment”.’

‘You can have him back any time you want him.’ Edwina shrugged. ‘I’m no longer fishing for tiddlers.’

Thanks for nothing! ‘How does Ash feel about this?’

‘Good Lord, I haven’t told him—and don’t you, either,’ she warned. ‘Naturally, being in so much pain, I at once made sure I had my own room. Ash moved my stuff out of his, like the gent he is, and Lukas will probably never know that Ash and I were that close.’

She really was a heartless madam, Jermaine fumed. She might have been in love with Ash, for all Edwina knew, but did that stop her from letting her know that she and Ash had been bedroom lovers? Did it blazes! Jermaine knew then that she would be wasting her time remonstrating with her.

‘Mum and Dad are very worried about you,’ she said instead. ‘I told Dad you’d ring him tomorrow.’

‘The batteries are flat on my mobile. I didn’t think to bring my charger.’

‘I’m sure somebody will carry you to a phone if you ask nicely,’ Jermaine suggested, knowing from experience that Edwina would ring if she felt like it, but if she didn’t she wouldn’t bother.

Edwina obviously didn’t take kindly to Jermaine’s manner. ‘And I’m sure you’ve stayed long enough to have helped me into bed half a dozen times,’ she hinted nastily.

Jermaine looked at her lovely blonde-haired, blue-eyed sister, and suddenly no longer felt it would be justice if Edwina managed to ensnare Lukas Tavinor. Somehow, just then, Jermaine felt that he deserved better.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS still dark when Jermaine awoke the next day. She lay there for a while, recollecting where she was. For someone who had never intended to stay the night, she realised, she had slept very well.

She knew she should get up and start her day—but not just yet. Strangely, where spending a night at Highfield had never been in her plans, now she somehow felt most at home here.

Which was absurd, she decided, pushing back the covers and reaching for the lamp switch. Light flooded the superb room. Work, she decided firmly. She had a long way to go, and she wanted to get Edwina’s breakfast and take it up to her. Correction. She didn’t want to do anything of the sort. But if she didn’t get Edwina’s breakfast Mrs Dobson would be expected to do it.

Dawn had not broken when she showered and dressed. Since she could not hear noises of other occupants astir, Jermaine lingered in her room, stripping her bed and putting her belongings into her overnight bag. When one last check of her room showed there was nothing else she could do to save Mrs Dobson more work, Jermaine silently left her room.

A light burning in the hall indicated that either someone was up or that the light had been left on overnight. Someone was up, Jermaine realised when she went to the main door and found it was already unbolted.

She saw neither hide nor hair of anyone, though, when she took her overnight bag out to her car and triggered off the outside security lights.

She didn’t get to stow her bag, however, because, looking about this idyllic spot, she found her attention drawn to the elegant lamps which stood on stone posts way down the long, long drive. They had been switched on, but it was not the grounds of Highfield that particularly interested her just then—but what lay beyond. It—couldn’t be? Light reflecting on—water?

Staring incredulously, Jermaine set off down the drive. She did not want to believe what her eyes were telling her, but the nearer she got to the end of the drive so she had to believe it. The road beyond was flooded!

With dawn starting to break, but determined not to trust the evidence of her eyes, she skirted the rain-sodden gardens—only to find yet more water. Unbelievably, they were cut off! No way was she going to be able to drive through that lot—she’d be waterlogged long before she came to any main road.

Still staggered, and unwilling to admit defeat—she had a job to go to, for goodness’ sake—Jermaine trudged on. She was going to go to work. She was, she was! Though, as she surveyed the scene, she owned that she didn’t very much fancy being stranded in the middle of a moat, should her car go so far, decide it wasn’t amphibious and pack up on her.

Jermaine was some way from the house, and had skirted round the rear of the building and its outbuildings, when she came unexpectedly to a little footbridge. She went over to it and stared down at the torrent of water that was splashing about in the small stream below. Then she spotted a nearby bench and went over to it. Strangely, then, as she sat down to collect her thoughts, a feeling akin to peace started to wash over her. Should that torrent ever steady down to a ripple this would be a most tranquil spot. Even now the scene—grassy banks, the bridge, even the water—had great charm.

She guessed it hadn’t rained for a couple of hours now; the bench she was seated upon was wind dried. Yet, oddly, the lighter it got and the longer she stayed there—while she was still extremely anxious to leave Highfield this morning—Jermaine discovered she began to feel less anxious than she had.

It was this place, this spot, she realised, having, without being aware of it, started to take in her surroundings. It was winter now, of course, but even when damp and flooded, and with half of the trees having shed their leaves, there was something exquisite, serene, about the spot, about the willow tree bending over the stream, the dear little wooden bridge, the silence, the peace and quiet, the…

‘You’re up and about early,’ remarked a voice, well modulated and, strangely, not disturbing the scene.

Jermaine looked up. ‘It’s lovely here,’ she answered Lukas Tavinor, quite without thinking.

‘You find this corner a bit special?’ he enquired, coming to share her bench.

‘Isn’t it, though?’ she replied. ‘So serene. You could just sit here and forget all your troubles…’ She broke off, astounded—wasn’t that exactly what she had just been doing? She didn’t even like Lukas Tavinor, yet here she was having a friendly conversation with him! She swiftly remedied that. ‘How are you going to get to work today?’ she demanded.

Her change of tone was not lost on him. ‘I’m not,’ he replied evenly.

‘You’re taking the day off?’

‘I doubt I’ll sit at home and do nothing.’

Lucky him! He’d got a study. ‘How long before this floodwater clears?’ she asked grumpily, with ideas of perhaps being able to drive out around mid-morning.

‘Difficult to say. If it doesn’t rain again before Monday…’

‘Monday!’ she gasped, and had her attention drawn to her feet when, ignoring her exclamation, it appeared Tavinor had been studying them.

‘While I have to say I doubt I’ve ever seen a prettier pair of ankles, those shoes are never going to be the same again,’ he remarked.

Jermaine stared at her neat two-and-a-half-inch-heeled shoes. They were black, but since they were now caked in mud they could have been any colour.

‘I’ve got better things to do than sit here all day,’ she abruptly decided, and was on her feet and marching away from him.

He did not fall into step with her, and she told herself she was thankful for that. No doubt he’d been out and about checking for any damage to his property from the storm. Pretty ankles indeed! Was that the sort of nonsense he used on her sister? Was that the kind of thing that made Edwina think he was falling for her? Jermaine thought not. Edwina knew men and…

Edwina! Oh, grief. Monday! She could be stranded here until Monday! Play-acting—going along with this ridiculous farce because Edwina was after Lukas Tavinor! Going along with it for the next three days!

It was farcical. She wouldn’t…Loyalty, family loyalty tripped her up. Even while Jermaine fumed against it and made herself remember how, from childhood onwards, Edwina had always taken anything that was hers, be it a toy, a game, a boyfriend, she still felt this nonsensical family loyalty to her, and knew that no matter how much she kicked against it she wouldn’t give Edwina away.

Feeling thoroughly out of sorts, and this morning revising her last night’s opinion and deciding that Lukas Tavinor did deserve a fate going by the name of Edwina, Jermaine slipped off her shoes and re-entered the house.

By instinct she found the kitchen, and Mrs Dobson. ‘I’m Jermaine Hargreaves,’ she introduced herself to the plump, sixty-something housekeeper. ‘Am I going to be very much in your way if I clean my shoes at your sink?’

‘I’ll do them for you…’

Jermaine wouldn’t hear of it, and for the next half an hour stayed in the kitchen chatting with Mrs Dobson, when that lady wasn’t popping in and out to the breakfast room. And, since Jermaine had told Tavinor that she had better things to do, yet wasn’t able to get to her place of work, she assured the housekeeper that she was there to help.

Jermaine had a bit of breakfast with the housekeeper, and, having got on famously with her, insisted on preparing Edwina’s breakfast. Another half an hour later and Jermaine was carrying a tray up the stairs.

She was nearing the top when a door opened on the opposite side of the landing from where she and Edwina had their rooms, and Jermaine saw Lukas appear from what she presumed was his room.

They met at the top of the stairs. ‘Looking after your sister, I see,’ he remarked with a glance to the tray she was carrying. Jermaine wasn’t sure, had not her hands been full, that she wouldn’t have thumbed her nose at him—she was certain she’d heard a mocking sort of note in his voice. As it was, all she could do was walk past him without a word.

Edwina was still in bed, but wasn’t pleased to see her. ‘I didn’t expect you to still be here!’ she exclaimed nastily.

That makes two of us. ‘It’s either me or a nurse, apparently,’ Jermaine answered, unable to resist seeing the whites of her sister’s eyes.

‘Heaven forbid!’ Edwina roused herself.

Jermaine took the tray over to her. ‘How long do you intend to keep up this pretence?’ she asked forthrightly.

‘What’s it to you?’ Edwina asked disagreeably, her sneering tone flicking Jermaine on the raw and causing her to say more than she would have.

‘Since you ask—and aside from the fact that you’ve got both your parents, your father in particular, in a state worrying about you, not to mention that you’re disrupting the whole household here, expecting to be waited on—were it not for your injury, I would be at work today, earning my living. And talking of earning a living,’ Jermaine flared, ‘it wouldn’t hurt you to get off your back and find yourself a job.’

‘Work! Me!’ Edwina exclaimed as if she’d been shot. ‘I wasn’t brought up to work!’ That was true, Jermaine had to agree. Their father had indulged Edwina past spoiling. ‘Dad wouldn’t want me to soil my hands…’

‘But you must know he can no longer afford to be as generous to you now as he was in the past.’

‘He doesn’t have to be, not for much longer,’ Edwina purred, and Jermaine knew then, if she hadn’t known already, that Edwina would latch on to any man who had money. In this case, Lukas Tavinor. Wasn’t that the sole reason Edwina was still at Highfield? ‘I’ll say goodbye now,’ Edwina went on as Jermaine, again for some unknown reason not thrilled that Lukas might be ensnared, went to the door. ‘Just phone Lukas at his office and tell him that I became so distressed at taking you away from your boring old job that I insisted you leave at once.’

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