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

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

“You are to inherit everything, but only if you can prove within one year that you are mature enough to handle it.”

“Tell me, Mr. Logan,” Melanie replied, “did my uncle have any idea how a person can prove anything as intangible as maturity?”

Clay didn’t look at all disturbed. “Actually, he said that the ideal proof would be for you to marry someone the executor approved of.”

“I must marry to get my inheritance?”

KATHLEEN O’BRIEN, who lives in Florida, started out as a newspaper feature writer, but after marriage and motherhood, she traded that in to work on a novel. Kathleen likes strong heroes who overcome adversity, which is probably the result of her reading all those classic novels featuring tragic heroes when she was younger. However, being a true romantic, she prefers her stories to end happily!

The Husband Contract
Kathleen O’Brien

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

“HEY, watch it,” Clay Logan growled, reaching out to grab the shoulder of a four-foot-tall jester who had just barreled past, sideswiping him with a plume of cotton candy.

“Well, sorry,” the kid said defensively, frowning at the pink mess on Clay’s shirt cuff. “I didn’t even see you.”

Clay plucked at the goo and tried not to look as annoyed as he felt. It wasn’t easy. He had to be in court in an hour, and his shirt was ruined.

“That’s okay.” He summoned a smile. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Melanie Browning. Do you know where she could be?”

“Our Miss Browning?” The jester shook his head. “She was being Juliet this morning in the play, but now…” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Clay sighed heavily as he felt the beginnings of a headache. He knew where Melanie Browning should have been, damn it. She should have been in his office where they’d had a ten o’clock appointment. She had baldly stood him up—no call, no excuses. And all, apparently, for the pleasure of playing Juhet at the Wakefield Boys Academy Medieval Day Fair. He rubbed one last time at his sleeve and then gave up—the stain was just spreading. Now his shirt and his fingers were wrecked.

Silently he cursed the benevolent impulse that had brought him here to track the woman down. He must have been insane. He should have buzzed Tracy to send in the next client and merely mailed Miss Browning a whopping bill for the missed appointment.

The jester guiltily eyed the damage he’d done. “Well, maybe I can find out for you,” he offered. He turned to a pair of teens sitting on a nearby bench. “Hey—you guys know where Miss Browning is?”

One of the older boys laughed scornfully. “Why would we tell you, dork?”

Clay frowned, surprised by the gratuitous rudeness. Who were these kids? The boys, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, were among the very few here today who were not wearing medieval costumes. Too chronically cool, no doubt, Clay thought, irritated by the swaggering boredom on their adolescent faces.

“You’re not telling me. You’re telling him,” the jester said, pointing at Clay as if the presence of an adult settled the question.

The teenagers didn’t seem impressed. They held their hands awkwardly behind their backs, and Clay could see two thin threads of smoke curling just over their shoulders. Smoking, at their age on school grounds? Rude and stupid.

“Him?” One of the boys stared at Clay, his smile defiant. “Who’s he? God?”

Clay met the sneer, unimpressed himself. He knew their type. Real scary guys—except for the cowlick and the acne and an occasional unplanned octave swoop.

“Yeah, I’m God,” he answered blandly. “And I’m late for the Apocalypse. So how about an answer, and I’ll let you get back to your smokes. Do you know where Miss Browning is or not?”

“Nope,” the boy said, his shoulders jiggling as he humedly stubbed out his cigarette. “We haven’t got a clue.”

That much was obvious, Clay thought wryly.

The jester scowled. “Well, you did know, Nick. You were with her after the play.”

The cowlick stirred. “Yeah, well, that was hours ago, dork,” he said. “We’re not Melanie’s keepers, you know.”

“No—she’s your keeper!” The jester turned to Clay with a gap-toothed grin. “You see…Nick is Miss Browning’s baby brother.”

Clay’s interest suddenly sharpened, and he gave the cowlick a second study. This was Nick Browning? He took in the boy slowly, from the greasy, chin-length hair tucked behind his large ears, down to the huge jeans that let an inch of plaid boxers peek through. His gaze rested at the boy’s feet, where he wore expensive shoes that were supposed to make him fly like an NBA superstar but undoubtedly didn’t.

God, he thought, what a punk. Maybe Joshua Browning had been right to tie up the inheritance after all. Now that he’d seen Nick, Clay had to agree that no doting twenty-four-yearold big sister was likely to be up to taming this teenage terror.

Clay, on the other hand, was a thirty-one-year-old, cynical, trial-hardened lawyer who definitely did not have a soft spot for budding juvenile delinquents.

He gave the boy his courtroom glare. “I find it difficult to believe you don’t have any idea where your sister is, Nick,” he said softly. “Perhaps you’d like to think again.”

Nick seemed to consider stonewalling—but only for a split second. Then, as if instinctively, he straightened his spine and let his tone slide a shade closer to courtesy. “I think…over on the softball fields,” he mumbled. “At the human chess match.”

“Why don’t you show me?” Clay made it a polite suggestion.

As if pulled by an invisible string, Nick rose sullenly from the bench and began shuffling across the school grounds. Clay gave his helpful jester a low thumbs-up and followed the slouching teen through crowds of giggling sword swallowers, whooping javelin throwers and diminutive sceptered kings.

Nick didn’t speak, so Clay was able to concentrate on avoiding the dozens of carelessly wielded weapons. He steered a particularly wide path around all cotton-candy sticks, icecream-cone towers and hot dogs slathered with mustard.

“This is it,” Nick muttered as they reached the game fields. He tilted his head toward the chess match, which was already in progress. “Over there.”

Clay scanned the players. All adults, teachers, no doubt, in full costume—black and white kings and queens, knights and bishops. He double-checked the queens but couldn’t find anyone who looked much like the picture of Melanie Browning that Joshua had kept in his library. She’d been only sixteen in the photo, but she’d looked older. Long brown hair, wide blue gaze, full, sulky lips…

“Which one is Melanie?”

Nick grunted and averted his eyes. “Believe it or not, she’s the white knight,” he said, staring at the ground. Clay suddenly wondered whether having his older sister work at his school might embarrass the boy. “Isn’t that stupid? They wanted her to be a queen, but she said knights had more fun.”

At that moment, someone called out a move, and the white knight strode to the center of the board, obviously playing to the crowd with an exaggerated swagger. With a silver-gloved hand, the knight raised a long sword high in the air, apparently ready to hack some hapless black chess piece to ribbons.

The watching crowd murmured appreciatively. The May sunlight glinted on the aluminum foil of the sword’s long blade, sparkled like silver fire on the sequined glove, then spilled down the knight’s pristine short white tunic and tights. Clay couldn’t help noticing how the costume outlined the swell at the breast, the rounded tuck of the buttocks, the graceful curve of the thigh.

For the first time this morning, his mood lifted slightly. That, he had to admit, was indisputably the sexiest medieval knight he had ever seen.

Suddenly the knight’s sword dropped comically. From behind the helmet came a feminine voice that was both melodic and annoyed as hell. “Hey—wait just a minute! Where’s the black knight?”

The knight’s free hand reached up to yank off the silver helmet, and a cascade of thick chestnut hair spilled onto slim, tunic-clad shoulders. God, Clay thought with a strange inner lurch, Melanie Browning didn’t look older than her age. She looked younger, as innocent and wide-eyed as if she were a student herself.

She shook her head in laughing disgust. “For Pete’s sake, how am I going to kill the man if he isn’t even here?” She propped her helmet against her hip and scowled at the chess master. “Wasn’t Dr. Bates the black knight?”

“He probably forgot,” someone called out, laughing.

“You know philosophy profs,” someone else chimed in. “He’s probably still at home deciding whether to be or not to be.”

Melanie’s blue eyes sparkled, though she obviously tried not to smile. “Well, we have to have a black knight,” she insisted. Her gaze swept the crowd, found her brother. “Nick! You always wear black. You’d be a perfect kni—”

“No way,” Nick said emphatically, backing up. “I’m outta here. I just brought this guy—” he jerked his chin toward Clay “—to see you.”

Melanie frowned slightly at Nick’s rude tone, but her smile returned as soon as she saw Clay’s suit. Wow, he thought irrelevantly. What a smile!

“Oh, yes, perfect!” Grinning, she pointed her sword triumphantly at Clay. “You can be the Dark Gray knight. That’s close enough.” She extended her hand, silver sequins sparkling. “Good sir, would you be so kind as to step onto the chessboard so that I may run you through?”

Clay couldn’t help returning the smile, which surprised him. He was still irked that she had stood him up—and he definitely didn’t have time for this foolishness. But, sensing that the match was about to be salvaged, the crowd began to clap. Someone handed him a crude, thick wooden sword painted black, and wrapping his fist around the grip, he stepped onto the square in front of Melanie Browning.

She had put her helmet back on, hiding all that glorious hair. It should have rendered her androgynous, but Clay had never seen anything more distinctly female.

“You must be Mr. Gilchrist,” Melanie said as she bent forward into a fighting stance. She smiled sweetly inside her helmet and touched his sword with hers. “Tm so pleased you’ve already met Nick,” she said, beginning to parry lightly. “He’s not exactly excited about taking tennis lessons, but I’m sure you’ll bring him around. He’s a good kid, and he’s got a talent for tennis, I think.”

Clay met her thrusts, careful not to bend her elegant aluminum-foil sword with his clunky wooden one. “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” he said. He was surprised to see that she had a natural grace and handled her sword as if she’d taken lessons. Could she really be that awkward boy’s sister? “I’m not a tennis instructor.”

Her sword paused a moment, but she began fighting again quickly. “You’re not?” She backed up a step. “But you were with Nick, and I thought…” She tilted her head, laughing at her mistake unselfconsciously. “Nick always says I have a bad habit of jumping to conclusions. Rats! I just hate it when he’s right.”

That probably didn’t happen very often, Clay thought, but he found himself reluctant to voice the words. Her tone was full of tolerant affection. Tennis lessons, indeed. From Clay’s observation, the kid could make better use of a drill sergeant.

“Oh! What was I thinking? I know who you are!” With a flourish, Melanie drew a circle in the air with the tip of her sword—a useless but flashy maneuver—and the crowd roared appreciatively. Obviously, Clay noted, the gregarious Miss Browning was beloved by all members of the Wakefield Boys Academy—most of whom, not coincidentally, were male. “You’re the math tutor, of course! I should have known by the suit. You’re Mr.—”

Clay shook his head.

She hesitated. “The baseball coach?”

Clay sighed. This could take all day. “No,” he said firmly.

She laughed, unchastened. “Well, now that we know who you’re not, I’ll just hush up and let you tell me who you are.”

“My name is Clay Logan.” Somehow he kept his voice neutral. “I’m a lawyer. I’m handling your uncle Joshua’s estate.”

The laughter died on her full lips, the smile dropping like a kite deprived of wind. She knew the name—there was no doubt about that. She froze in her position. Behind the homemade helmet, her blue eyes narrowed, fixed unblinkingly on his face.

“Clay Logan.” She spoke the name in a dark monotone. Slowly she extended her sword, and with deliberate paces she came forward until the glinting silver tip grazed his shirt, right over his heart. “You’re Clay Logan?” “Yes.” He glanced at the sword. “Is this where you’re supposed to kill me?”

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t even move. Her arm was perfectly steady, the point unwavering. He let her hold that stance for a long thirty seconds. Out of his peripheral vision he could still see the crowd laughing and munching on candy apples, but he could no longer hear them. He heard only her heavy, agitated breathing, saw how it made her breasts strain against the tunic. He had no doubt that, if her sword had been real, she would have run him through on the spot.

Her instinctive antagonism wasn’t personal, of course—when she’d believed he was the tennis pro, she had been all smiles. No, this smoldering resentment was directed at her uncle’s lawyer. She had hated her uncle, and apparently that contempt spilled over onto anyone who had been his ally.

And, God help him, she didn’t even know about the terms of the will yet. If she despised Clay already, what would she do when she learned the details, when she heard about the nasty little clause Joshua had insisted on inserting?

Suddenly Clay wished himself anywhere but here. What had he been thinking? Had he really believed he could soften the blow by delivering the terms of Joshua’s will face-to-face? Had he really thought that she would appreciate the personal touch? What a fool he’d been! If ever two people were destined to be enemies…

The crowd was growing restless, but she showed no signs of moving. Finally, with a strange reluctance, Clay lifted his own sword and slowly applied pressure to hers. The sparkling aluminum foil bent easily under his crude black blade, curving into an impotent droop that pointed only at the ground.

She looked at the ruined sword for a moment, then, tossing it onto the grass, she raised her angry eyes to his. “I was supposed to capture you,” she said tensely. “You were supposed to die. You’ve spoiled the match.”

“I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “that I’m about to spoil a lot more than that.”

Her elbows propped behind her on the picnic table, Melanie sat backward on the bench, staring out through the dappled branches of the overhanging magnolia and deciding that sometimes life was just too ironic to bear.

She could see Clay Logan out of the corner of her eye. He was buying two snow cones from a diaphanously garbed princess in a heart-shaped headdress. The princess seemed to be enjoying the transaction immensely. She had offered him extra syrup three times.

Not that Melanie could exactly blame her. For a moment, back when she had mistaken Clay for Mr. Gilchrist, Melanie had been a little dazzled herself. She had taken one look at those aquiline features, those springing waves of rich brown hair and broad, elegant shoulders, and she had instantly begun debating whether it would be bad parenting to date Nick’s tennis instructor.

Yes, darned ironic, Melanie repeated to herself, pretending not to watch. This gorgeous human being was Clay Logan. Wouldn’t you just know it?

He didn’t even look like a lawyer. In spite of his twentiethcentury power suit, he had the air of a knight who would bring his lady treasures, a chest heaped high with golden coins and rubies as big as his fist. Or at least one ruby. Was that too much to ask? One twenty-five-carat, heart-shaped ruby that had been in her family for a hundred years. The beautiful, infamous Romeo Ruby.

But that, of course, was the final irony. Clay Logan wasn’t bringing her anything but a slap in the face from good old Uncle Joshua. I’m afraid that I’m about to spoil a lot more than that, Clay had said, but she had known it before he spoke. Joshua had disowned her eight years ago. Why should the tyrant have changed his mind on his deathbed?

No, her uncle hadn’t left her a penny. All that remained now was to find out how this slick lawyer, Clay Logan, had worded it. She closed her eyes against the bright May sunlight. How exactly does a lawyer justify robbing someone of her birthright?

And how was she going to manage without it?

“Here you go.” The picnic bench rocked slightly as Clay settled his weight on it She opened her eyes and stared at the cup in the outstretched hand as if she hadn’t ever seen such a thing before. “You wanted a snow cone?” he repeated patiently.

No, she hadn’t She had been trying to buy a little time to collect her composure. His showing up like this had been oddly unsettling. All that robust masculinity and suave confidence…Industrial-strength machismo was a rarity on a boys’school campus.

And then there was the way he had turned her lovely sword into a piece of overcooked silver spaghetti—don’t tell her that wasn’t a deliberate power play. He knew that she had needed this inheritance desperately, and he was warning her that there was no way she could fight her uncle’s will—or the lawyer who had drawn it up.

A sudden stinging behind her eyes startled her. No, damn it. She wouldn’t give in to weakness now. She wasn’t the type to whimper and beg. She straightened her spine. So what if his sword was bigger than hers? When he informed her that she was disinherited, she intended to laugh in his movie-star face.

“Melanie? Do you want this?” He sounded irritated, as if he had begun to suspect he was dealing with a simpleton. She took the paper cup, glancing at his shirtsleeve as she did.

Suddenly she frowned. What was that? That pink blob…surely he wasn’t wearing a pink polka-dot shirt? That would be a cute sight in a courtroom. The image pleased her. She felt a satisfying urge to chuckle.

He seemed to sense her amusement. “Cotton candy,” he said, turning over his wrist so she could see the extent of the damage. “Insidious stuff. I can’t get rid of it.”

“Suck on it,” she said. She raised her gaze to his, enjoying the surprised furrowing of his brow. She blinked innocently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Suck on it,” she repeated sweetly. “You do know how, don’t you? It’s easy. Just put your lips over the stain and—”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “I think I remember how it works.”

She raised her brows, daring him, knowing, of course, that it would be miles beneath his dignity. But hey—she could play power games, too.

To her amazement, he shrugged slightly, slipping his jacket free of one broad shoulder, then the other. He folded the expensive coat, laid it over the picnic table and then, watching her the whole time, he slowly raised his wrist to his mouth.

He was going to do it. Oh, heavens… She hadn’t noticed before what a sensual mouth he had, but there was no missing it now. Oh, my… A generous mouth, lips full but hard-edged, as if they had been laser-cut into the perfect shape.

Damn. She had meant to throw him off balance, but now, like a fool, she was the one blushing. Oh, Lord, wouldn’t she ever learn to squelch these hotheaded impulses? She should have known one little off-color word wouldn’t embarrass a man like this.

She couldn’t quite take her eyes off those lips. A tiny wriggle of discomfort moved in the pit of her stomach as he lowered them over the stain and covered it. She held her breath and waited. His lips were almost motionless. Only a subtle rhythmic pulse at the corner of his jaw hinted at his mission, but that pulse seemed suddenly to beat in time with her blood.

Inhaling a stiff breath, she lifted her gaze. He was still watching her. His brown eyes were flecked with gold, the irises deepening to dark chocolate over the pure white of his sleeve. She opened her mouth to say something, anything. Preferably something lightly sarcastic—that was her specialty. If she could only think of something.

But her mind was on strike. Before she could come up with a single witty syllable, he was finished. He lowered his arm and, without exhibiting the slightest interest in the results of his labors, smiled at her enigmatically.

“Interesting,” he said. “It’s not as sweet as you’d think, is it? A lot of things are like that. They look quite innocent, but—”

“Mr. Logan,” she broke in tersely, holding her snow cone so tightly that blue syrup trickled over her fingers, “why don’t you get to the point? You didn’t come all the way out here today to swap laundry tips.”

“No.” Still smiling, he leaned back against the table, getting comfortable. He obviously knew that their symbolic tussle for superiority was over, and he had drawn first blood. He flicked a glance at her fingers. Blue blood. “I came because you missed our appointment this morning. I wondered why.”

She stared at him. “We didn’t have an appointment”

“My secretary seems to think we did.” He propped his snow cone in a crack of the table. “She set it up a week ago. She said she confirmed it yesterday afternoon.”

Melanie ran her clean hand through her hair. This was crazy. She couldn’t have forgotten a call from her uncle’s lawyer—she had been praying for that call every time the telephone rang the past two weeks.

“There’s some mistake,” she said. “I wasn’t even at home yesterday afternoon.”

He lifted one eyebrow. “What about your brother?”

Something in his tone made her feel defensive. “Well, yes, Nick was there, but he certainly wouldn’t ever have—” She broke off self-consciously. Of course Nick would have. He was dreadful about messages. But Clay Logan couldn’t have known that. Why would he, after seeing Nick the grand total of about two minutes, automatically assume it was all the boy’s fault?

But she knew why. Because Clay Logan had no patience for teenage boys, especially troubled ones like Nick, that was why. The smoothly groomed attorney in front of her had undoubtedly never slipped one foot off the fast track from cradle to college. He’d probably been president of his preschool.

“Well, whatever happened, I’m sorry about the mix-up,” she said, hoping he’d let it drop. “Would you like to reschedule?”

“We could.” Clay hadn’t moved from his half-reclining position. He looked completely comfortable out here at the picnic grounds in spite of his regimental-striped tie and wing tips. “Or I could just tell you the terms of the will right now.”

She caught her breath. So it was that simple, was it? Obviously it wasn’t going to require reams of paperwork and notarized signatures to tell her what Joshua Browning had left her. One word would do it: Nothing. He had left everything to charity, just as he warned her he would on that awful night eight years ago.

She wondered numbly whether Clay would even say he was sorry. Or did he, perhaps, think this was what she deserved? She could only guess what Joshua had told his lawyer about his wild, ungrateful niece.

“Okay.” She put her snow cone down carefully, then met his gaze. “Now is fine.”

“Good.” But Clay didn’t speak right away. His gaze drifted to the next picnic table, where Dutch Allingham and Josh Smithers were forcing bewildered beetles to race down the length of their swords.

The silence stretched. She tried to ignore it, concentrating on wiping her hand with paper napkins. But she noticed that Clay’s forefinger flicked against his thumb, the only sign of perturbation she’d seen in him yet. Perhaps, she thought, he did regret, just a little, what he had to say.

“Toward the end of his life, your uncle insisted on drafting a rather strange new will,” he said slowly, returning his gaze to Melanie’s face. “I hope you’ll take time to think it over carefully before you react. I know it’s going to come as a shock.”

She laughed, and the sound was harsher than she had intended. The boys looked up from their beetle race and stared. “I doubt it. I knew my uncle very well.”

“So did L”

“Did you really?” She eyed him coldly. “Did you live with him for eight years, dependent on him for every scrap of food you ate, every stitch of clothing you wore, every smile, every hug, every bit of affection you received?”

“No.” He frowned. “Of course not”

“Then I don’t believe you knew him quite well enough,” she said. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be a single controlling, vindictive thing he could do to surprise you.”

Clay sighed. “Look, Melanie, I’m sorry…”

His voice sounded genuinely regretful, and even that little hint of pity threatened to destroy her hard-won composure.

Bracing herself, she dug her heels into the sand beneath the table and narrowed her eyes.

“Violins aren’t necessary, Mr. Logan. I’ve known since I was sixteen years old that my uncle planned to disinherit me.”

One side of Clay’s mouth—that wide, generous mouth—quirked up. “And you never let yourself hope that Joshua might change his mind?”

“Never,” she lied, though she could see that he knew it wasn’t true. “Never.”

“Then perhaps I’m going to have the pleasure of surprising you after all.” Clay crossed one leg over the other and propped his head against the palm of his hand. He was the picture of languorous ease—darn him. Melanie’s own posture was so tight she could almost hear her muscles humming.

“Well, you can try,” she said, managing what she hoped was a lazy smile, but which felt annoyingly like a sickly one.

“Okay.” He smiled. “Two months before he died, your uncle established what is commonly known as an incentive trust. In that trust, he left everything—his house, his collection of antique maps, his stocks, bonds and cash holdings and, of course, the Browning ruby—to one person.” He eyed her, obviously assessing the impact of his list. “That’s an estate totaling well over twelve million dollars.”

“Left them to—” she swallowed “—to whom?”

Clay twitched one long, lazy forefinger toward Melanie. “To you.”

For a long moment, she didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her vocal cords had gone slack. Everything? Even the ruby? That wasn’t possible. Joshua had said—

“There are certain conditions, of course.”

Melanie’s numb hands slowly clenched into fists in her lap. Conditions. Of course. Nothing Joshua Browning had ever offered in his life had been unconditional.

“That,” she said, “might have been predicted.”

“Yes, perhaps. But I did warn you. This is where it gets strange.” Clay leaned forward. The sudden movement stirred the air, and the trembling breath she took tasted sickly sweet, like overblown magnolias. “It’s true,” he said. “You are to inherit everything, every single penny, but only if you can, within one year, prove that you are mature enough to handle it”

She stared. “Prove what?”

Clay shrugged. “Apparently Joshua had certain…reservations about some of your life choices. And, as well, he feared that your brother might coerce you into doing something unwise.”

“Nick would?” Her lips twisted. “What? Did Joshua think I might cut up the Romeo Ruby and use it to buy my brother video games?”

Clay didn’t smile. “Or private schools. Designer shoes. Tennis lessons.”

“Twelve million is a lot of tennis lessons,” she snapped.

“Yes, it is,” he answered calmly. “Too many. I think that was Joshua’s point”

She stared at him. How dare he take that superior tone? This was so utterly preposterous, and yet how like Joshua it was! Though Clay made it all sound so pragmatic, Melanie knew that Joshua hadn’t cared a fig what became of the money. He’d just wanted another way to control her, even from beyond the grave.

“Tell me, Mr. Logan. Did my uncle have any idea how a person can prove anything as intangible as good judgment? Surely maturity can’t be quantified.”

Clay didn’t look at all disturbed by her bitterness. “Actually Joshua suggested several ways. He thought a review of your finances might help, combined with a look at Nick’s grades, interviews with his teachers, things like that But in addition he said that, in his opinion, the ideal proof would be for you to marry someone the executor approved of. Someone who couldn’t be suspected of marrying you for your inheritance.”

Marry her for the money…Had Joshua really said that? Had he really still needed to throw that in her face? Memories of that long-ago night, of an elopement that failed, a love that was proven false, flooded over Melanie like a river of shame.

“Oh, that’s rich! I must marry to get my inheritance? For God’s sake! That’s…that’s…” Realizing she was in danger of sputtering, she took a breath. “That’s positively feudal”

Clay nodded gravely. “So I told Joshua. But he was adamant.”

Suddenly she longed to tell Joshua exactly what she thought of his “incentive trust”. But it was too late. She would never again tell Joshua anything. He was dead. For the first time, it seemed to sink in that her long battle with him was over.

And this…this insult had been his parting message to her.

She stood up though her legs were shaking. She couldn’t listen to another word. Tucking her cardboard helmet under her elbow, she threw her head back, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. She had expected to be hurt, but this… This was worse than anything she had imagined.

“Listen carefully, Mr. Logan,” she said, enunciating each word clearly. “I want you to tell my uncle’s executor, whoever this paragon might be, that I intend to claim my inheritance. The Romeo Ruby belonged to my parents. When they died, my uncle took everything that should have come to us—”

“Their wills named him as beneficiary,” Clay interjected reasonably.

“Perhaps,” she said coldly, “but they meant for him to look after it for us. I’m quite sure it never occurred to my parents that my uncle would try to disinherit Nick and me.”

He waited, not contradicting her. How could he? He must know it was true.

“So you tell my uncle’s executor that I expected something like this. Tell him I’ve already hired a lawyer, and he’s going to break this will.” She narrowed her eyes. “Tell him that I’m not going to lower myself to prove anything to anyone, especially not to any man who’d participate in such a contemptible charade as this.”

Clay was smiling, a strangely charming, lopsided grin that created a small dimple where his cheek met his jaw. She scowled at him. What the devil was so funny?

“I mean it, Mr. Logan. If a snake like that thinks he can actually pass judgment on my life, my decisions, my maturity…”

Her words faltered as a sudden suspicion settled cold and thick in her stomach. She folded her arms across her waist and tried not to shiver.

“All right, I’ll bite. Why the smile? Who’s the executor? Just who is low enough to be my uncle’s accomplice in this farce?”

Clay tilted his head. A ray of sunlight fingered its way through the trees and struck golden highlights into his hair. He was still smiling, his cheek still dimpling.

“I’m sorry, Melanie,” he said quietly. “It’s me.”

CHAPTER TWO

“OH, BLAST all!” Melanie balefully eyed the charred bread sticks on the pan in front of her. “Just look at this,” she said, raising her voice so that it could be heard in the adjacent living room. “I burned them. Damn that man!”

Ted Martin, who was spread out comfortably on her sofa watching a basketball game on television, lifted his blond head. “Who?”

“Clay Logan, of course. Who else?” She picked up one of the blackened twists, which was the consistency of a hockey stick, and knocked it against the counter.

It felt perversely gratifying to hit something. Today had been a very, very bad day. Only forty-eight hours after receiving a copy of Joshua Browning’s will, Melanie’s lawyer had called this afternoon with the tragic news. However medieval it might seem, the will appeared to be ironclad. Clay Logan was too good to have left any loopholes.

Her lawyer had been sympathetic, but the bottom line was that he just couldn’t agree to take the case on a contingency basis—the odds of winning were too slim. His best advice, he said, was that she should negotiate with Logan, who was by all accounts a tough lawyer but a fair and just human being.

Well, not by all accounts. If anyone had asked her, the report would have been a great deal less flattering. She wasn’t ready to agree he was a human being at all.

She whacked the bread stick one last time. “Damn, damn, damn the man. May his grandchildren be cross-eyed. May all his dogs have fleas.”

With a resigned sigh, Ted sat up and turned off the television. “Why? Logan didn’t make you burn the bread, did he?”

She came to the doorway, scowling. “Of course he did.”

“How?” Ted ambled into the kitchen and extracted a fat strawberry from the pie on the windowsill. “Did he break in and sabotage the oven thermostat?”

“He might as well have.” Melanie pulled the strawberry from his fingers just an inch short of his lips. “Honestly, Ted, you’re as bad as Nick.” She tucked the berry back into its cradle of whipped cream. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes—I curse Clay Logan and all his dogs because he’s an insufferable man, and I hate him. I’m so busy hating him, in fact, that I’ve ruined a perfectly good dinner.”

“No, you didn’t. The spaghetti’s fine. And I made one hell of a salad. Let’s eat.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t. I hate Logan too much to eat.”

“Good. More for me.” Ted reached around her to rummage for utensils. “But seriously, are you sure it’s Logan you’re mad at, Mel? He was just the hired gun, wasn’t he? The will itself is your problem—and that was your uncle’s idea.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” She knew Ted was right, but her annoyance was no less intense for being irrational. She could still see how Logan had looked at the chess match the other day, sizing her up, obviously deciding that Joshua had been right. “But I wish you could have seen his face when he told me. He was the hired gun all right, and he thoroughly enjoyed pulling the trigger.”

“Well, that dirty rat!” Ted’s attempt at a gangster accent failed miserably. “I’ll stab him in the alley like the dog he is.” He tossed silverware nosily. “Or I would if I could find a damn knife.”

Melanie patted his forearm affectionately. Good old Ted—she thanked heaven for his support this past year. It had been a tough year for both of them. Ted’s fiancée had left him last summer, a break that had wounded him more deeply than he liked to acknowledge. And at about the same time, Melanie’s life had been turned upside down by the arrival of her little brother, who had decided he could no longer tolerate living with his domineering Uncle Joshua.

Melanie herself had escaped Uncle Joshua’s tyranny years ago, running away when she was only sixteen, but Nick had stayed with the old man until last year, when their relationship finally grew so stormy that the boy had sought sanctuary with Melanie.

As the dean of boys at Wakefield, Ted had heard about Nick’s change of address immediately and phoned Melanie for a conference. Since then, Ted had become her best friend. She’d rested her woes on his shoulders a hundred times.

And nice shoulders they were, too—trim and solid and warm. She wondered, not for the first time, why their relationship had never blossomed into a romance. Perhaps Ted wasn’t over Sheila yet—Melanie suspected he might never forget his former fiancée. But Melanie didn’t mind. In spite of Ted’s many charms, she had never felt anything more than friendship toward him. No leap of flame. Not even a tiny wriggle of heat.

The sad truth was, she’d felt more sexual awareness watching Clay Logan launder his shirt with his lips today than she ever had here in Ted Martin’s arms.

Yes, life was just a charming little bundle of ironies, wasn’t it?

Still, his big brother comfort was just what she needed now, when her heart was so sore. Who would have guessed she would find her uncle’s death so unnerving? Was it possible she had been harboring hopes of an eventual reconciliation?

Surely not. She might be naive, immature, impractical—all the things Joshua had accused her of—but she wasn’t a complete idiot. She’d given up yearning for his love years ago. Now she merely wanted justice.

Still—suddenly she couldn’t bear the memories of her uncle. Joshua, bent over his dusty old maps. Joshua, barking into his cellular telephone. Joshua studying the financial pages. Joshua, completely ignoring the little girl waiting in the doorway.

She caught her breath, stunned by the wave of sorrow that overwhelmed her. Instantly aware, Ted dropped the flatware and wrapped his arms around her gently.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice low and steady. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I know.” She shut her eyes. Ted was right. Everything would work out, love or no love, money or no money. Somehow she and Nick would get through.

“Oh, man, that is so gross.”

Straightening, she looked up to see Nick squatting by the open door of the refrigerator, scrounging irritably through the bowls and bottles.

“What’s gross?” With a smile, she patted Ted’s cheek, extricated herself and hurried to her brother’s side. She peered in at the shelves. “Has something spoiled?”

Nick grimaced and grabbed a cold leg of fried chicken. “Yeah, my appetite,” he said. He stood up, gnawing on the drumstick. “People can see you two through the window, you know. Can’t you save that crap for when I’m gone?”

Melanie slowly closed the refrigerator door before speaking. She hardly knew which transgression to address first “Don’t use that word, Nick,” she began.

But he merely grunted and turned his back to her. He had the remote control in his hand and he flicked on the television.

“And what do you mean, when you’re gone?” she asked, keeping her voice neutral. “Were you planning to go out? It’s a school night, you know. It’s Tuesday.”

“Wow.” Nick didn’t turn around. “News flash. It’s Tuesday.”

Behind her, Melanie felt Ted’s tension snap. She touched his arm, warning him, but it was too late. “Listen, Nick,” he said in the tone he ordinarily reserved for the Wakefield campus, “that’s no way to treat—”

Nick finally looked around. His face was hard, closed in. “Hey, we’re not at school now, okay?” He tossed the stripped chicken bone toward the trash can. It missed by two inches, landing with a disagreeable splat on the linoleum. “You’re not the dean when you’re here, man.”

“Nick! Apologize to Mr. Martin immediately,” Melanie ordered, but her words were almost lost beneath a sudden barrage of honking. Five short, aggressive, obviously impatient blares reverberated into the living room.

The sounds acted on Nick like a starting pistol on a sprinter.

He yanked his grimy baseball cap from the kitchen table and darted for the door.

“Nick.” Melanie’s voice was unyielding.

The boy paused. She could almost see him working to swallow his pride.

Finally he turned to Ted. “Sorry, Mr. Martin,” he said, dragging every syllable out with effort. “I guess I lost my cool there. I really didn’t mean to be so rude.”

Ted still looked ruffled, but he accepted the apology fairly graciously. Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. One more crisis averted. Life with a teenager was like this—all peaks and valleys. Poor Nick seemed to be strapped to a hormonal tiger—and Melanie was whipping along behind, holding the bucking tail, trying to hang on.

“Sorry I was being a pig, Mel,” he said, turning to his sister with an expression so angelic she almost laughed out loud. Who did he think he was kidding? “Figgy and I were going out for a burger. His brother Bash is driving. We’ll be back by nine. Okay?”

“Oh, don’t give me that sad-puppy look, you scamp,” she said, reaching out to touch his dark chestnut hair, so wild and messy, yet so like her own. It was hard to stay angry with Nick. Perhaps it was because she remembered all too well her own defiance at fifteen. Or maybe it was because she and Nick had no one but each other now. “I guess it’s okay,” she said, “assuming you’ve done all your home—”

But Nick didn’t dawdle an instant beyond the “okay.” He was already bolting across the front yard, leaping the small iron gate and racing toward the waiting car.

Melanie followed him out, and even after the roaring muffler faded to silence, she lingered on the porch. In a few seconds, she heard Ted’s footsteps. She tossed him an apologetic smile over her shoulder. “Sorry he was such a creep,” she said. “Must have been a spike in the hormone current.”

Ted chuckled. “If only they’d hurry up and invent a cure for adolescence.”

She sighed her heartfelt agreement, but she didn’t pursue the subject. Nick was gone, taking his raging hormones with him, and she didn’t feel like worrying anymore tonight. Instead she breathed deeply, savoring the peace of the sweet latespring evening. Crickets scratched, maples rustled, and in the distance a dog proclaimed himself lord of all he surveyed.

Wrapping her hand around the front post, Melanie gazed down the narrow street, studying the small, cinder-block houses. In spite of a few questionable neighbors, occasional raucous late-night fights in the house next door, she liked this cozy, unpretentious neighborhood, spotty grass, barking dogs and all. She’d take it over the sterile grandeur of Cartouche Court, Joshua’s personal monument to vulgarity, any day.

“Nick hates it here,” she said suddenly. Ted stirred, but he didn’t jump in with a response. She liked that about Ted. He was a good listener. “Every day when we get in the car to go home, he starts singing. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home to the ghetto we go.” Though technically it wasn’t funny, she had to smile, remembering. “It’s too awful. He does it in this simply spine-tingling falsetto.”

“Jeez. That brat really needs a boot in the rear, doesn’t he?”

She shook her head helplessly, still grinning. “I guess he just lived too long with my uncle. Cartouche Court can kind of distort your perspective.”

Ted hesitated a moment, and when he spoke, his tone was only half-teasing. “All right, out with it, Mel. Is this your way of telling me you’re going to go after the inheritance after all? What are you going to do—wed some pillar of the community just so you can restore Nick to the elegance of the Court?”

She tilted a glance up into his kind, intelligent face. Darn. He read her too well. She hadn’t even been sure herself, until just moments ago, what she was going to do.

“A ‘pillar of the community’? Ugh. Sounds like the statue in the town square.” She shivered. “No. I’d never go that far, even for Nick. But surely there’s a way to get our inheritance without resorting to marriage.”

“Oh, yeah? How?”

She hoisted herself up on the porch railing, settling her flowered skirt primly around her knees. “Well…” She drew the syllable out, stalling. “Perhaps I can persuade this executioner—”

“Executor.”

“Whatever.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Persuade this Logan fellow that I’m not quite the hopeless flake Joshua said I was.” She smiled. “I mean, I do pay my bills, keep a clean house and floss twice a day. I haven’t shot anyone lately, and I don’t think anybody knows about that time I doubleparked outside the Saveway.”

Ted’s brown gaze remained skeptical. “Yeah, it sounds easy. But the one thing you’re not factoring in is your—”

“My pride?” She raised her chin. “I may be a bit…independent, but believe it or not, I can humble myself. Occasionally, anyhow.” She bit her lip. “Temporarily.”

“Actually it’s not your pride I’m worried about. It’s…well, to put it frankly, your temper.” He lifted a finger to silence her indignant protest “Come on, you know it would make you crazy to let Logan paw through your receipts, deciding whether you paid too much for spaghetti sauce or underwear. You’re just not the type of woman who submits to nonsense like this.”

She scowled. His speech had the irritating ring of truth. “You could be wrong, you know,” she said haughtily. “You’re the dean of boys, not the Freud of females.”

“Yeah, I could be wrong. But I’m not” He tugged on her ponytail, grinning. “I don’t know exactly what would make you surrender yourself to Clay Logan’s authority—or any other man’s for that matter—but I know what won’t. Twelve million dollars won’t”

But five hours later, when the police called to tell her that Figgy, Bash and Nick were down at the police station, she discovered that Ted was wrong.

Twelve million dollars would.

The weather was gloomy all that Saturday morning. It never quite rained, but the sky was bad-tempered, growling and spitting irritably from the time Melanie woke up until the moment she parked her tiny sedan in the circular driveway of Cartouche Court.

She sat for a moment after turning off the ignition, listening to the crackles and snaps of the old engine as it settled. The noises got weirder every day. Hooking her hands over the steering wheel, she peered up at the mansion. She hadn’t been here in years, but the place looked depressingly the same. Big and boxy, ugly and unwelcoming. She felt a sudden urge to start the engine and go home.

Why was she being such a wimp? She wasn’t an eight-yearold orphan anymore. Climbing out of the car, she adjusted her calf-length navy blue skirt, did a quick button check, then used a forefinger to chase any stray lipstick back within the lines. Everything was where it belonged, she decided—except her heart, which was exhibiting a regrettable tendency to beat rather high in her throat.

She slowly ascended the marble front steps and rang the bell. While she waited, she studied the pseudo-Grecian statues that flanked the double front doors. She’d always found them disturbing—two naked, armless females who appeared to have been frozen midflight as they tned to escape the house. Probably Uncle Joshua’s definition of the perfect woman, Melanie thought. Mute, helpless and hopelessly trapped.

“Morning, ladies,” she said, patting the truncated shoulder of the nearest statue. “I’m back, you see. I thought I had gotten away, but apparently it’s not that easy.” She wrinkled her nose. “I guess I don’t have to tell you about that.”

Suddenly the front door swung open, and Melanie’s mouth went embarrassingly slack. For a minute, it was as if the past sixteen years had never even existed. In spite of her grownup clothes, in spite of the lipstick and the car keys, Melanie was eight years old again, staring up into the sourest face she had ever seen.

“Mrs. Hilliard.” Her voice even sounded like a child’s. She cleared her throat, swallowed, then tried again. “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Hilliard. How have you been?”

The woman’s long, square jaw tightened, and her black eyes, surrounded by dark smudges below and thick, slashing black brows above, narrowed. “I’ve been missing your uncle, that’s how I’ve been,” Mrs. Hilliard said flatly. “I don’t suppose you can say the same.”

If her life had been a children’s book, Melanie thought, like The Secret Garden or Pollyanna, Joshua’s housekeeper would have been rosy cheeked and cheerful, always ready to comfort the new little orphan with a hug, or a licorice twist, or a bracing bit of country wisdom. Instead, she had been like this. Cold, critical and painfully candid.

Melanie’s instincts told her she’d better establish new ground rules. She clamped her jaw shut, straightened to her full five-four and met the woman’s gaze straight on. “I believe Mr. Logan is expecting me, Mrs. Hilliard,” she said firmly, ignoring the woman’s question. And why shouldn’t she? It was a rude and nosy question.

The housekeeper blinked twice, then stood back, holding the door wide. “He’s in the library,” she said, her tone falling short of courtesy, but, at least for the moment, smothering the open hostility. After all, there was the off chance that Melanie might be able to claim her inheritance. Melanie hadn’t ever contended that Mrs. Hilliard was stupid. Just mean.

The housekeeper left her to find her own way to the library, which was at the extreme end of the entry hall—a hall that by itself was almost as big as her whole house in Sewage Basin Heights.

But something was different today…. She looked toward the curving central staircase and finally realized that two workmen were kneeling on the steps, pulling up the carpet. They talked softly in some melodic foreign language, and one of them even whistled while he worked. Their chatter paused as she passed, and they smiled at her.

She smiled back, grateful for the sense of life and energy that their presence lent to the house, which was usually as silent as a crypt. During Uncle Joshua’s reign, workmen never whistled.

Oh, how painfully vivid the memories were—how miserable she had been here! She felt her resolve hardening and quickened her steps. She deserved this inheritance, by God. Joshua owed her something for all those lonely years.

When she finally reached it, the dark-paneled library door was tightly shut, just as it had always been in her uncle’s day. She considered barging in, but old habits died hard. So she knocked, but she knocked briskly, determined to arrive with confidence.

“Damn, damn, damn! Who the hell is that?”

They were her uncle’s words. Joshua always cursed whenever the phone rang or a knock sounded at the door. Antisocial by nature and by habit, he always assumed that any contact from the outside world would be a nuisance.

Melanie put out one hand to steady herself on the paneling, but then she remembered. Not her uncle, of course not It must be Copernicus. How could she have forgotten Copernicus? Her uncle’s parrot, a bird as ill-tempered as its owner, had been uncannily precocious about picking up swearwords. His talents had delighted Joshua, who had taught him to be profane in six languages.

“Who is it? Who the hell is it?” The parrot was still posing the question querulously when Clay Logan opened the heavy door. The library within was dim. Though its domed ceiling rose to a huge skylight in the center, on a rainy day nothing but gloom came through. All that mahogany paneling was positively funereal—so it took her a moment to realize he was holding a magnifying glass in one hand and a map in the other.

He waved her in with the map hand. “Melanie. Come in. I’m just finishing up here, but for God’s sake, come show yourself to Copernicus before he has a stroke.”

“He won’t have a stroke,” she assured him, her tone slightly acid. “He thrives on irascibility. Just like my uncle.”

But she walked over to the old parrot anyway and presented herself in front of his perch. She had been sixteen the last time she saw Copernicus. The bird was silent as if he’d recognized her but couldn’t believe his eyes. He shifted from foot to foot and bobbed nervously, watching her through first one eye and then the other.

“Good Lord, he’s speechless.” Clay had retreated to the big carved desk in the middle of the room, but he’d looked up from the map he’d been studying and was observing their interplay curiously. “That’s a first”

“Oh, he’ll recover. He’ll be swearing at me in Portuguese pretty soon.”

Clay chuckled and went back to his perusal of the map before him. Looking at him, Melanie felt a strange confusion in the pit of her stomach. He had explained that he was staying at Cartouche Court for a while, appraising her uncle’s antique map collection, but somehow actually seeing him behind that desk was a shock. Joshua had spent so many hours there, bent over those same maps.

And yet Clay couldn’t have looked less like her uncle. Joshua’s interest in the collection had been dry, brittle, precise. The only emotion they evoked in him was greed.

In contrast, Clay seemed to be all vibrant masculinity even in repose. With his shirtsleeves rolled back to his elbows and his aristocratic profile bent over the mottled paper, he seemed excited by the map, more like an explorer than an academic. A ship’s captain, perhaps, or a warring king studying the charts that would lead him to some new, exotic adventure, some thrilling conquest.

Melanie mentally shook herself. What nonsensical fancy was this? Clay Logan might have walked into her life as a black knight, but he was just an ordinary man, nothing more, nothing less. The fact that her uncle had given him so much power over her future was making her imagine things.

Striving for a more natural air, she strolled toward the desk and stole a peek over his shoulder. The map was very old, its colorful pictures quite strange and beautiful. Ships and sea monsters lurked in the oceans; heraldic emblems decorated the borders, while in each corner a face with puffed cheeks blew the four winds toward the land.

“It’s fourteenth century,” Clay said. He ran a long forefinger across the youthful, garlanded head of Zephyrus, the west wind. “Hand colored. Beautiful, but not terribly accurate. I would have hated to try to use it to actually get anywhere.”

She looked again. “Well, at least it warns you where not to go. It shows quite clearly where the monsters are.”

“True.” Leaning back, Clay gazed up at her thoughtfully. “The only problem is that they were wrong. The most terrifying monster on this map swims in what’s now the best fishing water around the Bahamas.” He smiled. “Like many people, mapmakers created monsters out of their own ignorance. Out of their own fears.”

His smile seemed slightly wry. Did that comment carry a double meaning? Was he suggesting that she had demonized Uncle Joshua out of her own insecurity? Watchful of her temper, she chose not to address that issue.

“I can sympathize with that,” she said. She hoped she sounded confident, only slightly self-effacing. “I certainly let my fears get away from me when you came to Wakefield the other day. I want to apologize for flying off the handle like that.”

He was still smiling. “No apology is necessary. I expected you to find the terms of Joshua’s will disagreeable. I wasn’t at all surprised that you decided I was one of your monsters. How are you feeling now? Has your attorney had time to look over the will?”

“Yes,” she said uncomfortably. He must know what her lawyer had said. If she still cherished any hopes of getting the will thrown out, she would never have come here. “He tells me that my uncle’s will is quite legal and probably unbreakable.”

“He must be an unusually ethical man, then,” Clay said, sounding surprised. “A lot of lawyers would assure you it was worth a try, just so they could bill you for hundreds of hours of ‘trying’.”

She bit her lower lip, wondering how honest she needed to be. Completely honest, she decided unhappily. A woman mature enough to inherit twelve million dollars didn’t shrink from confronting an embarrassing fact or two.

“Well, he didn’t really have any incentive to mislead me. I asked him to take the case on a contingency basis. He wouldn’t have earned a cent if he hadn’t overturned the will.” She lifted her chin. “I can’t afford to contest this will frivolously, Mr. Logan.”

“Then don’t contest it at all,” he said softly. “Your uncle wanted a will that would stand up to any challenge, and that’s what I gave him.” Standing, he came around the side of the desk. “Look, Melanie, I’ve got an idea.”

His smile was warm and utterly charming, which made her instantly suspicious. Warm, charming people didn’t ordinarily work well—or very long—with Joshua Browning.

“Since you’ve acknowledged that I’m not technically a monster,” he said, his tone teasing. “why don’t we start over? We’ll sit down, you’ll agree to call me Clay, and we’ll talk this whole thing over calmly.”

She nodded slowly, banishing the suspicion. This was, after all, what she had hoped would happen. Calm. Cooperative. That wasn’t so hard. She could do that

“Good. How about over here, then?” Clay gestured to a large leather sofa directly under the skylight, the most cheerful spot in a room like this. Its only drawback was that it faced a small, strange display of antique handcuffs and thumbscrews that Joshua had collected over the years. More obsession with power.

But rather than quibble with Clay’s choice of seats—that was no way to start a cooperative chat—Melanie sat, settling herself at an angle to the display. If she didn’t turn her head much, she couldn’t even see the nasty little items.

When she leaned back, though, the sofa suddenly hissed and writhed beneath her. She leaped to her feet, startled beyond speech. A very large reddish-brown cat—so like the color of the sofa that she hadn’t even seen it—was huffily rearranging himself, angry at the disruption but too lazy to get out of the way.

Clay laughed and, reaching over, dumped the fat, furry feline unceremoniously onto the floor. “Get lost, Fudge. You’re in the way.”

“Damn cat,” the parrot complained from his perch. “Useless beast.”

Melanie stared from Copernicus to the cat, then turned her bewildered gaze to Clay. She finally found her voice. “Is that yours?”

Clay shook his head, patting the now-empty spot, encouraging her to take her seat again. “Good Lord, no. That lazy feline belonged to your uncle.”

“Joshua had a cat?” Melanie tried to picture it. For years, she and Nick had begged their uncle for a pet, but he’d always refused. Too much hair, too much trouble. And now—this? “My uncle hated cats. He never had a cat in his life.”

“I gave this one to him a year ago,” Clay said mildly.

“Fudge shared tuna sandwiches with him, ate them right off his plate.” He eyed her speculatively. “You’ve been gone a long time, you know. A lot can change in eight years.”

“Obviously.” She sank onto the sofa, a little dizzy suddenly, slightly disoriented. She felt like the blindfolded player in that old children’s game, twirled first this way and that until she had no idea which way she was facing.

It had been a mistake to come here. She should have waited until Monday, when she could have met Clay in his office. This place had too many memories, too much emotional residue. Right now, her thoughts were so off balanced that she wondered if she could even find the words to state her case.

“I think I’d better just come straight to the point,” she said, her voice hardly as steady as it should be. “Nick is at a ball game with a friend, but they’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” he said, settling comfortably against the sofa.

“I’m listening.”

“Okay,” she echoed. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.

“As you may have guessed, I want to talk to you about Joshua’s will. I…well, I wanted you to know that, in spite of what my uncle may have told you about me, I really am not a crazy teenager anymore. I’m twenty-four. I work. I live a perfectly sensible, even frugal…”

She hesitated. His gaze was curious, polite, but somehow unnerving. This was going to be much harder than she had anticipated. And perhaps, though these were the words she’d practiced in front of the mirror, she was going at it all wrong. Even she could hear that she still sounded angry, defensive.

She started over. “I want my inheritance, Clay. I believe I deserve it, and I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to convince you of that. Anything you need—credit reports, bank accounts, work references—I’m prepared to make it all available to you.”

He raised his brows. “This is a fairly dramatic turnaround, isn’t it? May I ask what happened to change your mind so completely?”

She flushed. “I’ve already admitted I overreacted. I’ve given this a lot of thought since that afternoon. In fact, I’ve thought of almost nothing else. I’ve realized that I have nothing to hide, nothing to fear from an inspection of my finances or my lifestyle.” She tried to smile. “You just reminded me that a lot can change in eight years. You’re right. Perhaps my uncle changed—I don’t know. But I do know that I changed, a lot. In fact, if you’ll give me a fair chance, you’ll discover that I’m a very different person from the headstrong girl my uncle remembered.”

That much was certainly true, she thought, aware of how bitter the words tasted in her mouth. The old Melanie could never have spoken such conciliatory sentences, not for a hundred million dollars. Even now, if it wasn’t for Nick, she might happily have suggested that Mr. Clay Logan take the damn Romeo Ruby and—

“I’d like nothing better than to discover just that,” he said. She had to admit he handled his victory well—his smile wasn’t the least big smug. “I believe Joshua wanted you to have his estate if you were ready to handle it. It would please me to be able to turn it over to you.” He leaned forward. “I’ll have my secretary send you a list of everything I’ll need first thing Monday morning. We can get started right away.”

But she didn’t stand. She couldn’t allow him to dismiss her—not yet. Her needs were more urgent than she had let on.

“How long do you think it will take?” she asked, trying to sound calm, unharried. “I mean, for you to complete your…evaluation and make a decision?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. It depends on what I find. As you know, the will stipulates that you have twelve months in which to prove that you should inherit. I can’t imagine that it could possibly take that long.” He tilted his head, studying her face. “Why—is there some urgency?”

“Yes,” she said uncomfortably, plucking at the buttons that quilted the leather of the sofa. “You see, I really need to move—to get out of the house I’m in.”

“Are you behind in your payments?”

She colored again. “No, no, of course not. I don’t get ‘behind’ in my payments. It’s just that I need to get into a better neighborhood—a safer neighborhood. I’ll sell my house, of course, but I’m afraid that will take too long. We need to move very soon.”

Uh-oh. She was babbling, not outlining the measured logic of a sensible young woman. This wasn’t how it had sounded in front of the mirror. But then, the mirror hadn’t given her that skeptical look.

“Right now? What’s the rush?”

“It’s Nick,” she said miserably. Clay’s eyes changed. Of course it was Nick, his disappointed gaze said. But she refused to let herself get defensive. “It’s just that I’m afraid he’s falling in with a bad crowd.”

Clay leaned back, raising one brow. “If you think you can find a neighborhood that’s immune to ‘bad crowds’, I’m afraid you’re searching for an Eden that doesn’t exist.”

Suddenly Melanie felt something warm and furry against her calf. Fudge apparently wanted to make friends. She dropped her hand onto his silky fur and softly scratched. At least it allowed her to avoid Clay’s too-perceptive eyes.

“I know, but…well, Nick’s given up his old friends from school. Our circumstances are rather limited, as you may already know, so he just doesn’t feel like one of them anymore. It’s destroyed his self-esteem.”

“What has? Not being rich? The boy can’t respect himself just because he no longer lives at Cartouche Court? Didn’t he know that, when he left your uncle’s custody, he left the goodies behind, too? The status address, weekly allowance, the credit lines at all the best stores…”

She flushed. “You make it sound like the worst kind of snobbery.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.” She heard herself getting angry, but she couldn’t help it. “You don’t understand. You don’t realize how tough a private boys’ school can be. The students are—well, it’s ruthless if you can’t keep up.”

“On the contrary,” he said, “I know exactly what it’s like.” Clay gave her another of those wry smiles. “I went to a private school, too. Four long years as a scholarship student. It’s no fun, but it’s survivable.”

She stared at him, finding the concept strangely jarring. She tried to picture Clay Logan at fourteen or fifteen. Even harder, she tried to picture him ever feeling at a disadvantage. Was it possible that this man had ever been racked with insecurity, rejected by the rich boys, forced to seek companionship with near delinquents?

No. It was not possible—he had too much inner strength. Granted, she didn’t know him very well, but his personal pride was evident in the way he carried himself. The perfect square of his shoulders, the firm set of his angular jaw, the nononsense expression in his intelligent eyes, were all the proof she needed. If Clay Logan had been shunned because he possessed more brains than bank account, he would simply have pitied his critics and comfortably spent the four years alone.

So how could she admit to him that Nick wasn’t made of such stern stuff? That Nick’s ego was fragile, his self-image built on all the wrong things. Did she dare say she blamed her uncle for that, too?

“I’m sure Nick’s hurting,” Clay went on. “And I’m sorry for it. But leaving Joshua was Nick’s own idea. He didn’t like the restrictions Joshua placed on him—and he hoped you would be a more lenient guardian. It’s really no surprise, is it, that there was a price to pay for his freedom? There usually is.”

“Yes, but the price is too high!” She pressed her fingertips together tightly, holding her emotion in with every muscle.

“He’s taken up with some new kids, kids from our neighborhood. These boys are much tougher than he is. He…” She hoped she wouldn’t fall apart, thinking of how Nick had looked at the police station, so young, so frightened. “He follows their lead. This week, they were caught spray-painting city hall.”

Clay’s brows pulled together in distaste. “Then the problem is in Nick, Melanie. Not in your address.”

Frustration pressed like a fist on her chest. “I understand what you’re saying. He should be stronger, I know. But I have to deal with Nick as he is, not as he ought to be.”

His face was implacable, and suddenly she realized she was just plain tired of begging—it was so at odds with her natural temperament. She had done all she could. If Clay couldn’t feel any sympathy for Nick, then she would have to find another way.

She stood jerkily, feeling like a fool. She had abased herself for nothing. “I apologize for wasting your time,” she said coolly. “I had hoped that perhaps you could expedite this…this cute little trial my uncle cooked up. If you won’t, you won’t I don’t need to bore you with all the details of our personal problems.”

Clay rested his head on the heel of his hand, still relaxed in spite of her tension.

“You’re flying off the handle again,” he pointed out.

“No, I’m just late getting home. Thanks again for—”

“If you really feel that Nick is in danger where you are,” he broke in calmly, “why not move back into Cartouche Court?” He smiled at her horrified expression. “I’m serious, Melanie. Why not? Joshua’s will specifically stipulates that you may live here, rent free, during the twelve-month evaluation period. Why not take advantage of his offer? Why not come home?”

Why not? A hundred thousand memories, all of them unhappy, that was why not. She looked helplessly around the library, half-expecting to see her uncle lurking in the dark corners. But the clouds had passed over—the shadows now were honey-colored.

“Come home?” she repeated hollowly. Was this home?

“Come home,” Copernicus ordered in a fierce voice that was eerily like her uncle’s. “Come home, damn it.”

It was obviously unanimous. Even Fudge wrapped himself around her ankle, purring. She stared numbly down at the cat, wondering why she was even letting herself consider this insanity. She leaned down to pet him, stalling.

“Damn cat,” Copernicus said sullenly, ruffling his feathers irritably.

Clay had stood now, too, and was studying her closely. “Why don’t you at least give it some thought? It would be financially advantageous for you, and it might even, as you say, expedite the work you and I need to do together. Fewer faxes, no phone messages to go astray.” He sighed. “I could even get to know Nick better.”

Get to know Nick…? She realized suddenly, with a nervous tightening in her gut, what he meant. “Oh, that’s right. You…you live here now, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He grinned, and for the first time, in the brightening sunshine, she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “But I’m staying in the guest house, in case you’re worried about appearances.”

“Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I?” she said dryly. “Considering that my character and my judgment are now officially on trial.”

He laughed as if he thought she was quite witty, but she knew it was no more than the truth. She was the defendant, and Cartouche Court was to be her jail. And Clay Logan was prosecutor, jailer, judge and jury all in one deceptively charming package. She closed her eyes. The prisoner was in big, big trouble.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS the wrong side of midnight. As was his habit before retiring to the guest cottage for the night, Clay strolled quietly across the upstairs hall of Cartouche Court, his body slicing through the alternating stripes of blue moonlight and black shadow as he double-checked doors and windows.

The hall was like a long, straight saber, cleaving the mansion’s eight bedrooms into two sets of four. He peered into each one as he passed, assuring himself that all was in order. With so many workmen coming and going, it couldn’t hurt to be careful.

It was like taking a walk through time and space. Joshua had decorated the bedrooms to reflect different nations or eras, each using an antique map as inspiration. The Chinese bedroom, then the Irish, the Crusades, the Civil War, the St. Croix…The interior of Cartouche Court was as varied as history itself.

But silent, Clay thought, standing at the top of the stairs, scanning the emptiness. Some nameless disaster might have swept all living things from the face of the earth, leaving behind only hollow suits of armor, stopped clocks, beds that no one slept in, books that no one read.

Well, all that would change tomorrow when Melanie and her brother arrived. The transformation had, in fact, already begun.

He moved to the Chinese bedroom and knuckled the door open slightly. Over the past week, the room’s simple elegance had given way to a strangely delightful chaos as Melanie’s things had been sent ahead to await her arrival.

He flicked on the overhead light, wondering what new nonsense had been delivered today. On Monday she’d sent a dozen boxes, which now were stacked on the Oriental carpet. Each carton was labeled in black marker, and the careless scrawl was as impractical as Melanie herself. “Odds and Ends,” she’d written, or “Boring Papers.”

Her clothes had come on Wednesday. Two bulging suitcases and then a half-dozen dresses in soft, feminine prints, sent loose on hangers. They surged like flower-laden waves over the red-lacquered chest in the comer.

And here was today’s addition—a small, battered sound system, tangled wires and a handful of CDs littering the elegant trestle table from the ming dynasty. And on the carved rosewood tester bed, amid the richly embroidered pillows, a giant one-eyed teddy bear winked at Clay as if amused by his grand surroundings.

“She always was a messy one.”

Clay looked over his shoulder, not really surprised to see that Mrs. Hilliard was awake, still roaming the halls after midnight. Since Joshua’s death, the housekeeper had tended the old man’s estate with an almost obsessive care.

“Mrs. Hilliard,” he said, smiling, “we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

She didn’t return his smile—she wasn’t much for grinning at the best of times—but he knew she liked him anyway. Her requirements were straightforward. She liked anyone who had been Joshua Browning’s friend.

Bustling past him into the room, the housekeeper swept the teddy bear off the bed and dropped it on top of the dresses. She flattened her brows into an ominous line. “Melanie never had a bit or respect for anything. Did I ever tell you how I caught her up in the hall here, bowling down ivory netsukes with a glass paperweight? A hundred years old, they were. Priceless.”

Clay chuckled. She’d told him the story at least three times this week.

“Honestly, that girl drove her uncle crazy.”

“I’ll bet she did,” he agreed, thinking of Joshua’s obsession with order and control. Even for a more relaxed personality, Melanie probably wouldn’t be a very soothing roommate—all that hot-blooded temper, all that restless, volatile energy. No, not soothing. But she might, he thought, be rather stimulating….

Whoa, boy. He jerked firmly on the reins of that thought. He mustn’t ever, ever allow himself to think of Melanie Browning that way. She was a client, not a woman. She barely qualified as one anyhow, with her enthusiasm for swordplay, her tomboy temper and her wide, innocent blue eyes that teared up as easily as a baby’s.

But then, like a fool, he thought of how she had looked in her knight’s tunic, all honeyed sunshine, silver sequins and incredible curves. Something deep in his gut tightened and warmed at the mental picture, instinct overruling intellect.

All right, so she was a woman, damn it. She still wasn’t his kind of woman. He’d been in love only once, right out of college, and Allison had been as different from Melanie Browning as ice was from fire. Ally had been the Grace Kelly type—calm, blond, polished and refined until she glowed like marble.

When she had died, only a month before their wedding, Clay had vowed he’d never look at a woman again. Needless to say, such wild, brokenhearted promises couldn’t be kept Now, ten years later, he looked—he even occasionally touched—but he always went for the same type. Blond, cool, collected. Would-be Allisons who would, of course, never be Allison.

But even if Melanie Browning had been Grace Kelly herself, she would have been off-limits to Clay. He could stand here till dawn listing all the ethical violations any fooling around with her would represent.

“And this young man who keeps bringing over her boxes,” Mrs. Hilliard was continuing as she circled the room, sniffing for new transgressions. “This Ted Martin. Who is he anyway? Why is a nice young man like that playing errand boy for her?”

“Ted Martin? I didn’t know about him,” Clay said, curious. “Boyfriend, perhaps?” He suddenly, intensely, hoped he was right If Melanie had a squeaky-clean fiancé at hand, it would solve all Clay’s problems at once. He could satisfy his conscience, turn over the inheritance and banish all pesky thoughts of curvaceous white knights forever.

“Boyfriend?” The housekeeper snorted. “Not hers, not on your life. Melanie’s taste always ran more to drummers and dropouts.”

Clay raised one brow. “She was only sixteen, remember,” he chided gently.

“She was old enough to know better.”

“Still, maybe you should cut her some slack,” he insisted.

He wasn’t going to let Mrs. H. destroy his dream of an easy resolution. A “nice young man” named Ted would be very helpful; an unemployed space cadet called Ringo would not. “Not many sixteen-year-old girls go around dating Nobel Prize winners.”

“Maybe not. But it’s one thing to flirt with one of those longhaired deadbeats when you’re sixteen.” Mrs. Hilliard switched off the light with a small huff. “It’s something else altogether to run off in the middle of the night and marry one.”

Was she doing the right thing?

Melanie had no idea whether she was about to salvage their lives or destroy them. For seven long days, her confidence had been under seige, and she had hardly slept, scarcely eaten. Doubts had raged through her mind like guerilla warriors, popping up whenever she relaxed, attacking whenever she let down her guard.

What if she was wrong? What if this whole move was folly? What if she took Nick back to Cartouche Court and then she couldn’t win her inheritance? Wouldn’t it be harder than ever for him to accept his fate? Or what if Clay had been right—that the problem was Nick, not their address? Would she have put them both through this for nothing? And would allowing Clay to live in close proximity to Nick really help anything?

Familiarity with Nick didn’t always breed respect, at least not these days.

But when Melanie woke up on Saturday morning and loaded the last of their things into her car, she felt oddly excited. For some reason, the doubts this morning were almost inaudible, like a cry heard in the distance. Today she dared to hope.

Perhaps it Just was her nature to be foolishly optimistic. Or perhaps it was the day itself. As they drove, the air was sweet with the promise of summer, and the hills rolled by like mounds of emeralds. It was a magical morning, designed to sow hope in even the most barren heart.

As she turned into the lane that led to Cartouche Court, she caught her breath. But the magic held. Sunshine sparkled along the driveway like a yellow carpet strewn with topaz. Orchard orioles, hidden somewhere behind the pink blossoms of the crab apple tree, filled the air with explosive ripples of song. A pair of comical jays, apparently sent straight from Walt Disney’s central casting, cavorted in the front fountain, which splashed merrily over its marble tiers.

And there, bursting from the double doors as if shot from a bow, was Mrs. Hilliard, her arms outstretched to welcome Nick home. Nick rolled his eyes, but he climbed out of the car and, to Melanie’s amazement, allowed Mrs. Hilliard to hug him. Melanie watched them, the sunlight fracturing the prisms forming as her eyes grew wet without her permission. And finally the doubts were completely silenced. For the first time since their uncle’s death, Nick was smiling, laughing at Mrs. Hilliard’s halfhearted reprimands, stoically enduring the cheek pinching and the kisses.

Melanie suddenly felt like joining the orioles in a song. Oh, yes—she could endure coming back. She could even bear having to bow and scrape and endeavor to please Clay Logan, Executioner. She could stand anything. Nick was happy.

Picking up both overnight bags, she followed her brother through the double doors and into the marble foyer, humming something that, had she been able to carry a tune, might have been the “Ode to Joy”.

The workmen were on the job again today, crouched on the staircase, their hammers rising and falling. They both looked up and, noticing her suitcases, smiled.

“One minute,” the nearer man said in a melodic Jamaican accent He held up a handful of carpet tacks. “Not yet. One minute.”

Dropping the suitcases in the comer, she waved her hand reassuringly. “That’s fine,” she said. “We’re in no hurry. We’ll wait”

Mrs. Hilliard had scurried away, to prepare the fatted calf, no doubt Nick was at the far end of the hall, fiddling with one of the two suits of armor that guarded the library door. Melanie’s stomach tightened instinctively. No one was allowed to touch those.

“Nick,” she called out nervously. “Don’t.”

He flung a disdainful look over his shoulder. “Why not?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled the gauntlet loose and began shoving his hand into it “I always do.”

“You do?” Melanie couldn’t believe it. “Does…I mean, did Uncle Joshua know?”

Nick screwed up his face, expressing his certainty that Melanie was nuts. “Of course he knew,” he said. “We used to fight every night”

Melanie was speechless. She could have said the same, she thought dryly, but her meaning would have been completely different She watched helplessly as Nick pulled the helmets, gauntlets and swords from both suits. He came clanking across the hall and handed a set to her, grinning.

“Here, put these on. It’s fun.”

For a moment, she was frozen. She half expected Joshua to come storming out of the library at any second, his handsome face red with rage beneath his distinguished shock of white hair. Six feet five inches of pure fury, under which the little girl would crumble away to dust…unless she stood up to him, unless she fought back with all the courage she could find, or pretend to find.

Melanie blinked hard. Good grief. Was she going to be reduced to a terrified child every time she entered this house? No. She had always wanted to play with those swords, and by God, she was going to do it now.

The helmet was shockingly heavy and a rather tight fit Once she squeezed it on, she had to struggle to keep her head from tipping over, clunking her chin against her breastbone. The sight was in the wrong spot, so she had to keep shoving the visor up in order to see anything at all. And the gauntlet was cumbersome, the sword unwieldy. God, how had they managed to fight in this stuff? She wouldn’t have been able to move a muscle. She would have been the deadest knight on the battlefield.

Still, it was fun. When Nick came whooping toward her, sword in the air, she found her coordination and met him thrust for thrust. Up and down the hall they battled, the fiercest of enemies. The workmen ceased their work and watched, cheering the cleverest moves, applauding the nastiest insults.

Eventually Nick backed her up against the stairwell. “Say your prayers, you murdering dastard,” he commanded as he slashed his sword above her head. She leaped out of the way, but the jerking motion slammed her visor shut.

“Time-out,” she cried, trying to get the darn thing open again.

Nick snorted his disgust. “Murdering dastards don’t get time-out, Mel,” he complained. “They get their heads lopped off. Now say your prayers.”

She wrenched the visor open just in time. “No, you say yours,” she said, lunging toward her brother with a stumbling gait, the heavy sword almost pulling her off her feet. “If indeed you know any, you heathen cur!”

Nick neatly sidestepped, but to her horror, Melanie kept going, propelled by the weight of the enormous steel blade in her hands. She had barely managed to untangle the sword from her feet before she thudded, shoulder first, against the library door.

“Goddamn it,” Copernicus screamed from within. “Who the hell is it?”

Nick began chortling irrepressibly, and even the workmen seemed to be smothering smiles behind their hammers.

“It’s me,” Melanie called back grumpily, massaging her shoulder, which was probably dislocated or broken or something. It hurt like mad. “And you’d better watch your tone, you moldy old vulture, because I’m armed.”

“And dangerous, it seems.” The library door opened to reveal Clay Logan, looking elegantly amused in his gray suit and tie. He glanced at her sword, then at the library door.

“There wasn’t really any need to storm it, you know. It wasn’t locked.”

She tried to lift her chin, but it wouldn’t go up. The blasted helmet must have been made of lead. The only result of her efforts was that the visor banged shut again.

“I wasn’t trying to get in,” she said, hoping she was facing in his direction. It was like wearing a metal blindfold. “I just lost my balance.”

“You were pretty unbalanced to start with, Mel,” Nick chimed in, still snickering.

Melanie spun around to give her brother a dirty look, but she couldn’t find him. “Darn,” she said, wrestling with the visor and finally getting it up. “I hate this thing.”

“Perhaps you should remove it, then,” Clay said helpfully.

As if that hadn’t already occurred to her! “I’d be glad to assist”

“I can do it,” she said huffily, tucking her sword between her knees to free her hands. But she had forgotten about the clumsy gauntlets. When she tried to lift the armor from her head, her hands merely slid noisily across the metal.

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