“For a moment there, you made me forget everything.” Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT Teaser chapter Copyright

“For a moment there, you made me forget everything.”

Leo continued. “We were lovers again—but lovers as we’d never been before. And then I realized that some other man—or men—must have been teaching you the art of love.”

“No!” she wailed.

“I wish I could believe you!” he said fervently. “I wanted to be that man, Ginny!”

“Leo, I—I wanted you to...care for me, to help me,” she jerked out.

“Sure. You let me have you because you wanted something. Now I do believe the stories about you.”

“I am innocent, Leo,” she said, wondering if she could ever crack that icy regard.

“I should have seen it coming. I can’t entirely blame you. That’s the kind of world you entered. But you’re right. Our worlds don’t mix. Pack your things. You’ve got an hour to be out of here. Leave nothing behind to remind me of a very bad mistake I made. We’re finished, Ginny.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Sara Wood’s colorful new trilogy. The series is full of family intrigue, secrets, lies and, of course, love. It involves the St. Honoré family, which has a reputation second to none in Saint Lucia. Mandy, Ginny and Amber are drawn into this notorious family and the secrets of its past. Each of these intrepid heroines is looking for love and each of them will find it—but only where they least expect it! But then, as you’ll discover, in this series things are rarely as they seem!

In White Lies (#1910), Mandy Cook is desperate to find her father, and perhaps Vincente St. Honoré can help her. If she can ever find him! For first she must wrest herself from the arms of his commanding and charismatic son—Pascal.

In Scarlet Lady, Ginny MacKenzie is a successful fashion model, but her worst nightmares are confirmed as she is wrongly branded a scarlet lady by the press and loses her husband, the Hon. Leo Brandon, as a result. It is only when, two years later, she decides to search for love elsewhere that Ginny is reunited in Saint Lucia with the man she has always loved—Leo! The question is, why is he there?

In Amber’s Wedding (#1922), Amber Fraser has just married Jake Cavendish, not for love but for convenience, companionship and to secure a father for her unborn child. On their wedding day Jake reveals to Amber a secret that will change her life. A secret that will finally reveal the truth about the St. Honoré family. They honeymoon in Saint Lucia where love appears to blossom after all—until Amber discovers Jake’s real motive for marrying her. You can read Amber’s story in November 1997.

Happy reading!

The Editor

Scarlet Lady

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With my grateful thanks to Mrs. Joan Devaux,

Gary Devaux, Maria Monplaisir

and all at Anse Chastanet

CHAPTER ONE

SHE’D lost. To the tune of nearly a million pounds in costs. A million pounds! Ginny sat frozen and immobile while the words roared around her head and slowly, brutally their meaning became clear. All her efforts to make herself financially independent—the self-denial, the relentless sacrifices which had begun to threaten her marriage—were to be wiped away by a judge’s decision.

Her perfectly painted mouth trembled. The sacrifices had been too great. She’d lost almost everything because she’d decided to sue the newspaper which had printed outrageous lies about her. The court had upheld the journalist’s story and she had been ordered to pay all of the defendant’s costs.

Yet she was innocent! Ginny all but sobbed in despair. She loved her husband—and her self-respect—too much to sleep around. It appalled her that anyone would believe she’d furthered her career by doing so.

As the room whirled in a kaleidoscope of colour, a friendly arm came around her shoulder. ‘Ginny,’ said her bodyguard gently, ‘let’s get out of here, huh?’

The arm steadied her. Now she focused on a sea of faces, all looking at her. She was used to scrutiny, though not for this reason. From force of habit she smoothed her face of any revealing expression and eased down her breathing till it was normal.

‘Sure, Chas,’ she said evenly. And she thought that few people must realise how hard she had to work to control her voice, her eyes, her limbs as she uncoiled her near-six-foot length and gracefully shrugged on a fake fur coat against the bitter cold that awaited outside. ‘Take me home,’ she said gratefully, aware that only Chas knew how badly she was shaking and how deeply the verdict had wounded her sense of decency and pride.

She needed Leo. Her darling husband. The man she’d loved from the moment their eyes had first met. It was all she could think of—Leo’s arms around her, comforting her, cradling her and murmuring soothing words of tender love.

The Press were already exploding flashes in her face, even in the courtroom, shouting cruel questions that made her wince. Like ‘Where’s your husband, Ginny?’ That hurt. If only he’d been by her side instead of administering an estate that had managers galore!

She drew in her breath when she thought of Leo and how disappointed she’d felt when he hadn’t been prepared to accept her preoccupation with this case. She’d realised that he couldn’t completely abandon Castlestowe, but she’d needed him. Leo’s continued absence during the trial had been like a dagger in her heart.

She’d been nineteen when they’d married and for four wonderful years they had loved one another with a passion that had had her floating on air. He’d been kind, gentle and cherishing. Her empty soul had flowered with his love. It was the first time in her life that she’d felt truly whole.

He’d been eager in the old days to hurry back to their London home after his visits to the family seat in Scotland. And when she’d returned from an assignment abroad he’d be waiting at the airport, arms full of flowers, and exciting boxes at his feet containing perfume and silk fripperies, his handsome face alight with love.

Her eyes glowed with memories. Deep down he was sensitive. He’d see how upset she was. He’d put Castlestowe to one side and take her in his arms and their differences would be forgotten. Their love would knit them together again.

Slowly she walked out of the courtroom with the famous seamless stride that made her slender body flow within her beautifully cut cerise suit—the stride and sway which had won her the title of Catwalk Model of the Year.

‘Ginny! Over here... Ginny! Give us a flash of yer legs! Where’s old Leo, darlin’? Ginny! Here, Ginny...!’

Knowing that she’d be pestered mercilessly otherwise, she gave the Press a minute or two more, maintaining her serene calm and the same elegant tilt of her blonde head that had prompted the media to dub her ‘the new Grace Kelly’. It had taken her a while to force her own name on the public consciousness but at last she had become the Ginny McKenzie.

Few ever mentioned the fact that she was a Brandon by marriage, Leo being the son of Viscount Brandon. Her refusal to change her name had caused trouble with his family—but how could she have done that when it had taken her so much effort to become recognised? It would have been professional suicide.

‘Here, Gin! Over here! Good girl! Look at me, babe!’

‘They think you’re a dog, or somethin’?’ growled Chas.

‘Their property,’ she said ruefully. And steadied her voice. No outsider must know how she felt. ‘OK. That’s enough. If they can’t get a decent photo out of those shots, they don’t deserve a job. Get me out of here,’ she begged.

And she clamped a hand on her Garboesque brimmed hat as Chas manoeuvred her through the pushing crowds to the waiting limo.

‘Hell,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t know how you stand this!’

Exhausted, she pulled down the blinds to shut out the excited faces outside. Fans and enemies. The envious and the angry. And she wondered how she stood it. And why. Was it worth it?

When the car had picked up a little speed and Sue, the chauffeuse, began to weave in and out of the back streets to throw followers off the scent, Ginny finally let out a long, heartfelt groan and slumped into the white leather cushions.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I’m innocent and I’m being forced to pay the court costs for a disgusting tabloid which printed lies about me!’

Chas took her hand, his blue eyes angry, and leaned close in sympathy. ‘I wish I could help. I’m—Damn!’ he swore as a blinding flash illuminated their faces. ’Stop the car!’ he yelled, clambering over Ginny as Sue screeched to a halt.

Ginny felt her heart sink. Neither of them had noticed that the blind had shot up, that they’d been stationary and waiting for traffic lights to turn green. Or that a photographer had managed to tail them and take a shot of Chas’s kind consolation. Miserably she waited for Chas to return, knowing that the photographer had already vanished and there would be another scoop in the papers.

She shivered, her enormous eyes glistening with unshed tears. Achieving success beyond most people’s wildest dreams had brought with it a load of trouble.

‘I’ll chuck it all in,’ she said shakily to no one in particular.

‘And give them cause to think you’re guilty?’ called Sue indignantly over her shoulder.

‘They already do!’ Ginny drew in a sharp, despairing breath and waited while Chas slid back into the car. ‘I want Leo!’ she groaned.

‘Won’t be long. Come on,’ soothed Chas.

An arm reached across her, pulling down the blind again. And then she was being eased into Chas’s concrete-like chest, where she snuffled and tried to hold back her tears till she heard the sound of iron gates clanging back. St John’s Wood, exclusive and protected. Home. And Leo—perhaps. She stilled her racing pulses ruthlessly because she dared not hope too much.

‘Thanks,’ she said huskily to Chas. He was a dear. Solid, East End decent. ‘Sue, slowly, please. I need a moment to tidy up.’

Butterflies beat themselves against the walls of her stomach when she saw Leo’s car slewed across the driveway ahead. A joy filled her heart. The trial was over. Good or bad, it meant that the pressure on her time was off. She and Leo could spend time together, heal their marriage. The thought of seeing him made her heart pump rapidly.

And she remembered the joyful days they’d spent together, loving and laughing, such good friends, so close, so happy. A frown dipped her arched brows. Once he’d been her rock. Now she felt uncertain as to her welcome.

With trembling, suddenly clumsy fingers, she flicked out the hanging mirror and nervously whisked ash-blonde strands back into the severe chignon, then retouched the mascara on her endless lashes and reshaped her pink mouth. There was a vulnerability and a paleness about her face that hadn’t been there before. Now her cheekbones seemed even sharper, the hollows beneath more pronounced.

Jamming her hat back on her head and shrugging her coat collar up high, she said huskily, ‘OK, Sue. I’m decent.’ And felt like a girl on her first date. Scared. Excited. Quivering.

Disappointment hit her when she saw that Leo wasn’t waiting for her on the mansion steps when they swept up. George, the butler, was, however, with the cook and the maid and the gardener, all with loving concern on their faces. They were fond of her but their sympathy when she swung her long legs from the limo was almost too much to bear.

It crossed her mind that her staff currently cared for her more than her husband did. And they believed she was innocent.

Perhaps he was on the phone. Maybe he’d telephoned the solicitor so that he’d know the verdict before she arrived home—or he was fending off the media. Calmer, she felt glad that she’d chosen the sleek, tailored suit. It was Leo’s favourite.

Warmth flowed through her. They’d cuddle and he’d tell her that he loved her and nothing else mattered. Then they’d go to bed and he’d hold her tightly and everything would be all right. She felt better already.

‘Leo around?’ she asked George eagerly when everyone had said how sorry, how shocked they were and offered their help wherever it might be needed.

‘In the library, Ginny,’ he answered with more than usual tenderness.

‘Fine,’ she lied, suddenly wary. Why was George looking at her like that? ‘And...thanks, everyone, for your support. I do appreciate it. It makes a lot of difference to the way I feel. Bless you all.’

Still smiling, wanting to let her composure go and to give in to the newly arrived apprehension, she wriggled out of her coat, flung her hat on the marquetry table and glided to the library.

But, positioned at the far end of the long room, by the window, her beloved Leo was smiling down at a woman who sat on the window-seat: Arabella Lake, fellow model, rival, and a mean manhunter. And neither of them even noticed her arrival because they were both so engrossed in one another.

Shocked, Ginny clutched the jamb of the door, almost at the end of her tether. Arabella! Her eyes closed in dismay then opened reluctantly at his soft, husky laugh. She wanted comfort. Needed his arms around her. Instead, she’d have to listen to Arabella’s false condolences and know that the malicious woman was delighting in Ginny’s failure to clear her name.

‘Leo!’ she called, her voice low and husky with misery.

He looked up, his eyes brooding, nodded curtly in cold acknowledgement, then continued to smile and chat to Arabella. Ginny walked the long gallery as if she were on hot coals and naked before a jeering audience, her stomach somewhere in her boots, her pulses jittering so badly that she could hardly keep her balance.

It struck her forcibly that it had been a long time since Leo had looked at her with the same smiling affection that he was showing towards Arabella. When he’d glanced towards her just now, his face falling into icily disapproving lines, he’d seemed almost a stranger. Nervous and inwardly panicking, she gazed at his beloved face, seeing what Arabella was seeing.

A tall man, one of the few who could tower over tall models like herself—and Arabella. Thick hair the colour of rich brown silk, swept back from his face and cut to perfection. Tanned and healthy from an outdoor life on the estate. His brows strongly defined and often imperious, a long, straight nose of aristocratic hauteur and steadily piercing eyes that drowned women in their smoky, smouldering depths. And a projection of masculinity and natural, centuries-old authority and self-confidence that drew women to him like a magnet.

They’d called him Charisma, at Eton. It was obvious why and her heart lurched as her adoring eyes followed the sharp line of his jaw and lingered on the full mouth with an upper lip that could have been chiselled from marble like the statues in Castlestowe Castle.

She wanted to fling herself at him, to press her mouth to his. But something held her back—a fear of rejection so strong that she faltered, unable to continue for a moment.

And then she walked on, feeling the pull of Leo’s earthy sexuality and wondering whether Arabella felt it too. Stupid! Of course she did! There had always been a rawness about him that transcended the conventional politeness of his impeccable breeding. It had forced her to face her own passion, to give out a little of the fire—but not all; she didn’t dare—that her adoptive parents had all but driven out of her at an early age. And now she could see that he was deliberately projecting that overt sexuality—to Arabella.

The corners of her mouth drooped in misery when she heard him talking to Arabella in the tone of voice he used in bed—as if he’d spent too long in a smoke-filled room. She saw the intense look, the total concentration, as if his hungry grey eyes could look nowhere else...

He’s mine! she thought furiously. ‘Hello, Arabella.’ Her shaky greeting won her a brief, cold smile from the smirking woman but no other acknowledgment. Leo seemed to have superglued his gaze to Arabella’s, Ginny thought glumly.

She knew that he’d been annoyed over the trial even taking place. The lawsuit had begun two years ago and she’d been forced to juggle extended modelling dates and sessions with her lawyer till she’d hardly seemed to be at home at all—and when she had been she’d felt exhausted. Leo had complained. Eventually he’d asked her to work part-time and settle down on the estate in Scotland. Which he loved and she hated. It was bleak and wet and isolated.

‘The verdict came in, Leo,’ she said quietly, breathing evenly to eliminate the shake from her voice.

‘I know. I got a call from a journalist asking my opinion of Chas,’ he said curtly.

Ginny paled, knowing that the scene in the car would have been embellished out of all proportion. ‘Can I talk to you in private for a moment or so?’ she asked faintly.

‘If you wish.’

Leo’s indifferent tones cut her like a knife. The humiliation was so intense that she felt like turning tail and running from the room, but Arabella was already rising to her feet and wrapping her arms around Leo’s neck.

‘Poor Ginny,’ sighed Arabella, her green eyes slanting maliciously. ‘I hear she’ll be bankrupt. I guess she’s lost everything she lives for. I’ll slip away for a while. Bye for now, darling,’ she cooed, then planted her scarlet lips firmly on Leo’s and kept them there for several seconds.

‘Catch you later,’ said Leo calmly, emerging from the clinch. His hands stayed on Arabella’s waist, Ginny noticed jealously. And he was smiling beautifully, letting his eyes twinkle. Or were they kindling? she thought jealously. But, whatever they were doing, it wasn’t for her. ‘Tea will be served in the drawing room in an hour. See you then.’

He smiled when Arabella gave him a flirty flutter of her talons and tottered off in a skirt that was indecently short.

‘Is...?’ Ginny frowned. ‘Is Arabella staying for tea?’ she asked in dismay.

‘Staying—’ Leo turned an unreadable gaze on her ‘—for a few days.’

When she needed privacy to lick her wounds! ‘You... invited her?’

The long dark fringe of lashes flickered. ‘You have a problem with that?’ he asked.

‘I—I wanted us to be alone,’ Ginny began miserably.

‘I’ve been alone for too long. I wanted company.’ Leo’s eyes only warmed when they watched Arabella’s slow progress—a kind of exaggerated cat-walk down the long gallery.

Ginny tried to smile without much success. He seemed to be telling her something. And she didn’t want to hear it. The implication was that he needed a woman around who’d give him what she’d been incapable of giving for some time: love, companionship, quality time...sex.

Her tawny eyes flickered with pain. They hadn’t made love—not real love, sweet and tender—since the tabloid article had come out. And she’d been too scared to ask if he didn’t care any more. Her heart pounded violently. If that were true, she’d go to pieces. It would be the end of her world.

Once, twice, he’d made love to her as if he hardly knew her, in a restrained way that had left her crying alone in the great bed while he’d disappeared to take a shower. She’d imagined that he was washing her off his body. How long was it since they’d last slept together? She couldn’t even remember, knowing only that she missed his loving arms and felt terribly alone.

Appalled, Ginny waited in the cold, unfriendly silence till Arabella’s merrily clicking heels had stopped driving her crazy and the door had closed at the far end of the room. Leo was wiping lipstick from his mouth. And the cool neutrality had gone and he was suddenly very, very angry.

He had no right to be! Surely he must know what an ordeal she’d been through, how hard it had been to hold herself together these past few months? She was his wife and she was in trouble!

‘Leo... I know it’s been hard for you—hard for both of us—but... right at this moment I need you,’ she said brokenly.

His bitter, glittering eyes slanted in her direction. ‘Is that how it works?’ he growled, and faced her at last, his face working with anger, the mouth that had so recently softened under Arabella’s now a hard, unpleasant line carved in Scottish granite. ‘I’ve needed you, Ginny. I’ve needed your support, your time, an understanding ear. I was happy for you to have a career but I didn’t expect it to take you over completely. And this trial and the rumours about you—’

‘Leo!’ she said quickly, terrified of where this was leading. ‘They’re not true...’ Her voice tailed away at his tormented expression.

‘Ginny,’ he said quietly, ‘you must know how deeply you’ve hurt me and my family.’

She turned away. Leo’s family had always unnerved her. His grandfather, the Earl of Castlestowe, had made it clear that he’d expected her to drop her career and concentrate on producing heirs.

‘I never wanted to hurt anyone you care about. I love you,’ she said unhappily, trembling, trying to remember how it had felt to be loved back. There was nothing but emptiness now—a blank feeling as if he’d wiped her clean and left a vacuum. ‘I married you because I couldn’t live without you. I still feel like that’

He thrust his hands in the pockets of his linen trousers and stood silhouetted against the huge, mullioned window, a picture of power, money and perfect lineage. Chills ran down her spine. He was regretting their marriage. She didn’t fit, never had done. Wrong class. Wrong blood. Oh, God! she screamed inside.

‘You seem to have managed fine without me for some time,’ he said huskily. ‘What do you think that tells me, Ginny?’

‘Please try to understand,’ she said, horrified at how far they’d drawn away from one another. ‘I love you but I need to work for my self-respect—’

‘We talked of children,’ he reminded her. ‘You knew how much I wanted us to have a child.’

Ginny winced. She was scared of motherhood and what it implied, because their child would never be hers to love. They wouldn’t be having a baby. They’d be producing an heir. And almost certainly her duty would be to bring up the Brandon heir according to the strict Brandon rules and regulations.

She knew something of Leo’s childhood: the nannies who’d ruled his life till he’d been sent to boarding-school, the cold baths and rigorous devotion to duty. Leo had touched her heart when he’d told her that his mother had never cuddled him and had died in a riding accident when he was five.

Her own childhood had been hell too. No way was she going to inflict misery on her own flesh and blood in the same way. When she had a child, she wanted to be free to give it the love that she and Leo had been denied. But first their marriage had to be strong.

‘You know why we delayed—’

‘Your figure. Your career,’ he said accusingly.

She stiffened. ‘No! that isn’t true! Leo, I never knew you could be so cruel—’

‘I was never cuckolded before!’ he said tightly.

She gasped in dismay and scanned the cold, bleak face for some sign of pity. None. Only that merciless glare. Pain seared through her. ‘No man has ever made love to me but you!’ she replied vehemently, her fingers picking fretfully at the pearl buttons of her suit. The curl of his mouth grew more contemptuous. ‘You have to believe me, Lao!’ she cried passionately, near to hysterics.

‘How can I ever know?’ he shot back.

The question shafted through her like a knife. Ginny raised sorrowful, gold-shot eyes to his, begging for a shred of affection that she could cling to. ‘I can’t prove anything,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Not to you, the public, my friends, your family, the courts. I was hoping—’ She broke off and took a moment to find control of her voice. ‘I lost the case,’ she croaked. ‘I have to pay nearly a million in costs,’ she continued, hoping for some hint that he might want to console her.

‘I told you not to resort to litigation,’ he said in exasperation.

‘Don’t men normally defend their wife’s honour?’ she asked, her near-hysteria making her sound a little sharp.

‘Against the tabloids?’ One peat-brown eyebrow expressed scorn and disagreement. ‘That’s not how it’s done, Ginny It would be tantamount to saying that their lies could have an effect. Ignoring them is more dignified. You went against my advice and now you’re reaping the consequences.’

‘And you mean to chastise me like a disobedient child?’ she retorted. ‘Can’t you see I need—?’

‘No. I won’t throw Brandon money at you any more. You have your own account; use it,’ he said flatly.

Tears trickled down her cheeks and into the corners of her parted lips. ‘Oh, drat!’ she rasped angrily, knuckling them away, not caring if her eye make-up became smudged. ‘Leo, I wasn’t asking for money; I’ll earn more if I have to—do shows, TV interviews, anything—but...I...’

Overwhelmed, she reached out her arms to him in a piteous gesture. He ignored her plea. She knew that he was stubborn. Once, he’d defied his family to marry her and had defended her when they didn’t rush to produce children as soon as everyone expected. And once he’d admired her success.

Now they no longer had the same goals, she thought miserably. Their lives were drawing apart. They had become strangers and he didn’t want to defend her any more.

‘Your career means a lot to you,’ he observed.

‘Naturally,’ she said huskily. ‘I’ve worked hard. It’s given me self-esteem, Leo!’

‘I know that. I don’t denigrate what you’ve done. I’ve been proud of you.’ His hooded eyes brooded on her. ‘But... you can’t be everything to all people and do it well, Ginny,’ he said in a gentler tone than before.

‘I had to try!’ she cried in exasperation. ‘Don’t you see? If I hadn’t kept my name up top and continued with the shows during the run-up to the trial, I’d have been yesterday’s face in the twinkling of an eye. And what else would I do?’ she asked hotly. ‘You don’t seriously think I could sit around all day discussing menus and arranging flowers, do you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he growled.

Ginny drove her teeth into her lower lip, knowing that she’d been unfair. He’d never asked that of her. ‘What do you want from me?’ she asked.

‘Exclusivity,’ he rasped rawly.

She controlled the urge to wince. ‘I am yours. Wholly yours.’

‘Are you?’

Her mouth trembled. It was clear that he didn’t believe her. ‘My darling, can’t we start again? Please hold me. I need your arms around me so badly—’

‘And I’ve needed yours many times and you’ve not been there,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not a marriage any more—’

‘It will be!’ she cried in panic, her hand pressing her chest where her heart banged painfully against her ribs. ‘It’s been a bad time but we can be together again—’

‘We both have to want that,’ he muttered.

Her eyes rounded in horror. His serious expression scared her. Cold to the bone, she dreaded to be told that he didn’t love her any longer. She tried to speak but could only croak out a plaintive little ‘Leo!’

‘It’s true, Ginny,’ he muttered, the line of his mouth as wintry as the atmosphere at Castlestowe. ‘I’m not sure you understand how to live and behave normally any more. Ever since you began to hit the big time, you’ve been spinning into orbit and getting more out of control as the years go by. And now you’re famous people fix things for you. Hair, teeth, nails. They wax your legs, drive you wherever you want to go, arrange your accommodation, whisk you to parties and even dress you!’

“It’s not like that!’ she protested. ’You and the public only see what the film crews want you to see! People dashing around trying to look important and making sure they get into camera shot!’

‘But it’s an unreal life,’ he insisted. ‘What the hell do you know about something as everyday as marriage? You don’t realise it takes nurturing and nourishing to keep it alive and on firel’ he cried, his voice rising. ‘Every time there’s a picture of you with some leering film star or politician I get sniggers from people I know, and I can tell they’re wondering if I believe half the things that are written about you! Then you have to go and defend your precious reputation in open court—and you lose!’ he roared. ‘Ginny, if you haven’t been sleeping with every PR man in sight and any fake-tanned actor who’s up for an Oscar, everyone else thinks you have—and that’s crucifying me!’

‘I know! I’m sorry! I really am!’ she wailed.

Was that it? Had his pride been wounded because his wife was under suspicion? Ginny wondered if he’d had to defend her to his tough old grandfather, apologising for the dreadful publicity. And Leo was hurt. She could see that now; there was pain in his eyes and the lines that ran to the corners of his mouth.

Hesitantly she took a step or two forwards till she was an inch away from him. The depth of his anguish reached out to her heart and she longed to throw herself into his arms, to comfort him—herself too. To feel the strength of him encircling her, protecting her. Even a fighter had to take a rest and she’d been battling for too long.

‘I hate that side of it!’ she said fervently. ‘You have to believe that—’

‘But will you stop taking one assignment after another without giving yourself a decent break?’ he demanded.

The question arrested her. Standing so close to him, her wan face uplifted, her famous tawny eyes wide with wonder, she knew that she wanted to. At that moment she’d had enough, and her job had evolved into a love-hate affair. But it had been her dream since she was tiny to be one of the top models in the world. She’d only just reached that status. Could she give it up and admit that she couldn’t take the heat?

‘I’ve never backed down. Never given up,’ she explained slowly.

Although there was a brief softening of his bleak mouth, he made no reply to her comment. Her troubled eyes searched his. He was scowling, pushing back the dark lick of hair that flopped onto his forehead, and she felt a rush of deep affection at the familiar gesture.

Her long neck arched as she gracefully raised her arms and rested them lightly on his shoulders, which relaxed an inch, and she realised he’d been tensing, waiting for her decision. Hug me, she pleaded with her eyes.

But his arms remained at his sides, his fists clenched in anger. ‘Do it. For me.’

Ginny’s heart fluttered at the stark request. Knowing Leo as she did, it was obvious that he was too proud to beg. All he could do was issue orders. It made her soften with loving empathy, because he couldn’t let go and neither could she. However much they had loved one another, there had always been a thin barrier between them, built by their childhood years of repression. And neither of them had ever dared to let their feelings fly.

But he had to understand what her life would be like without a career. ‘Modelling is all I’ve ever known,’ she whispered. The alternative horrified her, made her sick to the stomach, which was churning even now at the thought of abandoning her individuality and dedicating herself to the Brandon family’s needs and expectations.

‘I ask you again. Will you stop? It’s killing you, Ginny,’ he said gravely. ‘I married a woman with more flesh on her bones. A woman who had time to dance in the moonlight on the daisy lawn.’

It had been the night of their engagement. She remembered that occasion with a deep ache in her heart. ‘Oh, Leo!’ she breathed helplessly. ‘It can be like that again—’ She stopped, overwhelmed, tears forming in her soft eyes.

At last, he reached for her. His arms came around her and she sank weakly against his beautiful body with a groan of relief. The magic was still there, she thought, resting her head on his shoulder, her mouth nuzzling his throat above the soft collar of his casual blue shirt.

‘Can it, I wonder?’ he murmured against her scalp.

The warmth of his words washed over her silky white-blonde hair and sent shivers down her back. The sensuality between them burned into her, tightening the skin on her body and melding them together. It had been so long. Months. Suddenly she needed him, needed the hard, physical release of sex.

‘I know it can,’ she whispered, kissing his throat. And she pressed her palm against his heart, giving a shudder of delight when she found that its beat was bumping erratically against her hand.

‘When I married you,’ he growled, breathing harshly into her ear, ‘you were full of hopes for the future. Don’t deny that we planned children—’

‘That was before your family told me what obligations there were for the heir of Castlestowel And...’ She stifled a whimper of hunger. Leo’s hand was slipping slowly down her slender back towards her hip. ‘I—I didn’t know my career would take off so ferociously!’ she mumbled, trying to concentrate on her explanation. ‘I had no idea I’d be jetting around the world.

‘I feel tired of it all now,’ she admitted. He didn’t know what she’d been through. Perhaps if she told him... ‘Shortly before the trial,’ she said, lifting her heartshaped face up to his, ‘I did sixteen shows in six days—’

‘You didn’t have to.’ He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were hooded again but she thought that they were fixed on her cleavage, visible above the V of her jacket. The cleavage was almost her signature. Unusual in a top model, she had breasts. And the designers always provided her with clothes that featured them.

Leo had loved that once. He’d feasted his eyes on her photographs and reached for her with a possessive triumph because she was there, beside him, and she was his wife. Who belonged to nobody but him. A shiver ran through her body when she remembered how he’d growled one night after making love to her, ‘I’ll kill any man who takes you from me!’

She watched him lick his lips and warmth flooded her loins. A feeling of devastating relief came with it because they would, could, must make up—now, before the dreaded tea with Arabella.

‘If I’d pulled out of the shows, I would have gone mad, just sitting at home and thinking of the trial while you were up at Castlestowe,’ she said in a low and husky voice. ‘And everyone would have thought I was hiding because I was guilty and ashamed. I had to brazen it out, don’t you see? OK, it wasn’t easy. It, half wrecked me. I had early make-up calls and fittings every one of those days. There were twenty-five TV crews backstage at Dior for starters. But...’

Leo’s firm hands pushed her back a little. ‘But?’ he asked with a frown.

‘It was exciting—is exciting,’ she admitted. ‘My adrenaline runs when I’m working. Besides, I don’t have a choice any more. I have to work if I’m to pay the legal costs. Being a wife and mother is a vocation,’ she said gently. ‘I want children, yes, but... not if it means living in remote Scotland with no neighbours for miles and miles. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Maybe when I’m older and I’m ready to settle down—’

‘I feel so angry, Ginny.’

They were both breathing in a heavy rhythm. Her breasts rose and fell against his hard, lean chest. Grim-faced, he detached one hand and slid it between them, undoing the lowest pearl button.

Maybe this is the way, she thought hazily. They’d get close, be united again. Another button slid free. Control was slipping from her grasp. The need and the hunger for Leo—to share his body, to be comforted by its closeness—was overriding everything else.

‘Give me a little time to earn the money for the costs,’ she croaked as his hand brushed her naked skin beneath the jacket. Desire filled his face. Desire for her. With Leo, she could face anything. Debt, relentless, grinding hours of work, public shame—anything. ‘I’ll be less preoccupied from now on. It was only the terrible pressure of the trial that caused the problems between us,’ she said, not too convincingly. ‘Now that’s over—’

‘You’ll be working twice as hard to keep bankruptcy at bay.’ Leo appeared to be engrossed in the tantalisingly slow process of working the last cluster of pearls through the buttonhole. The jacket swung free, exposing the swell of her breasts. Leo’s lips parted and he whispered in a slow breath of anticipation. ‘Beautiful. I’d forgotten how beautiful.’

‘Leo!’ she breathed, filled with joy.

He reached out with a questing finger to stroke each half-hidden curve. She threw her head back and moaned, suspended in delight. It was a long time since she’d been touched. Her appetite had been suppressed and now it seemed insatiable.

‘Ginny!’ he muttered, his voice shaking with a barely controlled passion. It might have been anger or desire or despair. She couldn’t tell. And she didn’t care. All she wanted was to be held in his arms.

CHAPTER TWO

SLOWLY Leo reached out to draw the jacket from her shoulders. He held its soft folds halfway down her arms so that it acted like a strait-jacket. His avid eyes devoured her high, trembling breasts and suddenly she flinched, distressed by the mixture of anger and lust in the way he studied her.

‘Love me,’ Ginny begged.

‘You want me to be your slave, like the others,’ he said brutally.

‘No! Don’t do this to me, please, Leo—’

He let the jacket slip to the ground. She made to cover her nakedness with her hands, too stunned to think of running away. And there was something compelling about the way he looked at her, something that caught in her guts and twisted and speared her with an undeniable need. Her lashes lifted and she begged him for love with her huge tawny eyes.

‘You want pity?’ he muttered. ‘Or are you acting as I’ve seen you act before, putting on a wistful face to dazzle your public? Hiding your real feelings...’

‘No,’ she whispered, shaking her head. It was heavy. Her whole body felt lethargic and languid. But he wanted sex, and anger drove him, not affection. ‘You know I find it hard to let go, that it takes me a while before...’

She gasped. His arm had drawn her to him. Deliberately he moved her body against his, lightly, tantalisingly, with the finesse of a master with years of experience. The softness of his shirt brushed her nipples and he groaned, giving them a delicate squeeze between his finger and thumb. Just enough to sharpen her hunger, to send needles of desire bursting into each breast. She heard herself moan, felt her pelvis contract and hated herself for being so easily controlled.

‘What are you?’ murmured Leo. ‘Who are you? Witch or angel? A false, heartless woman with an ego larger than Napoleon’s, or perhaps—’

‘I’m no angel. But I’m innocent,’ she protested, reeling under the torment of his fingers. Her breasts felt tight and hot, the flesh glowing for him. Beneath her frantic hands, his shirt moved over his satin skin and she had to force herself not to rip the buttons open and lay her mouth on his breast. Now she had to keep her head and defend herself all over again. To her husband. Or lose him for ever.

Taking a deep breath, she said jerkily, ‘I—I warned you when we married that the media would tell l-lies about me and...’

She lost the thread of her sentence. Her head turned from side to side in pleasure as Leo forced his thigh between her long, silk-clad legs and she couldn’t resist making a small, squirming movement because it might help to hold her need till she’d explained. And then, she thought hazily, they could make love freely, without hate and suspicion.

‘Oh, Leo!’ she whispered, knowing what he was going to do.

His hands were sliding down her hips. They reached the edge of her skirt and slowly, watching her, his velvety gaze flicking from her softly parted lips to her drowsy eyes, he wriggled it up till it was around her waist. Now there was only silk between her hot hunger and his linen-clad knee.

Leo’s jaw tightened when he looked down at the length of her exposed legs. Black Lacroix stockings topped with a deep band of Calais lace. Dove-grey satin briefs. ‘Hell!’ he growled thickly. ‘How could any man not be tempted by you?’

‘I—I freeze them off,’ she rasped, incapable of breathing steadily.

‘Irresistible,’ he said, smouldering grey eyes and brutally tentative fingers hypnotised by the gap above her stocking-tops.

Her pelvis pushed forward a little in demand before she could stop the movement and he smiled in triumph. Ginny closed her eyes in despair because he still didn’t believe that she had been faithful to him. His mouth brushed hers, making her tremble. His palms rotated on her nipples, warm, merciless, till they thrust in shameful dark peaks, elongating painfully, begging for the moistness of his mouth.

Panting, driven crazy, she abandoned all restraint and began to unpick his buttons, feverishly fumbling with them as if she were drunk. ‘Make love to me,’ she said urgently, lifting her beautiful, flawless face.

Leo’s mouth hovered a millimetre above hers. ‘You are the most desirable woman in the world,’ he husked. ‘Envied by millions, coveted by millions.’ Something dark came into his expression. ‘However, for the time being,’ he whispered into her parted lips, their breath mingling, ‘you can consider yourself exclusively mine.’

She wanted to be exclusively his for hours. Leo prided himself on long, sensual lovemaking sessions. Unconsciously, she gave a luxurious stretch of her body. ‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, please, Leo.’

‘I’ve wanted to make love to you since the moment you walked in. I’m more than ready.’ He took her hand and placed it on his groin. She groaned to feel him so hard, to feel the leap of heat against her trembling fingers.

‘Leo,’ she whispered. ‘Make love to me properly. Long and slow. As you used to. Please, darling. Please.’

Desperate to persuade him, she stood on tiptoe and slid her hands to his head, pressing it down and kissing him with all her heart and soul. With a wriggle of her hips, she gyrated on the thigh that was thrust between her legs and moved her breasts across his chest—partly to assuage her own demands and partly to entice him to indulge in hours of pleasure with her.

‘Witch!’ he growled throatily. His hands ran down her body possessively. ‘I don’t know whether to hate you or despise you or—’

‘Love me,’ she whispered, twining her fingers in his hair. ‘Please, Leo. Love me.’

With a muttered groan that came from deep inside him, he bore her down to the polished wood floor as if he could no longer bear to hold back, stretching her arms over her head and covering her with his hard body. She felt his mouth on hers, fierce and uncompromising, angry, perhaps, because he wanted her so badly when he thought that she was worthless as a wife. And at the back of her mind she prayed that their lovemaking would bring them close, that the anger would subside and they could start to unravel the tangled threads of their unstitched marriage.

The onslaught of his mouth, teeth, tongue and hands and her frantic attempts to ease her despair with physical energy alone caused them to tumble and roll across the floor, her back sliding on the slippery wood, and Ginny became swamped in a whirl of sensation—the feel of silkwood and the smell of polish on her naked back, the pressure of Leo’s muscular arms around her and the wonderful sweetness of his mouth, tugging gently at her breast.

Lost in deep passion and an uncontrollable hunger, grabbing, clutching, kissing, they slid into a table. Something crashed to the ftoor—a lamp, an ornament; she wasn’t sure what—but Leo ignored everything, intent on possessing her, sweetly caressing every inch of her body as if to drive away any memory she might have of other men.

Equally driven, she gave up trying to undo his buttons and pulled the edges of his shirt with both hands, burying her face in his chest. She wanted him naked, to feel his body against hers, because only then would she dare to believe that they could shut out the threat from all outsiders and prove to one another that they were still in love.

He was as helpless, as frantic as she. Finally his naked body met hers and she let out a long, loud groan of relief. At last he was inside her, stroking her with a fiercely restrained gentleness. Overjoyed, she forced her eyes to flutter open, her lush mouth smiling with pleasure. Ginny arched her body in demand. ‘Love me.’

Her mouth teased his, urging it to soften into a sensual curve. And because she wanted him to desire her more than ever and to remember this moment for a long, long time she used all the arts she’d ever learnt from him, writhing sinuously, clutching his buttocks and thus increasing his unbearably slow and deliberate thrust.

She wanted to make him desperate for her. To love her—her. With a siren’s lure in her eyes, she slid her tongue out and licked the sweat over the curving arcs of his chest, teasing the nipples till he gave a satisfying groan and she felt his rhythm increase to a pitch where she couldn’t think any more, was only capable now of reacting like an animal, wildly driving her body against his, countering his thrust with equally hard, demanding jerks of her own body, drawing in her pelvis to hold him tighter and devouring him with her mouth as he devoured her, as if they’d starved for months and wanted to fill themselves to satiation.

Ginny flung her arms around Leo violently, bearing him over in a wild and uncontrollable tumble that had them both fighting to hold their bodies linked and to maintain the beautiful, shuddering rhythm, while she emptied all her passion into her body, kissing Leo with a fervour born of desperation and urgency.

He was so strong, so beautiful. They had been so in love and she wanted that back—the wonderful moments they’d shared together, the quiet evenings by the firelight, the walks in the park. A groan broke from her parted lips and she bit into his shoulder to stem her distress that their love had been threatened. He gasped and kissed her so hard that she felt the deep pressure of his teeth on her lips.

And then her body began to sing as it had never sung before, every nerve taut and stretched, all the bitter-sweet pain rising with the crescendo of Leo’s fierce movement, the beautiful satin strength within her offering the wonderful promise of a release from all her distress and tension.

‘Ginny,’ he rasped thickly into her hair. ‘Ginny, Ginny!’

She sobbed, groaned loudly, not caring who heard—oblivious of everything but the sensations crawling through her, the tingling, rippling waves driving all conscious thought away, lifting her into a fevered delight that shuddered for a few seconds on a peak of ecstasy and held there, seemingly for ever, while their bodies remained like tensile steel, taut and rigid, only their pulses and hearts and their blood pounding, and everything focused on the lyrical thrust of their loins and the spinning spirals of pagan pleasure that was driving them slowly insane with exquisitely agonising sensation.

And when she thought she’d die of love Leo let out a deep, shuddering groan. The turmoil that had held her in its thrall slowly subsided, easing with it every muscle in her bods.

Beneath him, crushed by him as he lay for a moment in exhaustion-yet still somehow tense—she felt limp and drained. But her face shone with a radiant joy that came from every inch of her body, her heart, her soul. ‘Oh, Leo!’ she mumbled incoherently, blinded by happy tears.

And then he groaned. Once, twice, as if in despair.

His welcome weight lifted away when she wanted him to stay and to hold her in his arms. Her naked body chilled with the emptiness that was left by his absence. Dazed and confused, she struggled to lift her lids and clear her vision. Her heart missed a beat. Sounds nearby told her that he was dressing.

‘Leo?’ she murmured weakly. Even from there she could hear his harsh breathing, rasping like an angry saw. Panic clutched her heart. No, she thought. They were bonded together for ever now...

‘Yes?’

She whimpered at the curtly spoken word. ‘Didn’t you... wasn’t it... good?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Stunningly good. Highly accomplished and extremely satisfying,’ he husked, the words shooting out painfully. His eyes smouldered at her. ‘What a lot you’ve learnt since we last made love!’

‘Don’t say that!’ Unusually awkward and uncoordinated, she struggled in horror to a sitting position and watched him grimly wrench his trousers up to his waist. ‘Not so, Leo! I—’

‘Don’t try to explain,’ he growled, angrily snapping his shirt around his sweat-licked torso. Every movement tight with anger, he picked up his shoes and began to stalk to the door. Ginny had the impression that he’d turn on her like a wounded animal and savage her if he stayed. ‘Quite a sexual artiste, aren’t you, now someone’s taught you how to be uninhibited?’

‘No one taught me,’ she breathed, her throat dry with fear.

His eyes chilled every inch of her body as his scorn-filled gaze swept over it and dismissed her denial with a snort of disbelief. ‘You expect me to believe that, after your performance just now? Yes, it was “good”. For a moment there you made me forget everything. We were lovers again—but lovers as we’d never been before. And then I realised that some other man—or men—must have been teaching you the art of love.’

‘No!’ she wailed.

‘I wish I could believe you!’ he said fervently. ‘I wanted to be that man, Ginny! I wanted you to unfold that tight rein you kept on yourself. But no, some jerk I don’t even know has shown you how to gain access to your sexual well!’ He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, his face bleak with the same dark hell that he was digging for her. ‘How could you, Ginny?’ he roared. ‘How could you do it? That exhibition told me everything I needed to know. Thanks for the information. Now I’m under no illusions about you.’

Ginny covered her icy, trembling body as well as she could with her hands. ‘Leo—’ she husked.

‘Save it!’ he said curtly over his shoulder. Then he turned, his face as black as thunder. ‘I want honesty in my wife,’ he bit out. ‘Decency. A woman I can respect. Not a painted doll who uses her beauty to get what she wants. You did that with me just now, didn’t you?’

‘I—I wanted you to... care for me, to help me,’ she jerked out.

‘Sure. You let me have you because you wanted something,’ he said, his mouth curling in contempt. ‘Now I do believe the stories about you.’

Dispassionately, he studied her for long, interminable seconds while she fought the tears and her total exhaustion. She had to get up, run to him, love him into realising that everyone had misunderstood her and put her into a mould of their own making, not hers.

‘I am innocent, Leo,’ she said, wondering if she could ever crack that icy regard, the look of hauteur which reminded her forcibly that he was The Honourable Leo Brandon, born and bred with pride.

‘Like hell! I should have seen it coming. I can’t entirely blame you. That’s the kind of world you entered when you were too young to prevent your slow corruption. I know what goes on, Ginny. But we Brandons prefer to protect the honour of our wives, if only to keep the blood line pure. You’re right. Our worlds don’t mix. Pack your things. You’ve got an hour to be out of here. leave nothing behind to remind me of a very bad mistake I made. We’re finished, Ginny. I’m divorcing you.’

A harsh, guttural wail ripped out from deep inside her. But he’d gone, in a storming, door-slamming rush. Ginny slowly lifted her head, tilting it back, and closed her eyes in despair. Her white-blonde hair swept down her naked back and she registered that the tightly secured chignon had been dismantled by Leo’s hands, by his wild lovemaking. She blushed, at a loss to understand quite how a strictly brought-up woman could have abandoned herself so completely to the devils within her.

No wonder he’d been shocked. She was too, merely thinking of what they’d done, red stains working their way up from her slender feet to her mortified face. So she’d ruined her chance to show Leo that they could be lovers again by revealing an untamed and uncontrolled side of herself that he must have hated.

After all, she thought mournfully, everyone adored her Grace Kelly manner. They loved her serenity, her calmness. Leo had said that he liked the fact that she always behaved like a lady. Some lady. But that was what he’d wanted—a woman who’d project an image of breeding. And now she’d ruined that.

Her body quivered with the pleasure that had rippled through it in great roller-coaster waves. Over and over again they’d crashed through her and physically she felt totally sated. Emotionally, however...

Her perfect white teeth snagged her lower lip. It was bruised and swollen and she touched it with her finger, wondering whether Leo had always known what real, uninhibited sex was like and if she’d been a disappointment to him before because she’d never given her whole self. Till it was too late.

But he’d wanted her. Desperately. Beyond all his rigidly imposed self-control. He’d been arazy to have her and he’d hated her for that because he would have preferred to take her with cool ruthlessness and fling her aside.

Perhaps she could build on his desire. A ragged breath shuddered through her and she stood, quickly dressing. It was the only hope she had. Hastily she searched for enough of the scattered hairpins to do her chignon again and had to give up, combing the silken hair with her fingers instead. She paused as Leo’s words came back to her, jolting her with their intensity.

Divorce... Life without Leo. Cold horror iced her body. He was all she had! The only man she’d ever loved. She wouldn’t, mustn’t lose him! Especially now that she’d given her whole self to him, abandoning a lifetime of restraint to show him what he meant to her.

Frantically she ran out of the library and began to search the rooms downstairs, then hitched up her tight skirt and raced up the wide stairs two at a time.

Relief flooded through her when she heard the shower running in their en suite bathroom. Thinking of nothing else but convincing him, she went straight to the cabinet, opened the door and walked inside.

‘Leo! Listen to me!’ she begged, water plastering her hair to her scalp.

‘What the—? You’re fully clothed, Ginny! Get out!’ he said with an irritable frown.

But she held him, her arms wrapped around his waist. And instantly he became aroused. Relief burst into her mind. She had a chance. ‘Don’t turn me away, Leo,’ she said softly, lifting her face to his. ‘I can’t imagine life without you—’

‘You’re already living it without me,’ he muttered, wrenching her arms away and flinging open the shower door.

She stood there, saturated, dazed. Don’t give up hope. Try again, she told herself. Try again. Stripping off her jacket as she spoke, she said, ‘Everything is good except for the problem of my work and Castlestowe.. We can discuss our differences and compromise. Change things—’

‘One thing’s changed. You’ve become a spectacular lay,’ he said crudely. ‘But I don’t want a tramp for a wife or for the mother of my child.’

‘I’m not a tramp,’ she insisted quietly.

‘The stones—’

‘Are only stories. They’re not true,’ she cried desperately, easing off her soaking skirt.

‘I’ve heard the details.’ His eyes flashed. ‘Confirmed by several people—’

“They’re repeating the same lie that someone’s circulated!’ she cried, beginning to fear that her protestations would be in vain. ‘I can’t prove my fidelity, Leo! But surely you must give me the benefit of the doubt?’

The lines around his aristocratic mouth were deep with pain. “How can I when you so brilliantly display a sexual expertise you never had before? When you respond to me with such devastating sensuality that I—? Oh, Ginny!’ He threw his head back in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I stood up for you. I looked everyone straight in the eye at my club when they whispered behind my back. But now I’m sure I’m a cuckold. And I sure as hell won’t stand for that!’ he snapped. ‘I want a divorce. I must remarry. Time is running out—my grandfather is ninety. I would like him to see that I have an heir to the earldom before he dies.’

‘Leo! Is that more important than our marriage?’ she faltered, naked now and grabbing a thick towelling robe and slipping into it.

‘Having a child is an important part of marriage for me,’ he growled. ‘It always has been. That—and having a loyal wife.’

Ginny’s anguished eyes watched him stride to the mahogany linen press. French. Priceless. Louis the something, she remembered, and inherited with a castle full of French furniture after one of the earls had married into the French aristocracy in the eighteenth century. France and Scotland had always been linked in the past. She thought of the castle, sitting on the windswept crag, all turrets and drawbridges, narrow windows and vast, draughty halls, and shivered.

It was an inheritance she didn’t understand and didn’t want to be part of. It had been a mistake for them to marry. She’d been naive to imagine that their marriage could be ordinary. Leo had expectations she couldn’t meet however much she loved him.

‘I love you,’ she said quietly, sadly.

He froze, his arm halted in the action of reaching for a clean shirt. It was a moment before he moved or spoke again. ‘I’m not sure you do,’ he said shortly, slipping his arms into the shirt and not looking at her. ‘Love has little to do with it, anyway. We’re incompatible and that’s that.’ He picked up the cuff-links that she knew had been given to his father by a minor royal and finally met her eyes. As he dressed, she thought mournfully, he looked more and more the perfect gentleman with every impeccable garment he put on.

‘I have a duty to continue the family line,’ he continued. ‘To see the Brandon name die out after nearly a thousand uninterrupted years would be unthinkable. I had hoped to father children by a woman I loved but it seems I’m to be denied that.’

Ginny’s eyes widened. ‘Are you intending to make a marriage of convenience?’ she cried.

His eyes stared sightlessly ahead and he was still for several seconds before he answered. ‘Do I have any option? Love was always a risk for both of us. We didn’t know much about it from our parents, did we? And now all I have left is Castlestowe and a dynastic marriage some time in the future.’

She couldn’t believe her ears. He’d marry, make love to a woman and father children all for the sake of a wretched blood-line... ‘No! I won’t give you up to anyone else!’ she seethed.

‘No?’ He wouldn’t look at her and his face was grim, his mouth working as if he was grinding his teeth. We’ll see about that.’ With a look of sheer determination on his face, he picked up a pair of linen trousers and stalked into his dressing room, locking the door behind him.

Two years and a few months or so later Ginny was secretly divorced.

Leo had convinced her that he had washed his hands of her only eight hours after the incident in the shower.

She’d been tucked up on the big window-seat in a guest bedroom, horrible racking sobs tearing at her body, when she’d heard a racket in their bedroom. Laughter—squeals of it, and Leo’s chuckle. She’d been stunned for a moment, then had stormed in, to find him and Arabella, naked in the huge four-poster bed, romping like eager children. Their bedroom. Their bed. Even now, after two interminable, depressing years, it made her ball her fists in fury.

At the time the shock had driven her out, screaming hysterically, fleeing to the nearest room and locking herself in. And she’d cried rivers of tears till exhaustion had brought sleep where she lay, poignantly, cruelly, on the bed in the nursery where there would be no child of hers now. The irony hadn’t been lost on her in the morning when she’d woken.

In a surprising act of generosity, Leo had agreed to keep their divorce a secret from everyone but his family and Chas for a while. It had meant that she wasn’t hassled by the Press. The lawyers had been paid well to ensure their secrecy and the divorce had been handled in a small market town where the sleepy court reporter had failed to recognise the woman called Virginia Brandon as Ginny McKenzie.

But then she’d been wearing a Paisley headscarf, an old trench coat and enormous spectacles. And Leo had turned up in a checked cap and an anorak. They’d nodded coldly and hadn’t even laughed at one another’s strange attire. Laughter hadn’t been something she’d expected to feature much in her life for a while. Her life had been shattered and the only thing she’d felt was cold—a stillness of her body as if the warm blood in her veins had turned to a trickle of ice. And she’d wondered if she’d ever be warm again.

The divorce had been alarmingly quick and straightforward. The lawyers had assured the judge that neither of them wanted or needed maintenance and that was that. Her marriage was at an end.

Despite closing down her emotions after the divorce, despite working every waking hour so that she could forget Leo and maintain her position in the modelling hierarchy and pay back her debt, she’d still felt raw inside. Every day she’d ached for Leo and wished that they could be together because her heart was breaking in the most painful way—slowly dying from disuse.

But she’d never shown those feelings to anyone. Look where it had got her when she’d flung her heart and soul into loving her husband! Ex-husband, she’d continually corrected herself, gritting her teeth with the pain of a chapter in her life that was now ended.

And how much had the humiliation of being rejected damaged her self-confidence? It had taken her a long time to smooth over the nerves she’d felt when facing the public. Hours of almost maniacal preparation, so that her face had been a perfect mask and every gesture had been rehearsed.

Only then had she been able to bear to confront everyone, knowing that they were whispering, gossiping, wondering about the ‘perfect lady’ who’d turned out to be a tigress in a variety of beds. Head held high, she’d coolly met their eyes with a challenge and they’d always looked away first.

But she’d become lonely, trusting no one but Chas, who rarely left her side and had become father and brother and friend to her. And now she was truly alone because even Chas didn’t quite know what was in her heart: an ache for the man she couldn’t have because they couldn’t live together, their lives having veered away from each other too dramatically ever to meet and link again:

Emerging from Heathrow with Chas and turning the key in her coupé parked in the long-term car park, Ginny suddenly wanted privacy. Divorced, theoretically free but forever a prisoner of Leo’s magnetism, she smiled faintly at Chas.

‘I’d like to drive myself. Just this once. Would you take a taxi?’

And, driving through the streets of London to her flat in Chelsea, she grimly steeled every bone in her body and held back the tears that had threatened from the moment her solicitor had telephoned her while she was in Paris to say that her decree absolute had come through.

Suddenly she had wanted to be home—and alone with her memories. She’d cancelled everything in her diary, saying that she felt ill. It was the first time she’d ducked her obligations.

Her marriage was dead and buried. Might as well face up to that, she thought. Her lip quivered and she bit it for daring to betray her.

‘Oh!’ she mumbled unhappily, driving into the mews and bumping over the cobbles to the far end. ‘I hate him! I hate him!’ And she wished it weren’t a lie.

There came the slam of a taxi door and Chas appeared by her window. ‘Want a shoulder?’ he offered casually.

Ginny shook her head, too upset to speak. She reached out her hand to temper the refusal and withdrew it after Chas’s brief pat. ‘I’m doing a Garbo,’ she said huskily. ‘Come in. But I’d like to be alone. I feel I’ve come to the end of an era. I need to plan the next.’ She managed a smile but it was feeble.

‘Sure. You must be tired. You’ve been going like the clappers. Glad you’re taking a break. I’ll keep everyone at bay.’

Thankful for his tact, Ginny flicked the remote control to open the doors and drove into the garage, leaving all her things in the car to collect later. On entering the flat, she absently picked up the mail on the mat and wandered into the kitchen to make some tea, shrugging off the elegant Ralph Lauren jacket in the soft shade of blue that...

She frowned. That Leo had loved. He would like this, she thought mournfully, indulging in self-pity for a few seconds. The flowing palazzo pants caressed her thighs, hinting at her slenderness, her flat, taut stomach. The sand-coloured camisole drifted elegantly over her breasts to the cinched-in waist. There was no one to appreciate the way she looked now.

She briskly put a stop to this line of thought and got out the tea-things. The healing brew, she thought wryly. When she really needed healing arms around her.

If only she’d been brought up by her real parents! she sighed, curling up in an old comfy chair while the kettle boiled. If so, there might have been a friendly cuddle for her now.

Ginny sighed wistfully. It was so sad that her own mother had been unable to care for her. Her mother had developed a serious phobia about cleanliness which had meant that when Ginny was born her mother had become hysterical at all the mess a baby brought. Or so the McKenzies, her adoptive parents, had told her. They would never reveal her mother’s whereabouts and Ginny was wary of discovering that her mother cared nothing for her.

Sarah Temple. That was all she knew of her mother—besides a few memories, dim but unpleasant. Vague recollections of being held grimly to a starched apron-front, a woman screaming, and a feeling of terrified guilt at the mess she’d made once when she’d had a tummy upset. Had her mother cried on and on for hours, or was that a faulty memory?

She thought with compassion of what must have been a tense, uptight woman who’d apparently been eager to give her away when she was four to a strict Scottish couple.

The McKenzies were well off. Andrew was a respected politician. That was how she’d met Leo—their fathers were both in politics and she’d reluctantly gone along with her adoptive parents to a country weekend at Castlestowe when she was nearly eighteen. Hated it. Loved Leo. Fool.

Hadn’t she seen the different worlds they moved in? Butlers, maids, cut-glass crystal, banners of long-forgotten battles and grim oil paintings of even grimmer ancestors?

Ginny wearily uncoiled her long, long legs from the chair and made the tea, carrying a mug in to Chas.

‘I’ve got some thinking to do,’ she told him, her face wan and strained. ‘I’ll be in the study. Use the TV in the drawing room if you want. It won’t bother me. And would you lock up later? I’ll probably be pacing the floor for a while. I have to get my head together. You understand?’ she asked in a hesitant plea.

‘Sure, Ginny,’ he said gently. ‘Let me know if you want anything. I’m here and I’ve got waterproof skin if necessary.’

Her pathetic attempt at a smile quivered on her lips and then she turned, almost broken by the tenderness of his expression. Because she had wanted Leo to look like that. And he hadn’t given a damn.

Despairing, she tucked herself in the little office, fixed with all the latest technology to enable her to keep in contact with designers and agents around the world. Everyone seemed to be doing things for her. Few were, in reality.

Ginny switched on the answering machine and halfheartedly listened to the messages. Business. Nothing personal or affectionate. And suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming feeling of need. If only she knew who her father was! The McKenzies had refused to speak of her mother’s situation and Ginny had no idea whether she was illegitimate or if her real father had died early on in her life.

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