Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Copyright

“Don’t be a bad loser!”

“I’m not!” Emma’s angry retort was silenced by Dominick’s mouth. And her noble intentions of asserting herself vanished. He kissed her with short, hungry snatches of passion that aroused her more headily than she could ever have imagined.

“You want me,” Dominick said on a thick groan. “Admit it, Emma.”

“Yes,” she whispered faintly. “I want you….”

Having abandoned her first intended career for marriage, ROSALIE ASH spent several years as a bilingual personal assistant to the managing director of a leisure group. She now lives in Warwickshire, England, with her husband and daughters, Kate and Abby, and her lifelong enjoyment of writing has led to her career as a novelist. Her interests include languages, travel and research for her books, reading and visits to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Other pleasures include swimming, yoga and country walks.

Vengeful Bride
Rosalie Ash

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

HER prospective employer was tall, broad-shouldered, and darkly attractive. Emma watched him rise to his feet, circle the vast mahogany desk and cross the carpeted study towards her, and for a few moments her nerve failed…

‘Miss Stuart. Come and sit down.’ He spoke pleasantly, his voice husky, full of that deeply ingrained male confidence which came from generations of wealth and power. Catching her breath sharply, she felt the warm strength of his hand as he clasped hers in greeting.

‘Thank you.’ Weakly, silently ordering her wobbling legs to carry her, she went to sit on the round-backed chair he was indicating. She crossed her legs. The skirt of her smart violet wool suit felt too short. Furiously she uncrossed her knees again and clamped them firmly together, tucking her ankles under the chair. She had the annoying impression that he was watching her discomfiture with veiled amusement.

‘Would you like tea? Coffee?’

‘Tea would be lovely.’ She smiled coolly. She had her feelings under control now. Discovering that Dominick Fleetwood in the flesh was a glorious cross between Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner had thrown her initially, but she had enough inward motivation to handle that…

He was relaying the order for tea to the elderly housekeeper who’d shown her in. When the housekeeper had gone, he sat on the edge of the desk, and eyed Emma expressionlessly.

‘So you’re a fully qualified archivist?’ His eyes were a stunning shade of blue, she registered, meeting their probing gaze with her own clear, deceptively mild grey ones.

‘I am.’

‘You don’t look like one.’

She smothered a desire to laugh.

‘What does an archivist look like?’ she enquired gravely.

‘I pictured someone dusty, flat-chested and a confirmed spinster,’ he informed her, equally deadpan. ‘Whereas I suspect that behind the disguise of those steel-rimmed glasses and raked-back hairstyle you are definitely nubile.’

The audacious chauvinism almost took her breath away. Did he seriously expect her to want the job, when he said things like that? But anticipation of the tailor-made perfection of the job, and a secret she’d no intention of revealing just yet, kept her glued to the chair like a prisoner.

‘Whether that’s supposed to be compliment or insult,’ she managed calmly, ‘I’ll do you a favour and ignore it.’

The gentian-blue gaze narrowed speculatively. His eyes were long and dark-lashed, and unnerv-ingly intense. In spite of her composure, she felt herself begin to prickle with awareness as he slid his gaze over the pale, set oval of her face, the neat shine of chestnut hair wound into a prim bun, the conservative cut of her suit not quite concealing voluptuous breasts and hips, a swoopingly narrow waist and long slim legs which went on forever…

In turn, she gazed back at him, taking involuntary note of the fine grey cloth of his city suit, the immaculate whiteness of his shirt. His skin tone was almost Mediterranean-dark. His hair was thick and black and wavy, cut short on top and curling slightly into his nape. He’d look good wearing a gold earring, she told herself tartly. There was a dangerous gypsy air about him, at odds with his upper-class lineage…

She had the sudden, sinking feeling that he knew exactly who she was, knew exactly why she felt this burning curiosity to see Fleetwood Manor…After all, he was a brilliant barrister, feted in London as one of the youngest and brightest to be called to the bar. Weren’t barristers supposed to be gifted at reading people’s thoughts and motives? At knowing everything about everyone?

But that was crazy. Dominick Fleetwood couldn’t possibly remember her. She certainly didn’t remember him. She’d been born here on the Fleetwood estate, but they’d have left when she was about five. And Dominick would have been away at school…

And besides, how could Dominick Fleetwood know why she was here, when she didn’t even quite know herself?

The evidence she had, from things her father had said, was strong but not conclusive…

She’d braced herself for some withering comment after her pert retort. But after what felt like an endless pause all he said, in a thoughtful voice, was, ‘You realise the family records are stored in filthy old boxes, in all manner of spidery corners of the estate?’

‘I’m sure they are.’

‘Can you lift down heavy trunks of papers?’

‘Yes. I’m quite strong.’

‘Fleetwood Manor is in a lamentable state of repair. Bits of it may not have changed a great deal since the place was built in the fifteenth century. Will you mind working alone in the attics?’

‘If you mean will I be frightened of ghosts or something, not in the least. History and the study of old houses, old records, is the great love of my life,’ she heard herself enthusing, more frankly than she’d intended.

‘So you’re planning on being wedded to your work, Miss Stuart?’ There was a wry note in his voice she couldn’t identify.

‘There are worse fates. At least that way a woman stays in control of her own existence,’ she said quietly. Why was she letting him subtly open her up like this? This interview wasn’t going at all the way she’d planned…She recalled his reputation as one of the country’s foremost defence lawyers, information gleaned from newspapers and magazine articles. He’d been variously described as combining the rapier skills of a Jesuit catechist with the cunning of a wolf. Had she ever imagined she could somehow get the better of him, and thus get the better of the whole arrogant, destructive Fleetwood family…?

She bit her lip, irritated with her own vulnerability.

‘You sound as if you’ve had bitter experience regarding the holy state of matrimony?’ It was a cool probe. This time she didn’t rise to the bait. She thought of her parents, but she shrugged and smiled blandly.

‘I’ve never been married, if that’s what you’re asking.’

She’d arrived here prepared to feel coolly indifferent towards him, been briefly fazed by his devastating appearance, but in fact disliking him was going to be child’s play. She already felt a stirring, fierce resentment towards him. Like father like son, she thought darkly. Womanising, patronising…

The door opened, and the housekeeper, a pleasant-faced grey-haired woman, brought in a tray of tea and biscuits. When they were alone again, he went back to sit behind the desk, leaning lazily back in the leather chair. His gaze was narrowed speculatively on her face.

‘So, tell me more about why you want to come and work here,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve just qualified in archive administration, and you’re keen to earn more than the usual pittance paid to county archive assistants. Is that it, or is there another motive?’

The trace of cynical mockery seemed deliberately aimed to provoke. Emma kept her eyes on the tea-tray, a guilty sensation growing in the pit of her stomach. Her fears about his probing, dissecting skills were well justified, she realised nervously.

‘As I’ve already said, I love history. I love historic houses. And I love deciphering old papers, uncovering the lives of past generations. What other motive do I need?’

‘There should be enough skeletons in the Fleetwood closets to keep a scandal paper in business for months,’ he commented, his drawl coolly unconcerned.

She felt her face heating slightly. Skeletons in closets? What a dry piece of upper-class understatement that was…

‘Sounds as if I shall enjoy my job, Mr Fleetwood,’ she commented mildly, hoping her casual tone would deter him from further interrogation, ‘Or…should I be addressing you as Sir Dominick?’ The cautious probe was deliberate. Newspaper reports could be wrong, after all…

Dominick Fleetwood’s expression didn’t alter.

‘No. I’m just here on a kind of caretaker basis,’ he said calmly. He seemed to consider for a few moments, before continuing, ‘Until my elder brother Richard can be traced.’

‘Oh, yes…’ It had all been there, in the newspaper stories. The search for the missing baronet, the older brother who’d automatically inherit the title and estate.

Maybe it was her slight hesitation, or just a faintly guilty air she was projecting, but he gave her a piercing look.

‘Emma Stuart…’ He repeated her name slowly. The frown creasing his forehead suddenly deepened. ‘You’re not, by any chance, related to the Stuarts who used to work here years ago? They had a child called Emma.’

Emma stared at him for a few seconds in mute dismay. She felt her stomach clench, then sink alarmingly. There was nothing else for it. She’d have to come clean.

‘Yes. My parents worked here many years ago.’

Dominick’s face remained unreadable. But he was staring at her with a suddenly sharpened curiosity.

‘I remember them,’ he said coolly. ‘Jack Stuart was the gamekeeper, wasn’t he? And a very good one. I remember my father admiring how he used to hatch up to two thousand grey partridge a week in the spring, ready for the autumn shoots.’

‘Yes…’ Colour was seeping into her face, and she felt a wave of annoyance. She had no reason to feel embarrassed about the past. She’d been only five when they’d left.

‘I can hardly remember living here. But my father used to tell me stories about Fleetwood Manor, after we left…’ She hesitated. Her father had made it sound so romantic, steeped in the past, full of ghosts and legends. As a child, she’d fantasised about this place…

‘Stories?’ Dominick persisted, his gaze quizzical.

‘Catching poachers beneath a full moon, that sort of thing…’ She smiled slightly at the melodramatic tinge to her statement. This was how her father had always talked about the manor. In sweeping, melodramatic adventure-story fashion. His passion for the place had been one reason for her own love of history. Now, though, since her father had died, it had a very different significance in her life…

Her brain was racing round in circles as she presented a calm facade. She’d been found out already, but, on the other hand, what had been found out? That she was Jack and Amy Stuart’s daughter? Did that have any particular significance to Dominick Fleetwood?

Impossible to know what Dominick was thinking. How much he’d know. He clearly remembered her parents, but that didn’t mean he knew everything that had gone on between his father and his various and numerous estate employees…She had to be very careful not to get paranoid…

‘I’m intrigued,’ he said at last. He picked up a pen from the blotter and slid it rhythmically through his fingers. His gaze was blandly thoughtful.

‘What about?’

‘Why didn’t you mention living here as a child?’

It was a perfectly acceptable question, she told herself severely. And she didn’t have a very good answer. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave…’ she lectured herself silently. Her throat dry as paper, she ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed abruptly. Shrugging slightly, she managed a laugh.

‘It didn’t occur to me. It was hardly relevant to the job specification!’

‘But interesting, nevertheless.’

‘I didn’t imagine you’d be interested,’ she countered flatly. She crossed her legs again, and reached with a commendably steady hand for her cup of tea. ‘As I said, I can hardly remember living on the estate. My family wasn’t here very long.’

‘So is that why you’ve applied for this job? Out of curiosity? Nostalgia? A wish to revisit your childhood home?’

‘Partly. Perhaps. But as you said just now, the money you’re offering is a lot better than I could get elsewhere.’

‘That’s because I don’t suffer fools gladly, Miss Stuart,’ he informed her silkily. ‘I’m busy in court for the majority of the week. And since I’m only caretaking this place until my brother is found and informed of his inheritance, I don’t want someone who works at a snail’s pace. I’m prepared to pay a good salary for quick, efficient work. For total commitment to the job. If I thought you had some woolly, ulterior motive for wanting to be here, I might be less enthusiastic.’ The gypsy-dark face was deadpan, but he was definitely testing her in some way.

Hateful man, she fumed inwardly.

‘If I’d come here claiming to have spent my early childhood at Fleetwood Manor, you might have thought I was angling for…for preferential treatment or something. The past is…is quite irrelevant. I’m quick, efficient, and my commitment will be total,’ she assured him with as cool a smile as she could muster. ‘But can I ask why you’re so keen on speed? Are you intending opening the manor to the public? Putting interesting records on display?’

‘Who knows?’ His expression was lazily amused. ‘I personally would have no financial need to open the house to visitors, Miss Stuart. But let’s just say that the situation regarding my older brother is…unpredictable. He’s been estranged from my father for many years. Last heard of, he’d dropped out of society in the wilds of Tibet. There are certain eccentric conditions laid down by Sir Robert which my brother will have to be consulted on. Plus I have an impulsive streak in my nature.’ He grinned slightly, arresting her suddenly with the revelation of even white teeth and an attractive deepening of the vertical furrows from nose to chin. ‘I simply want my family records sorted, deciphered, and safely stored for posterity.’

‘Of course. I understand.’

‘Good. If we both know where we stand, when can you start?’

‘We…we haven’t even talked about exact salary, or hours…’

He tilted a dark eyebrow at her determined expression.

‘How much could you earn fresh from university as an assistant archivist with the council?’

She named a sum, and he gave a short laugh.

‘I’ll double it. Normal office hours, double pay for overtime. I’m not looking to employ some drab little Cinderella to drudge away in the attics, Miss Stuart.’

She blinked. Astonished, she heard herself saying weakly, ‘No, well…would I be living in?’

‘Naturally. One thing Fleetwood Manor isn’t short of is accommodation. Unfortunately, most of it is uninhabitable. I’ll show you where you’ll be working and sleeping.’

He stood up, and strode decisively to the door. Emma followed. Panic returned. Should she be plunging into this? Should she be indulging her burning curiosity about her family’s chequered past like this? Even if her father’s story, the sad tale he’d related to her before he died, proved to be true, would she achieve anything with some vague notion of justice or revenge…?

She followed the tall, athletic figure out of the study and into the picture-lined splendour of the manor’s galleried hall. Up the sweeping blue-carpeted staircase, along a broad, creaking landing where the polished oak floorboards looked to be as old as the house, and past rows of cynical-looking Fleetwood males, each more swarthy and dangerous than the last, they finally made it to a smaller, more humble back stairway, and were up in the attics.

The view from up here was stunning, Emma registered bleakly, peering through dusty windows and noting sunlit acres of rolling Warwickshire countryside, just beginning to burgeon into the pale magnificence of spring.

Spring was a time for new beginnings, she told herself uneasily. Not a time for raking up the ashes of the past, torturing herself with a sentimental journey back to the start of her parents’ tragic disintegration…

‘A lot of the old family papers are up here,’ Dominick was saying, pushing open a door to reveal a large room lined with shelves. There were some dusty old document cases, a big metal chest, an assortment of wooden storage boxes, some of them looking excitingly ancient. In spite of everything, Emma felt a frisson of anticipation at the historical riches yet to be uncovered. The manor had been in the Fleetwood family since the fifteenth century. She knew that from her father’s stories. Who knew what fascinating information she might unearth…?

‘You look like a cat surveying a dish of cream,’ Dominick commented drily. ‘You really like your chosen career, don’t you?’

‘I’ve always wanted to have the chance to do something like this,’ she admitted, unable to hide her glow of enthusiasm.

‘So this is your lucky year, Miss Stuart.’ He led the way out of the attic room again, and they retraced their steps back down to the main landing. ‘There’s masses more in outhouses, and the old butler’s pantry—it could take quite a while just getting it all together before you can sift through it.’

‘Quite likely.’

‘My housekeeper, Mrs Shields, has a strapping young grandson who can help to carry stuff around,’ he added conversationally as he flung open a bedroom door and waved her inside.

‘Thank you.’ She found herself in a big square high-ceilinged bedroom, overlooking the front of the house. Large sash windows were draped in rich but faded gold velvet. A very high-looking four-poster bed with gold and cream covers occupied centre-stage. A door beyond stood open, with the end of an old-fashioned white claw-foot bath visible.

‘Is this where I’ll be sleeping?’ It had such an air of grandeur, despite the threadbare carpet and worn-looking fabrics, she could hardly believe it. Swinging round, she found Dominick Fleetwood’s gaze gleaming with suppressed amusement.

‘This, believe it or not, is the only usable guestroom at present. The rest have been sadly neglected. And there is one drawback,’ he admitted calmly, leading the way to the bathroom. ‘You share this bathroom with me.’

He flicked his hand idly towards another door, which presumably led into his bedroom beyond. Emma felt her stomach hollow with a combination of nerves, anger, and something else she couldn’t identify…

‘I’ll be away most of the time. At my chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. I may return some weekends. Will that cause any problems?’ he persisted lazily. The blue gaze was unrelentingly amused.

‘Not unless you expect me to scrub your back?’ she quipped, on a dry laugh.

‘Not part of the deal,’ he agreed, with a grin, ‘although I confess it’s not an unattractive proposition.’ He let his eyes slide deliberately down over her, lingering on her slender throat, the fullness of her breasts beneath the suit jacket.

‘Speak for yourself,’ she muttered, feeling a wave of heat creeping under her skin at his cool arrogance. He was standing about a foot away, but in the intimate confines of the bathroom he was suddenly much too close for her peace of mind. At well over six feet, he towered darkly over her own quite respectable height of five feet eight. With his hands pushed casually into his jacket pockets, his eyes calmly appraising her shaky composure, she was suddenly warmly aware of his masculinity. It conveyed itself so strongly, it seemed to hit her with the force of a tidal wave, a tidal wave of sensuality.

He was a brilliant ‘jury’ lawyer, people said. With her throat drying, she began to see how easily he could project the kind of powerful charisma needed to sway twelve jurors to vote for his client. Dominick was a daunting adversary. Maybe the missing Richard was the weaker of the two sons? Maybe, if the melodramatic notion of avenging her mother’s honour and gaining her share of her inheritance had ever fleetingly occurred to her, her chance of extracting some sort of eye for an eye might have been more successfully directed at Richard, in any case?

‘Are you all right, Miss Stuart?’ He spoke softly, with just the merest hint of humour. She was ensnared in that narrowed blue gaze, and it was all she could do to catch her breath.

‘Yes, I’m fine…’

‘You look hot. Maybe you need some fresh air?’

‘Yes. Maybe I do.’ The look she gave him was politely veiled, but she had the sensation that he’d picked up on her vibrations of bitterness and resentment.

‘Shall we go downstairs again?’

Stiffly, tense with nerves, she passed him as he held open the door, and almost held her breath as her shoulder brushed his chest.

Back down in the hall, Dominick leaned on the edge of the huge square oak table, lovingly polished over the centuries, and regarded her with detached speculation.

‘Subject to your references confirming you’re not a potential burglar or cunning art thief, when did you say you could start, Miss Stuart?’

She thought rapidly. She’d been doing temporary work as a clerical assistant in a county archives office while she waited for an opportunity to make proper use of her post-graduate diploma. She’d have to pay a month’s rent on her bedsit, but at the salary being offered here that wouldn’t present a problem.

‘I…I could probably start a week on Monday.’

He looked unimpressed.

‘Is that the earliest?’

‘What did you expect? That I’d be able to start tomorrow?’ she retorted, with some spirit.

He considered her with a smoulder of amusement.

‘Are you always this…abrasive, Miss Emma Stuart?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to sound…rude.’

‘That’s better. I like my employees humble, Miss Stuart. Remember that.’

It was difficult to tell if this was his quirky sense of humour talking, or if he actually meant it. Her smile was saccharine-sweet.

‘Oh, I will, Mr Fleetwood.’

‘Then a week on Monday it is,’ he agreed, with an air of finality. He glanced at a slim Rolex on his dusky wrist, and Emma felt dismissed. ‘Mrs Shields will be here to let you in, if I’m tied up in court. Make yourself at home.’

He held out his hand, and she put her own into it with a ridiculous tremor of apprehension.

‘But don’t use up all the hot water on a Friday night,’ he added, with a wicked gleam in his eyes. ‘See you, Miss Stuart…’

Emma escaped into the crunchy gravel sweep of the drive, and dived into her red Renault 5. His hand had seemed to burn her. She was trembling all over. A strong sense of panic was invading every inch of her body.

It wasn’t too late, she told herself desperately as she pressed her foot on the accelerator and left the manor behind. She could still ring and say she didn’t want the job. She could still get herself out of this, before she was in too deep to think straight…

But she did want the job, she realised in dismay. She wanted the job more than she’d ever wanted anything.

When she’d heard that Fleetwood Manor needed an archivist, her first reaction had been one of bitter curiosity, an urgent need to go and see for herself where Sir Robert Fleetwood had wrecked her parents’ lives…

Now all she seemed to be able to think of was the thrill of those ancient documents awaiting discovery in the Fleetwood attics. And Dominick Fleetwood’s mesmerising blue gaze.

She felt angry with herself, and frightened and bewildered by her reaction to the man she’d just met.

And she felt more alone, and more confused than ever…because how, in the name of God, could she feel such a frisson of awareness, such an unmistakable shiver of desire, towards a man who could well be her half-brother…?

CHAPTER TWO

EMMA swung her reading glasses off and laid them carefully on the desk, beside the faded parchment. She rubbed a grubby hand shakily over her face. She was tired, hungry, stiff with sitting for so long. The attic room was cold. It felt like the cold of centuries of unheated stone, and the small Calor-gas fire flickering beside her hadn’t a hope of dispelling it. And yet inside her excitement warmed her, burned like a secret flame…She felt a consuming urgency to continue working. End of daylight spelled end of work, and she was so engrossed she didn’t want to finish yet…

She caught her breath sharply, struck by the complexity of her present situation. Here she was, poring over ancient papers in the dusty, ghost-filled attics of Fleetwood Manor, deciphering letters to Sir George Fleetwood, written over four hundred years ago, back in the sixteenth century. The old iron casks and wooden boxes overflowed with a treasure-trove of historical detail…

And judging from the faded ink and parchment, Sir George’s character bore lamentable similarities to his more recent descendants. Sir Robert, Dominick’s father, could have been an uncanny reincarnation of his reprehensible ancestors. And Dominick…? She shivered a little. Remembering the lazy, speculative gleam in his eyes at their last encounter gave her the distinct impression that family traits lived on in the present generation…

A footstep at the door made her swivel round quickly. She’d expected to see Jamie, Mrs Shields’ grandson. But Dominick Fleetwood stood there. Her stomach lurched alarmingly.

‘Still at it?’ He checked a slim gold watch on his wrist, and tilted a wry smile at her. ‘Isn’t this beyond the call of duty?’

She stood up slowly. She suddenly felt conscious of her appearance. She hadn’t seen Dominick for the entire fortnight she’d been here. He hadn’t come down from London last weekend. Deeply involved in her work, she’d almost forgotten that it was Friday night again, and that there was a possibility he might arrive. Now here he was, darkly devastating in dove-grey suit and charcoal silk tie, radiating aristocratic elegance, and making her feel like an unkempt maid-servant…

‘It’s riveting stuff,’ she confessed, with a short laugh. ‘I just can’t stay away from it!’

‘Letters and bills and inventories and rent arrears, spanning the last five and a half centuries?’ he mocked softly. ‘Worth starving and freezing to death over?’

Emma reached a hand up to smooth her hair. It was caught up in a thick ponytail, with strands escaping around her face, and she knew it must look a mess. Just as she must look a mess. She had pins and needles in her right foot from hooking it around the rungs of the chair for hours on end. She shook it, and stamped on it surreptitiously.

‘I might be in danger of freezing, but certainly not of starving,’ she retorted lightly. ‘Mrs Shields and Jamie keep me supplied with a regular flow of home-made flapjacks and mugs of tea!’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She felt the cool gaze slide consideringly over her. She stiffened, her embarrassment deepening. In old jeans, a thick, baggy black polo-neck, a strawberry-pink checked shirt worn open as a jacket and clumpy Doc Marten boots she was hardly femme fatale material. But did she want to be? a small voice cautioned. This job, in spite of her muddled bitterness about the Fleetwood family, had proved irresistible.

It was a gem of a job. The kind every historian must surely dream about. Not just for the unique archives, but for the magnificent working environment. She’d felt deeply privileged, having the freedom to explore the old manor, admire the ancient beauty of the place. There was even a fifteenth-century Great Hall, complete with minstrels’ gallery. But the idea of finding Dominick Fleetwood dangerously attractive hadn’t occurred to her. It was a complication she simply hadn’t considered…A sick feeling of panic crept into her stomach.

‘What’s wrong with your foot?’

‘It’s gone to sleep!’ she confessed, with a grimace. ‘I have this habit of twisting it round the chair when I’m sitting for a long time…’

‘I told you I didn’t want a Cinderella, slaving away night and day,’ he rebuked softly. ‘You look as if you haven’t slept since you started two weeks ago!’

‘Thanks a lot!’ Her cheeks felt hot. How dared he make personal remarks about her appearance?

‘You need some exercise,’ he judged coolly. ‘How do you normally keep fit?’

‘I…I swim,’ she heard herself saying vaguely, too taken aback by his abrupt interrogation to protest, ‘and sometimes I play tennis. Or jog. But I really don’t…’

‘Have you got a swimming costume with you?’

‘Well, yes, but I really…’

‘Tennis racket?’

‘No! And honestly, I…’ She was reeling under his patronising directness.

‘There’s a place I use when I’m down in this part of the world. I was planning to spend the evening there anyway.’ He shot her a sudden grin which seemed to stop her heartbeat for a few seconds. ‘Stress mounts up in my business. I tend to need a lot of unwinding. Come with me. It’ll do you good.’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…’

‘I’m not asking you, Miss Stuart,’ he cut in calmly, ‘I’m telling you. Rules of the job. A fit body produces an alert brain.’

‘Of all the pompous…’ She bit her lip on the outburst, but not before she’d seen the steely flash of amusement in his eyes.

‘Careful, Miss Stuart. What happened to humility?’ The narrowed gaze raked her mercilessly. She began to tingle, from her neck to her knees, where his eyes slid over her.

‘Sorry, sir, she fenced, with mock-deference. Sketching a rough curtsy, she added with overdone meekness, ‘I’ll go and get ready right away! What would you recommend I wear?’

‘Something suitable for dinner.’ He nodded with bleak amusement. ‘We might as well have a meal there later. I’ll see you in my study in half an hour.’

This sounded horribly ominous. But she seemed to have little option. There was a warning note in the cool drawl which brought the colour surging into her face.

‘All right.’ She spoke through clenched teeth, but she wished her heart would stop its dull thudding against her breastbone.

Seething with resentment, she retreated to her bedroom to get ready. In her head she called him every name she could think of, to vent her feelings. Of all the autocratic, arrogant, self-opinionated, overbearing, cranky fitness freaks, he took the honours…Who did he think he was? Being temporary lord of the manor was one thing. Treating her like a half-witted child was quite another…

But the really infuriating thing, she acknowledged truthfully, was that the thought of swimming or playing tennis with Dominick Fleetwood, and then having dinner with him, secretly filled her with such conflicting feelings of dread and excitement that she trembled at the prospect of her own weakness…

Her feelings of hostility were her only protection. It was a good thing she disliked him so intensely. Because in every other respect her relationship with her employer, she reflected impatiently, seemed to be veering hopelessly off course…

The place Dominick frequented when he came down to Fleetwood Manor turned out to be an extremely exclusive country club. Immaculately landscaped grounds spread out, thickly wooded, revealing an outdoor swimming-pool, still under its winter wraps, as well as a big, covered indoor pool, and all-weather tennis courts with brand-new surfaces gleaming emerald beneath efficient floodlighting. She glanced at him apprehensively, as he drove between ranks of Rolls and Bentleys and Mercedes, and swung his forest-green Porsche into a parking place near the entrance.

‘You could have warned me it was like this,’ she said ruefully. ‘I’m hardly in this sort of league…!’

He turned a gaze of genuine surprise on her.

‘This sort of league?’ he echoed calmly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You must know what I mean!’ She glanced down at the simple, ethnic-style full skirt she wore over a long-sleeved white body. ‘Are we supposed to be having dinner here?’

‘If you’re worried about the way you look,’ he said after a few moments’ cool consideration, ‘there’s no need.’ The smoky blue gaze assessed her clear, make-up-free skin, shiny chestnut hair and the soft curves of her figure beneath the clinging white top as he spoke. His eyes lingered fleetingly on her full breasts, nipples suddenly hard as cherry stones under his gaze. Emma felt her insides fold up in an alarming fashion, almost squeezing the breath from her lungs. Her thighs felt boneless.

‘You look fine.’ The verdict was succinct. He got out, retrieved their sports bags from the boot, and sent her a smile which flipped her heart over as he gestured towards the canopied entrance. In dark blue silk shirt and designer-cut charcoal trousers, he looked lean, broad-shouldered, and overwhelmingly gorgeous. The tug of attraction was so fierce, she found herself gritting her teeth…

It was surprisingly enjoyable, playing tennis on the floodlit outside courts. And somehow, faced with the challenge of holding her own against a player not only vastly more experienced but vastly stronger, she managed to acquit herself quite well. Dominick won, but she actually took a couple of games off him. The tingle of pleasure made her glow all over.

But one set was definitely enough. Her green tracksuit, the only suitable clothing she’d unearthed for the event, felt too warm. She wished she’d brought white skirt and T-shirt. Dominick had started in a black tracksuit, but discarded the trousers after the first couple of games, revealing white shorts and long, healthily tanned legs, coarsely haired and with impressively honed muscles.

‘You play quite well,’ he complimented her. He met her at the net and wryly observed her pink cheeks and air of triumphant enjoyment. ‘Do you want to play the best of three?’

She shook her head. ‘Are you trying to kill me off? I got to a reasonable standard when I was at school, but I’m so out of practice I’m amazed I managed to win any games at all!’

‘You won them fairly,’ he assured her. ‘All I held back on was my serve.’

‘Just as well!’ The power of Dominick’s returns had been sufficient evidence of the potential velocity of his normal service. She blew upwards to lift the damp strands of her hair from her forehead, and shot him a tentative smile. ‘I’m roasting in this tracksuit. Can we have a swim now?’

‘Indeed we can, Miss Stuart.’ The gleam in the blue eyes was difficult to gauge. But the heat from playing tennis seemed to intensify into another kind of heat as she felt his eyes rake assessingly over her figure beneath the green jersey of the tracksuit.

It took only minutes to swap tracksuit for swimsuit, and the water felt deliciously refreshing as she slid in. She glanced warily round for Dominick. He’d appeared at the deep end, dark and intensely masculine in brief navy swimming trunks. She watched, transfixed, as he paused, then dived cleanly in with an impressive ripple of muscle. Her steady breaststroke seemed rather feeble compared with his several lengths of masterly front crawl. He finally surfaced a few feet in front of her, laughing.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, trying not to react to the threat of his nearness. ‘Yes, thanks. Much better. I always do when I get around to exercising…’

‘You look better already,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve lost that pinched, tense look, Miss Stuart. It suits you.’

‘Thank you, Mr Fleetwood.’

‘Come on, we’ll finish with a Jacuzzi.’ Swimming easily to the side, he swung himself out on to the tiles, and reached down to catch hold of her arm, pulling her out beside him. The intimate contact was almost too much to bear. Finding herself standing next to him on the side of the pool, clad only in the clinging wet fabric of her black costume, felt as compromising as standing naked with a stranger…

‘You’re shivering,’ he observed, eyeing the goosebumps which had sprung to the surface of her skin. ‘Are you cold again already?’

He was steering her towards the Jacuzzi in the corner of the pool, his fingers warmly confident on her wet skin.

‘No. I’m not cold exactly…it’s…it’s just the contrast…and actually I’ve never been in a Jacuzzi…’ She was babbling nervously, she realised, annoyed with herself.

‘The Jacuzzi is hot.’ He dropped a coin into the slot and gestured into the foaming oval. Hesitating, she stood motionless on the edge as he stepped down into it, sat down and stretched his long, dark body across the width. ‘Come along, Miss Stuart. A new relaxation experience awaits you…’

Could she face joining him in what looked like an unbearably small and intimate space? Dragging air into strained lungs, she forced her wayward emotions under control. She was behaving like a prudish schoolgirl. There were plenty of other people swimming near by. He could be her brother, she reminded herself fiercely. Whatever this stupid shimmer of awareness signified, it certainly couldn’t come to anything. Sheer moral will-power would see to that…And the longer she stood here, with his lidded gaze humorously assessing her hesitation, the longer her body was exposed to that enigmatic male scrutiny…

She put one foot down into the bubbling water. The warmth was bliss after the cool of the swimming-pool. But the steps down were invisible, now that the water was foaming so fiercely. Taking another step in, she missed her footing. With a choked exclamation, she plunged forward. Disappearing under the surface, she burst up again to find herself sprawled ignomini-ously on top of Dominick. The sensation was electrifying.

‘Very interesting,’ he murmured teasingly, ‘but would you mind keeping to your own side?’ As he spoke, she felt strong hands capture her around her waist. She was lifted clear of his body. But not before the sensitive swell of her breasts had made firm contact with the coarse muscle of his chest and abdomen. And not before the slender length of her thighs had become embarrassingly entangled with the rough length of his legs.

‘Sorry…’ She was crimson. She could feel the acute embarrassment staining her cheeks and her neck.

‘Don’t be, I enjoyed it.’ A gleam of laughter lurked in his eyes, but his expression was deadpan as he observed her crumbled composure without compunction. ‘Miss Stuart,’ he added, on a huskier, taunting drawl, ‘would you just relax. Club rules are very strict on sexual antics in the Jacuzzi. I’m not about to rip your costume off and have my wicked way with you, whatever you might imagine.’

The sardonic humour flayed her bruised ego. His amusement was palpable. He was finding her excruciatingly funny, she realised furiously.

Slowly, she turned large grey eyes on him, all her buried resentment swirling to the surface, unbidden.

‘I’m obviously providing tonight’s entertainment,’ she said stiffly. ‘Was that why you insisted I come out with you this evening? Because you wanted some comic relief from your gruelling two weeks in court?’

His eyelids masked his expression as he watched her flushed face.

‘What a touchy young lady you are,’ he mused softly. ‘And where did you get such a low opinion of yourself?’

‘It’s not myself I have the low opinion of…’ The retort burst out, and she trailed off, aghast. Dominick’s expression had altered slightly. The lazy amusement had changed to a cooler, more dissecting curiosity. The shrewd barrister-like penetration was back in his eyes.

‘Let’s get this straight—you’re implying that you have a low opinion of me?’

‘I…’ Hopeless, she realised miserably. Even disregarding his cool arrogance at the suggestion that he could be less than perfect, how she’d ever imagined she could hide her mixed feelings, keep past resentments hidden, she’d never know…

‘Well? What have I done to incur your disapproval, Miss Stuart?’

‘Nothing…really, nothing…’ Apart from being unbearably conceited, domineering, and sadistically mocking, she screamed silently. Just as she imagined his father must have been…

Overcome with panic, she stood up, and tried to wade out of the surging water. He stood up too, and steadied her as she wobbled. His warm hands on her shoulders sent shock-waves of pure, unmistakable sexual desire streaking through her nerve-ends. Choked and breathless, she made it on to the firm surface, and retrieved her towel. The big white bath-sheet had come from the manor house, and she wrapped its fluffy length around herself like a shield.

Dominick had followed her out.

‘I’m going to have a hot shower,’ he said casually, looping his own towel round his neck and switching subjects, to her relief. ‘I recommend you do the same. I’ll meet you in the bar in about half an hour.’

‘Yes. Fine…’

‘Oh, and just to satisfy my curiosity,’ he murmured ruthlessly, catching her by the fold of her towel, where she’d fastened it tightly across her breasts, ‘I’d like to try this…’

Without warning, he dropped his head and kissed her, hungrily, shockingly, on her lips. The combination of the kiss, warm, masculine and demanding, and the contact of his knuckles against the soft swell of her cleavage was terrifyingly intense. Rigid with denial, she stood like a statue, outwardly frozen. Inside, some hidden reactor went into fatal meltdown. The taste of him, the scent of his body, the teasing exploration of his tongue inside her mouth, everything conspired to demolish her defences.

It took every ounce of horrified awareness to push him away. She faced him for a fraught moment, trembling all over. The blue gaze was unrepentantly amused. Her own grey gaze was wide with fury.

‘Please don’t try it again!’ she managed unsteadily. ‘Or you’ll be looking for a new archivist…’

Spinning angrily away, she made for the changing-rooms. Almost blindly, she stumbled to find her soap-bag, and then dived beneath the wonderfully hot showers, shampooing her hair and soaping her whole body.

She felt as if she’d somehow stepped into an impossible nightmare. She’d thought she could handle this complex situation. Now she realised it was going to be much, much harder than she’d imagined. This physical attraction to Dominick was disastrous. It was more than disastrous. It was…it was unthinkable…

She closed her eyes and let the shampoo run down her face, trying to free her mind from its turmoil. She felt hot inside. Hot, and bewildered, and full of self-disgust…If Dominick was her half-brother, that was bad enough. It made him scandalously out of bounds, in all normal societies…But a sense of bitter disloyalty was also stabbing through her. Behind her closed eyelids, it was images of her father that taunted her, in the months before he died.

As long as she could remember, she’d been told that the Fleetwood family had wrecked her parents’ lives. That Sir Robert Fleetwood, Dominick’s father, was to blame for everything that had gone so tragically wrong in her parents’ marriage. And yet now here she was, being taken out by Dominick Fleetwood tonight. And as well as hating him for his cool arrogance and despising him for who he was she was feeling these powerful, overwhelming, swelling bursts of excitement when she was with him…

She rubbed her fingers furiously through her wet hair, rinsing out the last of the bubbles. With her eyelids squeezed shut, she felt as if she was going mad. How could she have been so stupid as to go for this job, knowing what her father had told her about the Fleetwood males?

Emerging from the shower, she wrapped herself in her towel and went to sit on the wooden bench, while she fought to make sense of her feelings…

She was angry with Dominick tonight. But it wasn’t because of anything his father had done to her mother years ago. It wasn’t because he was a Fleetwood. She was angry with him because he made her feel vulnerable, and gauche. And she was angry with him because that physical contact in the Jacuzzi and that taunting kiss had made her quiver inside with a melting clench of desire she’d never felt before…She had to search for the evidence to prove her father’s version of the past. That was the most urgent task she had to undertake. The irony was that before meeting Dominick she’d have found a degree of vengeful satisfaction in proving that Sir Robert was her real father. Now she was so confused, she had no idea what she wanted to find out any more…

‘Have you chosen?’

She glanced up from the menu to find him lazily observing her. They were having pre-dinner drinks at the bar, seated on stools. She took a shaky sip of her dry Martini, and tried to decide what she wanted to eat.

‘Not…not quite.’ She couldn’t even concentrate on the menu. The elaborate black script on cream vellum danced and blurred in front of her eyes.

She was too aware of him, she acknowledged bleakly. He seemed far too close for comfort, even sitting a foot away on an adjacent bar stool. He smelled faintly of some expensive sandalwood aftershave. He looked very large, very male and very intimidating. Very dangerous. She felt as if her breath was restricted in her chest.

‘You’re very…quiet, Miss Stuart,’ he commented idly after another silence had elongated. ‘Are you always so tense? Or are you frightened of me?’

She looked up from the menu warily.

‘Of course I’m not frightened of you.’ She hoped she sounded convincing to him, because she didn’t to herself.

‘Aren’t you?’ The taunting blue gaze examined her face, observing the changes of expression. She felt her temper beginning to fray.

‘We hardly know each other. And we…we’re hardly on the same social circuit! I’m just an employee! Do you expect me to chatter away like an old friend?’ She’d meant to snap the words with cool precision, but instead they came out shakily, even defensively.

Beneath the soft white jersey of her clinging body, she felt her skin beginning to heat nervously. Dominick’s amused gaze slid to her throat, and flicked lower, to the revealing scoop-necked design of her bodice, where the swell of her breasts was clearly visible. Quelling her agitation, she lifted her hand to finger the small silver locket at her neck. There was a picture of her mother inside it. Dad had given it to her, just before he died…

‘I was intrigued by the idea that you hold a low opinion of me, Miss Stuart.’

You would be, she thought ruefully, having such a high opinion of yourself…

‘I hardly know you,’ she heard herself repeating woodenly. ‘What possible reason could I have for feeling that way?’

‘That’s what interests me…’ His eyes were lidded, difficult to read. Calmly changing the subject, he added, ‘If you’re feeling indecisive, I recommend the scallops in white wine sauce followed by the pheasant in Madeira. Or are you vegetarian?’

‘No…’ She swallowed her pride, gave up on the menu. After toying briefly with the idea of refusing his suggestion, she nodded stiffly. ‘That sounds fine.’

‘Good…’ An almost undiscernible flick of his hand brought the head waiter and the wine waiter hurrying to his side. Her heart still pumping much faster than it should, she listened as he calmly gave their order, chose a Muscadet and a Médoc to complement each course, then turned his attention back to focus on her with that unsettling intensity.

Emma chewed her lip. Her mouth tasted of the dusky pink lip-gloss she’d applied after her shower, aiming at a little more poise and sophistication. She’d wanted to be cool and chic, more than a match for this man’s dangerous masculine charm. But, catching sight of herself in the huge gilt-edged mirror above the bright log fire opposite the bar, she saw with a sinking heart that her neat chignon was collapsing slightly on top, tendrils of glossy dark chestnut cascading from the silver clip.

Her cheeks looked flushed, her grey eyes, slightly myopic, looking enormous in the small oval of her face. The opulence of their setting didn’t help. All around there were poised and confident women, wearing priceless designer dresses and flirting elegantly with suave and wealthy men. And there she was, looking as flushed and uncertain as a shy sixth-former on her first dinner date.

‘So for the past fortnight you’ve been beavering away in the attics, poring over old papers?’

‘More or less, yes. Mrs Shields and Jamie have kept me well supplied with food and drinks. And Jamie has helped with any heavy lifting…’

‘Jamie’s a good lad,’ Dominick agreed coolly. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t done more with his life than odd jobs around the estate for my father.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with choosing a practical career, if that’s what you want,’ she countered quickly. ‘My father was bored rigid by office work. He loved being out of doors. He didn’t mind the low pay. He had his freedom…’

‘Are your parents still alive?’

‘No. They’re both dead.’ She saw his enquiring expression, and felt compelled to expand.

‘My parents were separated. I lived with my mother until she was killed in a road accident five years ago. Then I went to live with my father. He developed bronchial pneumonia. He died last year.’

‘That must have been hard for you. Do you have any other relatives?’ Dominick’s tone was a lazy, casual drawl. But his gaze was searching, disturbing her with its concentration.

Emma shook her head. The irony of this conversation was almost too much to contend with.

‘So at the tender age of twenty-two there’s just you? No one else at all?’

‘You make me sound like a…a poor little orphaned child, or something!’

‘Isn’t that exactly what you are? Except that I can see you’re an adult.’ Dominick gave a slight smile. ‘A very composed young adult, with a lot of suppressed emotion simmering under the surface. Would it help if I apologised for embarrassing you in the Jacuzzi, Miss Stuart?’

The heat coursed up into her neck and cheeks, and she clenched her hands furiously in her lap.

‘There’s no need to apologise for that. It was my fault. It was I who…who slipped—but it might help if you apologised for kissing me afterwards!’

His gaze had narrowed, the gleam of amusement more discernible.

‘Miss Stuart…may I call you Emma?’

‘I…I suppose you can. You are my…my boss!’

‘All right. Emma. I apologise. It was an impulse, and I’m sorry if it upset you. Now will you relax?’ He was mocking her, she knew. And yet there was something powerfully compelling about his curt instruction. Relax? If she relaxed too much, she’d be too vulnerable. Confusion rocked her forcefully. She felt like a ship adrift in cross-currents.

‘I…’ She found she was holding her breath. Abruptly, she expelled it. She managed a slight, wary smile. ‘I am relaxed. Perfectly relaxed.’

The dark blue gaze held hers, then he gave a short laugh.

‘You are? This is progress. Tell me how the research is coming on.’

This, at least, represented relatively safe waters. She outlined her progress so far. She told him about the incriminating evidence of the heartbreaking letter to the sixteenth-century Sir George Fleetwood from what appeared to be his children’s governess.

‘He was a wicked womaniser,’ Dominick agreed, without a flicker of reflected shame, ‘but he had some redeeming aspects. I believe he used to risk his life by hiding recusant priests from imprisonment or execution…’

‘Did he?’

Dominick nodded, his lips twisting. ‘So the legend has it. There are two secret hiding places, small compartments, in the south-west turret,’ he added calmly, ‘between the newel staircase and a space in the floor of the top turret room. They were discovered in the nineteenth century…’

‘Really?’ Emma, complicated resentments forgotten, felt her eyes glowing with anticipation.

‘They were revealed during some renovation work, complete with palliasse bed, folding leather altar, and a few rather less pleasant relics…’

Emma gripped her hands together excitedly. ‘Can I see them?’

He inclined his hand, his eyes wry.

‘Of course. Although the bones were given a decent Christian burial, I believe.’

‘Bones?’ Her grey eyes widened in horror. She suppressed a shudder. ‘You don’t mean someone actually died there, trapped?’

‘It’s all conjecture. But I imagine so, yes. Perhaps the system had a flaw—someone had to remember you were in there after the persecutors had gone.’

‘How ghastly…’

‘Mmm. Of course, the tales of ghostly screams floating from the south-west turret are total fabrication,’ Dominick went on nonchalantly, ‘just as the stories of grey shapes on the attic landing are figments of over-active imaginations…’

‘You’re making this up!’ She was half frowning, half laughing.

Dominick’s dark face was deadpan.

‘Yes. But at least it made you laugh. You’re a very…intense young lady, Emma…’

‘Dominick!’ The female voice was light and amused, and Emma swivelled round to see a girl with straight blonde hair and bright red lipstick advancing on them. ‘Dominick, sweetheart! What a lovely surprise!’

‘Vanessa.’ Dominick had risen easily to his feet, but his dark face was blandly expressionless as the girl stretched up to kiss his cheek. ‘What are you doing in Warwickshire?’

‘Hoping to bump into you, darling, what else?’ the girl teased huskily, switching an emerald-green gaze on to Emma and lifting an eyebrow enquiringly. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything?’

‘This is Emma Stuart,’ Dominick said smoothly. ‘She’s working for me at the manor, sorting through Fleetwood’s records. Emma, this is Vanessa Buckingham. An old friend and neighbour, and a fellow lawyer.’

Emma shook hands, noting the girl’s elegantly slim figure in a clinging black crêpe skirt and halter-neck top.

Vanessa had laughed at Dominick’s introduction.

‘Mmm. While Dominick makes the headlines with his evil cross-examination techniques in the High Court, I have to content myself with being in-house lawyer for a department store…’

Since the department store she named was famous world-wide, the self-deprecation carried little weight, Emma decided. Vanessa Buckingham was obviously a very high-powered lawyer indeed…

‘I’m here with Hugo and Jan,’ Vanessa was saying to Dominick. The girl’s green eyes were caressing him with blatant hunger. Emma hooked her foot round the leg of her stool, and fiddled with her glass. A strange feeling seemed to be gripping her, making her feel slightly sick.

Here, she reminded herself firmly, was an example of the kind of woman Dominick normally spent his time with. Glamorous, clearly upper-class, from his own background, someone who moved in the same circles, socially and professionally. Mentally retreating from the situation, she tried to concentrate on the work she’d been doing today, to focus her mind on the real reason for being here.

‘Why don’t you join us?’ Dominick was suggesting smoothly to Vanessa Buckingham. ‘I’ll tell Giuseppe we’d like a table for six.’

Emma felt her stomach clench. What was the matter with her? She should welcome this diversion with relief, shouldn’t she? All she had to do was sit out the meal, making the minimum of contributions to the conversation. The heat was off…

But relief wasn’t what she felt at all. Now, watching Dominick’s dark face, laughing at something the blonde girl had said, and listening to their conversation about the rarefied legal world in London, she suddenly felt gauche, boring, provincial.

Worst of all, the sick sensation growing in her solar plexus was definitely an unexpected and wholly inappropriate thrust of jealousy…

CHAPTER THREE

EMMA sat in silence in the car on the way back to the manor. The powerful headlights swept past dark hedgerows and inky black woods. She stared at the arcs of light, and tried to make her mind go blank. Anything to avoid thinking about the evening she’d just spent at the country club. In fact, anything to avoid thinking at all…

The evening had not been a success. At least, not for Emma. She’d held her own reasonably well, she thought. Given a passably witty explanation of her job as an archivist, when graciously invited to explain her presence. But when she’d calmly stated that her father had been gamekeeper at Fleetwood Manor when she was a child, there’d been a wry exchange of glances between Dominick’s three friends. Vanessa, Hugo and Jan had exuded that exclusive, cliquey rapport that came with shared childhoods, shared schooling, shared backgrounds.

And her own confidence, shaky at best, had dissolved in the knowledge that Dominick had jumped at the chance to liven up his evening by inviting them to his table.

But Dominick had seemed preoccupied throughout the meal. The seafood with its delicate sauce had been superb. And the pheasant, rich and aromatic, served with fine-cut sautéd potatoes, and perfectly cooked broccoli, mange-tout and carrots, had been mouthwatering. But she’d felt rather too on edge to relax fully and enjoy the country club’s excellent cuisine. Infuriatingly, she’d found she was drawn, constantly, to look at Dominick as he leaned back in his chair, long brown fingers idly twisting the stem of his wine glass, shuttered gaze surveying the gathered company with cool disinterest. He’d kept his contributions to the conversation brief and sparingly to the point. His dark blue eyes, shadowed in the candlelight at their table, had been unreadable.

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