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

Copyright

“You’re not going anywhere until I’m through with you.”

“Until you’re through with me?” Corinna asked, glaring up at Antonio. “Just who do you think you are?”

“Someone you should be afraid of, someone who isn’t about to be taken in by those big eyes and reassuring bedside manner which, I suspect, you’ve been laying on thick ever since you set foot into this house!”

CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and went to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have two small daughters.

A Thorn In Paradise
Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

THE grounds of Deanbridge House were magnificent. They stretched in front of Corinna, well groomed, tended as they were by countless gardeners and, in the bloom of summer, ablaze with flowers, yellow, purple, red, perfectly manicured splashes of colour which were the backdrop to the rows of trees on either side, and beyond which lay yet more grounds, all similarly impeccable, and interspersed with stone benches and fountains.

After nine months, she still continued to be amazed and delighted by the sheer magnificence of the place. It wasn’t simply the size of the house and estate, but the fact that absolutely nothing about either jarred. Everything contained within those acres of land was pleasing to the eye.

Benjamin Silver, though, was not so enamoured of the vista and Corinna had long concluded that a lifetime surrounded by such beauty had jaded his palate.

Right now he was ranting on about his son, from whom he had unexpectedly received a letter, and she half listened to what he was saying, not taking in a great deal because, after all this time working for him, she knew almost as much about his son as she did about herself, and none of it was very pleasant.

‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ the old man was grumbling from his wheelchair. ‘Nothing from him in years, not a letter, not so much as a Christmas card, then all of a sudden he’s writing to inform me—inform me, mind!—that he’s thinking of coming across! Who does he think he is? Answer me that!’

Corinna smiled down at the silver head, and he roared from his wheelchair, ‘And you can wipe that smile off your face!’

‘How did you know I was smiling?’ she asked and, if he was capable of turning around to glare at her, she knew that he would have, but age had rusted his limbs, even though he was only seventy.

‘Stop trying to change the subject!’

‘I wasn’t,’ she protested, pushing along the wheelchair to their favourite spot by one of the fountains. ‘It’s such a beautiful morning, though; why spoil it by being annoyed?’ She reached the bench by the fountain and stopped, sitting down and lifting her face to the sun.

She was a tall, slender girl with the sort of fair complexion that didn’t tan at all. Usually she wore a wide brimmed straw hat for these mid-morning walks, but today she had forgotten and it was lovely to feel the warmth on her face, even though she might go pink from it. Her waist-length fair hair had been braided into a single plait which hung over the back of the bench.

‘And spin me round to face you. I don’t care to be talking to a damned fountain!’

She obeyed and eyed him with amusement. When she had first come to work for Benjamin Silver, she had been warned by the agency that there was a good chance that she wouldn’t last a week.

‘None of our nurses has stayed on,’ she had been informed. ‘They might like the surroundings, Deanbridge House is a spectacular place, but old Ben Silver is a can-tankerous so-and-so. He can be downright rude when it suits him, which is most of the time, and they can’t put up with it.’

Corinna had very quickly sized up the situation. Benjamin Silver was a lonely old man. His only child, a son, had fallen out with him years ago, and most of his relatives were dead.

‘The rest,’ he had told her, ‘might just as well be.’

It had only been her sympathy for him, and her sense of humour, which had allowed her to survive his blasts of temper, and now they had become accustomed to each other. She loved him and she knew that he was fond of her, for all his occasional rages.

‘I won’t see him!’ he was telling her, his blue eyes fierce. ‘I won’t let him so much as set one foot through that door. I’ll set the dogs on him.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be scared stiff,’ she said from her reclining position on the bench. ‘Being confronted by two toothless, watery-eyed Labradors will really make him quake with fear.’

‘I should have got rid of those good-for-nothing hounds years ago,’ he muttered. ‘I was a sentimental old fool, and now that I need a couple of vicious animals, I’m paying for that bit of short-sightedness. Well, I’ll set Edna on him.’

‘That’s more like it,’ Corinna said, her full lips curving into a smile. Edna was the chief housekeeper and could be a dragon when it suited her. She was far more ferocious than the dogs.

He grinned reluctantly. ‘You’re not taking me seriously. We should be getting back. This sun’s no good for you. You’ll end up looking like a lobster.’

‘You’re such a charmer,’ she said, standing up and pushing him back towards the house. ‘Are you sure your son doesn’t take after you more than you’d like to think?’

‘Don’t be impertinent, young lady,’ Benjamin roared. ‘He’s nothing like me! Not that I can remember anyway. It’s been so long since I last clapped eyes on him that anybody could walk off the street and call himself my son and I’d be none the wiser.’

This, Corinna realised, was nearer the truth than might be expected.

Whatever had caused the feud between father and son, and in all his rantings Benjamin had never disclosed, it was a bitter one. There were no pictures of his son anywhere that she had ever seen. She had no idea whether he was short, tall, fat, thin, fair-haired or dark-haired. She had built her own mental picture of him, though. A man in his mid-forties, fattish because he was successful and successful men never seemed able to resist the lure of good food and fine wine. Possibly he was arrogant—that at any rate was what she had been told in great detail—but equally possible was that he was now no more than a tired, overworked businessman who had been too proud to revisit the family home. Who knew? He might even be married with twelve children. Benjamin had never volunteered the information and she had not pried. She knew from her own experience how irritating and uncomfortable other people’s curiosity could be. She could remember, from all those years ago, the greedy nosiness of some of her so-called friends as they tried to elicit the details of her private misfortune. They had called it concern, but she had recognised it for what it was, the feeding of vultures on someone else’s grief.

He was still venting his anger when she settled him into bed at nine that night.

He had carried the letter around with him for the entire day, and the last thing he had done before she had left his bedroom was to pull it out and wave it in her face, with a scowl.

‘I shouldn’t be subjected to this at my age!’ he told her. ‘I should be taking things easy, not getting worked up like this. You know that. You nag me often enough about my blood-pressure.’

‘Yes,’ Corinna said, perching on the side of his bed and watching while he took his capsules. He had a mild heart condition and the tablets were necessary for his health. He hated taking them though, and she had got into the habit of waiting till he did just in case he got it into that stubborn head of his to dispose of them after she had left the room.

‘Yes what? Yes what? Don’t just sit there and say yest!’

‘You’re not doing yourself any good with all this ranting and raving,’ she said soothingly, removing the glass from him and handing him a mug of cocoa, which he stared at in loathing.

‘Take that away from me,’ he muttered ferociously. ‘Bring me a proper drink. A gin and tonic! A whisky! Some brandy!’

‘He may not even come,’ she said, ignoring that request. ‘Did he tell you when he’d be arriving?’

‘Not in so many words. Knew I’d make sure the house was locked and bolted, probably.’

‘Then if he hasn’t told you definitely when he’s coming, he probably won’t turn up. Why is he planning on visiting after all this time, anyway?’

The old man shrugged and took the mug from her. ‘Didn’t say. Just said some rubbish about wanting to discuss a few things with me. What’s there to discuss after all this time? Twelve years to be precise? What’s there to discuss?’

Corinna gave that some thought and frowned. ‘Who knows? Anyway, don’t worry so much about it. Even if he does come, I’m sure you’ll find that he’s nothing like you remember. People change, after all. Life mellows them.’

‘Stop philosophising. I hate it when people philosophise.’

She laughed and patted his hand affectionately. ‘Go to sleep and wake up in a better temper.’

‘You’re going red from that sun.’

She laughed again and said drily from the door, ‘Goodnight. Sweet dreams and don’t forget the blood-pressure.’

As soon as she was in the downstairs drawing-room, she closed her eyes and settled comfortably in one of the chairs with her book.

This, like much else, had become a pleasant habit. Her girlfriends, whom she saw regularly at weekends, invariably asked her how she could stifle herself in the Surrey countryside when she had spent years working and living in London. They couldn’t understand how peaceful it was at Deanbridge House, for all Benjamin Silver and his tempers. It suited her. She loved waking up to an absence of traffic, she loved the clean air, and she saw a great deal of London anyway, when she visited her friends. Most of them worked in busy London teaching hospitals and she constantly saw first-hand what she had left behind. True, there wasn’t the constant rush of adrenalin as casualty cases were brought in day and night, needing urgent treatment, and maybe one day she would really miss all that and long to return to it, but right now this was just what she needed.

She had originally decided to do private nursing because she had become over-exhausted in her work, and for emotional reasons she needed to get out of London as well.

She stared down at the pages of her book but she wasn’t seeing the fine black print. She was seeing Michael’s face. Dear, sweet Michael to whom marriage had seemed almost inevitable. They had known each other from children and it had become accepted, over the years, that they were meant for each other. It had been a tacit understanding and it was only last year, at the age of twenty-two, when she had looked at him, with his good-natured smile, his undemanding amiability that she’d realised, quite suddenly, that she couldn’t possibly marry him, however much a part of her craved that placid, undemanding security that he could offer.

She tried not to remember how upset he had been. It had not been an easy time. Her mother had been aggrieved. ‘Darling,’ she had said in that vaguely theatrical voice of hers, ‘but you’re so well suited.’ Both so dull, Corinna had read behind the words. Her mother had a knack of insinuating an insult. Corinna had become accustomed to that, but at the time it had still hurt. She had grown up in the shadow of her mother’s tempestuous, flamboyant personality. It had had the effect of making her overly cautious, mature beyond her years, practical, down-to-earth, and a part of her knew that that was just how her mother liked it. That way, her daughter could never be a threat to her.

Beyond coping with her mother’s disappointment, though, she had had to cope with herself, with her own gut-wrenching suspicions that she was not built for love if she could not bring herself to love a man who was as kind and caring as Michael had been. Was something wrong with her? she had wondered.

She snapped shut the book and began prowling round the room, her eyes skimming over the tasteful drawing-room with its eighteenth-century wood panelling, its ivory, floor-length silk curtains, its marble mantelpiece. Very soothing colours. The furniture was fairly worn, but the warm, mellowed upholstery gave the room a pleasant glow, as did the small tables, dotted around the room, which were sprinkled with books of all kinds. It was one of Edna’s bugbears that she liked neatness while Benjamin insisted on leaving a trail of books behind him wherever he went.

‘My eyes,’ he was fond of telling her, ‘are about the only useful things I have left. I might as well use them.’

In fact, her own position in the household, which was technically that of private nurse, was really more of a secretary-companion. Benjamin’s health was poor, but not so poor that he really required any real nursing treatment, apart from ensuring that he took his tablets as prescribed and his blood-pressure was kept down. What he really wanted was someone who would take him for walks, talk to him, and help him with a historical piece of writing which he was doing on the house. With anyone else, Corinna acknowledged, it might have become boring, but Benjamin was too demanding and too intelligent for that ever to have been a problem.

Her thoughts turned to his son. Antonio Silver was the invisible presence that still filled Deanbridge House after all these years, although Benjamin would have been outraged if she had ever suggested as much. He liked to think that his son was little more than an aggravating memory, but it had been clear to Corinna from the very start that the old man ranted with the rage of a wounded bear.

Sometimes she thought that Antonio Silver couldn’t possibly be as black as Benjamin portrayed him, but other times she felt an odd, protective anger against this unknown man who still had the power to hurt his own father. What kind of son was it who could cut the strings and leave without a backward glance?

In a strange way she could empathise with Benjamin. She, too, had been the victim of desertion. She only had dim memories of her father. He had left, after all, when she was still a child, left without a backward glance. For years she had wondered whether it was something she had said, something she had done. Maybe she had disappointed him. He had been so dramatic, so much larger than life, just like her mother, two people born to thrust daggers into each other until the effort of removing them had become too great—she had never been like that, passionate and extrovert. Had her own timid nature driven him away? Later, she knew that she had been a fool to have imagined any such thing, but a child’s dark worries lingered far beyond the limits of sensible reason. She couldn’t comprehend anyone who could relinquish their family ties the way Benjamin Silver’s son had done. She knew from the occasional remark tossed in by Benjamin that he had divorced his wife somewhere along the way, and Antonio had left England to live with his mother in her native Italy, but would that have caused such a deep rift?

For the first time, she felt a deep, burning curiosity about this mysterious son. Previously, she had listened to Benjamin when he got on his soap box with her mind somewhere else, but now she wondered what his son really was like.

She was startled to discover when she next glanced at her watch that it had gone eleven, and she got up hurriedly, snapping shut her book and wondering whether she would ever finish it.

Early evenings were a luxury which she thoroughly enjoyed, after having spent years working crazy shifts at the hospital. Towards the end, she could remember being half dead on her feet, battling on in the wards despite an attack of flu which had kept her bed-ridden for a week and then tenaciously clung on, preying on her exhaustion. When, one morning, she had found herself physically incapable of getting out of bed, and no longer really caring whether she did or not, she realised that it was time for a much-needed break.

At this hour the house was totally silent. Edna and her husband, who was responsible for the gardens, were the only two people who lived in. The remainder of the staff were employed locally and they were invariably gone by eight-thirty, some much earlier.

She was walking past the front door when there was an almighty bang on it, followed by another.

Corinna wasn’t a coward but she remained where she was, uncertainly wondering whether she should fetch Edna’s husband Tom or else open the door herself. It was damned late for callers, or at least for those interested in socialising with Benjamin, but then burglars would hardly bang on the front door and expect entry. Or would they? She stood there, biting her lips in frustrated indecision, and only walked across to the door when the third heavy bang threatened to raise the household.

She carefully pulled open the door and then tried to shut it as her eyes took in the man standing outside, tall, powerful and with an aura of menace surrounding him.

It was a useless attempt, though. He pushed against it and her strength was no match for his. She fell back, and it was only when he was inside the hall that she realised that she had been holding her breath with fear.

Seeing him at close quarters and in the full glare of the overhead light did nothing to dispel the sensation of threat. She was a tall girl but he towered over her and the lean, hard build of his body spoke of a latent power. Her immediate impression was that this was not a man who took kindly to being crossed, which brought her back to the disturbing question: what if he was a burglar?

She folded her arms to stop herself from shivering and looked at him, her pupils dilated with fear.

‘If you’ve come here to steal, then I’m afraid you’ve chosen the wrong house,’ she said with as much authority as she could muster. ‘There are two fierce dogs. I only have to whistle.’

She found that she couldn’t take her eyes away from his face. It was such a striking face. A strong, sharp nose, above which black brows met in a fierce frown. Angular features which held the potential for cruelty, but a mouth that was strangely sensual and grey eyes which were now fixed on her with a tight, hostile expression.

He was dressed in black. Black trousers and a black jumper. Maybe, she thought, he might be less intimidating in a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

‘Really?’ he said in a deep, ironic voice and with the very slightest trace of an accent. ‘I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting your two fierce dogs. They escorted me to the front door.’

‘Who are you?’ She already knew, of course. Initially his sheer physical impact had done something to her brain, made it shut down, but the minute he spoke, she realised that he was Antonio Silver.

‘I’m Benjamin Silver’s son,’ he said coolly, his hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes raking over her and then moving away to glance around him at his surroundings. He looked at her again and she had that same rattled, agitated feeling. ‘But you know that, don’t you? I can see it from the expression on your face. I take it my father received my letter.’

‘You’re not wanted here,’ Corinna burst out and then was immediately horrified by what she had said.

His eyes narrowed on her and she felt herself go scarlet at the scrutiny.

‘You must be Corinna Steadman,’ he said with no attempt at politeness, ‘my father’s keeper.’

Something about his voice made her look at him warily. She felt like someone who was treading very carefully on a minefield and it wasn’t a very pleasant sensation.

‘I work for him, yes,’ she said in a thin voice, ‘I’m his private nurse.’

‘That’s not what I said.’ He moved towards the front door and then turned to her. ‘I’m going to fetch my case from the car,’ he said with a cold smile that didn’t contain the remotest hint of humour. ‘Don’t even think of slamming that door shut behind me.’

Corinna didn’t say anything. She was still in a state of semi-shock, brought on, she decided, by the fact that he had appeared like a ghostly materialisation on the doorstep at the very moment she had been wondering about him. In a very short while the shock would wear off and she would be able to respond to him in a more controlled manner. In her profession, self-control was instilled as part of the training process and it wouldn’t let her down.

He returned from the car with a tan leather holdall which he dumped on the ground, and she eyed it with resentment.

‘I’m not about to carry that upstairs for you, like a porter,’ she informed him, and was subjected to another of those freezing, ironic observations.

‘I don’t recall having asked. Or maybe you fancy yourself as a mind reader, as well as keeper of the house.’

‘I don’t fancy myself as anything of the sort!’ she spluttered angrily, but he had turned away and was walking in the direction from which she had just come, towards the drawing-room, looking around him on the way.

She followed him, half running to keep up, with her arms folded across her chest.

‘You can’t just waltz in here——’ she began, and he

spun around to face her.

‘And why not?’ he asked coldly.

‘Because,’ she said nervously, ‘because it’s late and you should really come back tomorrow if you want to see your father. He’s normally up and about by nine-thirty. I’ll tell him you called.’

‘You mean you’ll warn him.’ His lips stretched into an icy mimicry of a smile. ‘No, thanks.’

He had very long legs. He stretched them out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, clasping his hands behind his head.

‘I feel as though I’ve never been away from here,’ he said to himself, flicking those sharp grey eyes around and taking in everything. There was nothing, she decided uncomfortably, that this man missed. ‘Nothing’s changed at all; even those two pictures are in precisely the same place.’

‘Nothing has to change!’ Corinna said, hovering by the door.

She could tell immediately that he had temporarily forgotten about her presence and she wished that she had not reminded him of it because she was once again subjected to the brunt of that disturbing, hostile stare. He eyed her shortly and then commanded her to sit down. With some surprise, she found herself obeying, tentatively perching on the chair furthest away from him, a fact which didn’t escape him from the look on his face.

‘I’m glad I arrived when I did,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘No one about. No one but you.’ There was something a little forbidding about the way he said that, and she shivered. ‘It gives us the opportunity to chat.’

This man was arrogant, menacing and far too good-looking. Just the sort of man, she thought uneasily, that she had spent a lifetime conscientiously avoiding. Her father had been arrogant, good-looking, a magnet for other women. Over the years she had managed to submerge her feelings about her childhood into some safe, dark corner where she had firmly closed the door and, she had thought, thrown away the key. Now, though, memories rose up from those secret depths, memories of her father accusing her mother of having affairs, wild arguments in which they made no attempt to lower their voices, her mother shouting that what could he expect when he was fooling around behind her back as well? Antonio Silver, her inner voice told her, was a dangerous man.

‘You’re very protective about my father, aren’t you?’ His voice brought her hurtling back into the present.

‘Yes, I am. I happen to be very fond of him.’

‘So I gathered.’

She gave him a guarded, bewildered look and received another of those humourless smiles.

‘I take it you’re wondering what my source of information is?’ he asked, and she didn’t answer. She was getting more nervous by the minute. Where was her training when she needed it? she wondered crossly. She had spent years masking her expression with her patients, careful never to reveal too much, and with the doctors when their opinions had not coincided with her own, always cautious, always careful, and now here she was, red-faced and ill at ease.

‘Angus McBride,’ he said shortly, as if that should have explained everything, and she continued to look at him in uneasy bewilderment.

‘Angus McBride told you…what?’ Angus McBride was one of Benjamin’s oldest friends. A lawyer who practised in the Midlands, he called in to visit whenever he was down south, which wasn’t all that often. Corinna had liked him on sight. He was a small, thin man with a cheerful, shrewd face who didn’t lack the courage to chide his friend for, as he put it, wasting his intellect away in the confines of Deanbridge House.

‘Wrote and told me about you.’

‘I had no idea that you kept in touch with anyone connected with your father.’

‘And what other sweeping observations have you got on me?’ he asked, staring at her from under his lashes.

‘It wasn’t a sweeping observation,’ Corinna defended. ‘It’s just that from the way your father spoke…’

His grey eyes narrowed to slits and another wave of colour flooded over her. She would have to get her house in order, she thought, if she weren’t to find herself completely obliterated by this man.

‘So my father and you have been having lengthy discussions about me. Cosy.’

‘That’s not what I meant!’ She stood up, agitated. ‘You’re putting words into my mouth! Your father and I haven’t discussed you! I mean, your father talks about you now and again, but I don’t respond. It’s none of my business what goes on between the two of you! But I can’t believe that Angus would write to you and tell tales.’

‘Whoever mentioned telling tales? He’s the family lawyer and we’ve kept in touch over the years. He wrote to me a few months ago telling me about you, or at any rate about a nurse who had started working for my father. Since then your name has cropped up several times, in the most glowing of terms, might I add.’

‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

‘Don’t you? You don’t strike me as a stupid girl. Well, to ease you out of your bewilderment, let me just put it like this. My father is a very wealthy man. This house alone is worth a small fortune and he has other properties as well, quite a few of them dotted throughout London and all carrying very respectable price tags on them.’

Corinna didn’t let him finish. She stormed towards him, her hands on her hips and looked down at that arrogant, dark head furiously.

‘So I’m after your father’s money, is that it?’ She gave him a scathing look. ‘I would be insulted by that accusation if it came from anyone else but you! As far as I’m concerned, you’re not exactly qualified to troop along here and accuse me of anything, considering you haven’t seen fit to set foot in this house for God knows how many years! You’re hardly the loving son, are you?’

She should have guessed that he wouldn’t take too kindly to insults. He had the easygoing friendliness of a python, after all, and his hand snapped out to hold her by the wrist while he stared at her disdainfully.

‘Spare me your observations on my character,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘Why should I?’ Corinna asked with equal hostility. ‘I haven’t noticed you sparing me your observations on my character!’

He released her abruptly and she massaged her wrist, trying to get the blood circulation going again.

‘Why should I?’ he asked too, standing up and prowling round the room, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Corinna followed his movements reluctantly. He moved with the easy grace of someone who was well aware of the physical impact of his presence. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and he carried his height with a confidence that sent a shiver of alarm running through her. She couldn’t remember ever following Michael’s movements with this avidity and she tore her eyes away with a stern reminder to herself that not only was this man highly objectionable, the stuff of nightmares in fact, but he was also insulting and offensive. And she had been stupid enough to give him the benefit of the doubt by imagining that his father had exaggerated his flaws. If anything he had understated them.

He had stopped in front of the marble mantelpiece and he turned to look at her from across the room. It took enormous effort to steel herself against the scrutiny. It was like being cross-examined, she thought, and, worse, it made her feel guilty, as though she had something to hide, when in fact she didn’t.

‘I’m not the intruder,’ he said. ‘My last name is Silver.’

‘What a charming way with introductions you have,’ Corinna threw at him. ‘Are you usually such a sociable character?’

‘When it comes to women like you, I don’t see the necessity for polite exchanges. Bluntness is the only tool you types understand.’

‘Women like me? Types?’ she all but shouted. No one had ever made her so angry in her life before. She had always been a very controlled person, not given to displays of temper. In fact, she found displays of temper alarming and often unnecessary, uneasy reminders of her childhood spent on her parents’ battleground. So it amazed her that this perfect stranger had managed to antagonise her to the point where she felt very much inclined to reach for the nearest heavy object and sling it at him. She took a few steadying breaths and said carefully, ‘I don’t have to stand for this. It’s hardly my fault if you swan in here, in the middle of the night, acting as though you’ve caught me trying to steal the family silver. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, you’re the intruder. You haven’t contacted your father in years, not even so much as a Christmas card, and——’

‘You seem to have mastered the fine art of jumping to conclusions,’ he threw at her forcefully.

‘Your father told me——’

‘I’m sick of hearing what my father told you! Do you actually have any time to do the work you’re presumably paid for in between all these riveting conversations you appear to have with him?’

Corinna stared at him furiously, bereft of speech. It wasn’t fair, she thought, Antonio Silver should be middle-aged, he should be overweight and dull. She would have been able to cope with overweight and dull.

‘It’s late,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m going to bed.’ She turned on her heel but she hadn’t made it to the door when he was in front of her, barring her exit. She hadn’t even heard him move. Businessman? she thought sourly. This man was a businessman? Terrorist more likely.

‘You’re not going anywhere until I’m through with you.’

‘Until you’re through with me?’ she asked, glaring up at him. Her long hair was in its habitual plait. It had swung over her shoulder and lay on her breast like a silver rope. ‘Until you’re through with me? Just who do you think you are?’

‘Someone you should be afraid of, someone who isn’t about to be taken in by those big eyes and reassuring bedside manner which, I suspect, you’ve been laying on thick ever since you set foot into this house! You’ve already shown me the roar behind that carefully nurtured mousy façade. God knows, I’m surprised you don’t play havoc with his blood-pressure.’

Their eyes clashed and she was the first to look away. Very hurriedly. Up this close she could almost breathe in his masculinity. It seemed to go straight to her head like incense, making her feel giddy and unstable on her feet.

‘Not as much as you will,’ she muttered, and he leaned towards her, as if trying to ascertain what she had said. She found herself tempted to step backwards.

‘What was that?’

‘I said that I’d better show you to your room if you intend to spend the night here.’

‘Now whatever gave you the idea that I intended spending the night here?’

‘Your bag?’ she said in the tone of someone talking to a complete idiot, and she was pleased to find that there wasn’t a hint of a tremor in her voice, even though her hands were trembling. ‘The fact that it’s gone midnight and you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else to stay?’

He didn’t appear in the least put out by her tone, though.

‘Oh, you’re on the wrong tack,’ he said with a cool smile, and she brightened.

‘You mean you won’t be staying here?’ That would please Benjamin no end, she thought, because if his son was going to be under the same roof, then who knew what sort of problems would arise? He would never stand for it, she knew. He would collapse on the spot, or else have Edna throw him out on his ear. She eyed Antonio sceptically. No, perhaps not. Even ferocious Edna had her limits.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said casually, killing her short-lived optimism. ‘But not for one night. I’m here for an indefinite length of time.’

‘An indefinite length of time?’ she repeated, dismayed, and he smiled slowly at her discomfiture.

‘I can see you find the prospect appealing.’

Appealing? Corinna thought faintly. Was the prospect of death by slow torture appealing? Was a charging bull appealing?

‘But you haven’t brought enough luggage,’ she said faintly.

‘There are two cases in the car,’ he said, and she could see that he was deriving cruel amusement at her expense. ‘And before you launch into another speech on the definition of your duties, I don’t expect you to carry them up to the bedroom for me. We wouldn’t want you to sully your fair hands with such a menial task, would we?’

‘But why?’ she asked, ignoring the sneer with effort. ‘Why have you suddenly decided to come to England and moreover stay under the same roof as your father?’

‘Two reasons, my dear Miss Steadman. The first is because one of my companies is opening a subsidiary over here, not terribly far away from Deanbridge House, in fact, in Guildford.’

‘And the second?’

‘The second,’ he said softly, there was open threat in his voice, ‘is so that I can keep an eye on you. We wouldn’t want you to start getting ideas beyond your station, now, would we?’

CHAPTER TWO

CORINNA had no idea how she managed to get to sleep. By the time her head had hit the pillow, she had been positively shaking with anger. She couldn’t remember ever having been so riled by anyone in her life before. Her wonderful self-control, which she was convinced would stand her in good stead despite having deserted her initially, remained conspicuous by its absence, and she could have screamed in frustration as she lay down under the quilt and tried to court sleep. It was a long time coming, though. Her head was too full of images of Antonio Silver.

The following morning she got up and all those images which had seared her mind the previous night rushed back to her in sickening detail.

It was not a great way to start the day. For the past few months, after she had become accustomed to living in Deanbridge House, she had awakened slowly and contentedly, never failing to be charmed by the mintgreen luxury of the bedroom with its heavy drapes cascading to the floor, the exquisite pieces of furniture, the cool softness of the beige-coloured carpet underfoot.

This morning she found herself not giving a moment’s thought to her surroundings and she made herself slow down. This man, she decided, was not going to get under her skin again. He had managed that the night before because he had caught her unawares, when she was tired and vulnerable and unable to defend herself, but today he would find himself facing an altogether different cup of tea.

She took her time dressing, brushing her long hair carefully and knotting it behind her head in a chignon, by far the most practical hairstyle for her. She never wore a nurse’s uniform, having been informed by Benjamin on day one that he wouldn’t tolerate her clumping around in heavy shoes and a starchy white frock, but she always made sure that she dressed smartly. Never trousers and never shorts, despite the fact that it was quite hot at the moment. She had a good supply of sober, unfussy skirts and blouses and she extracted an oatmeal skirt from the wardrobe and a crisp, beige short-sleeved shirt, then looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Nothing, she acknowledged realistically, to write home about. She supposed she wasn’t bad-looking in an average sort of way, but for the first time since she had started working for Benjamin she realised that her wardrobe didn’t do a great deal for her. With her fair complexion she needed to wear things that were dramatic, that put colour in her cheeks, instead of a selection of background outfits that made her appear drained.

How was it that she was only now noticing this trait? Mousy. That was what he had called her. Had she cultivated this drabness as a subconscious reaction to her mother? It seemed likely, and she felt an unexpected anger that circumstances could mould a person so completely. Her parents’ divorce had been a background tune playing in the back of her mind for as long as she could remember. Too long.

On the spur of the moment she added a touch of blusher to her cheeks and then frowned impatiently at herself.

Would Benjamin have been notified of Antonio’s presence? she wondered, as she walked briskly down the corridor towards his bedroom. She had deliberately taken her time this morning because she didn’t want to appear over-keen to find out, but she was dying of curiosity.

As soon as she entered the bedroom she was aware that he had already heard the bad news. The curtains had not been drawn back, and that was usually the first thing he did in the morning, and the room was in darkness. He was lying on the bed and she approached him tentatively.

‘Good morning, Benjamin,’ she said brightly, moving to pull the curtains, and he said in a woebegone voice,

‘Why bother? I won’t be getting out of bed this morning.’

She ignored that and drew back the curtains, letting in a flood of early morning sunshine.

‘Come along,’ she said with a beaming smile, and he glared at her.

‘And you can stop being chirpy. That—that son of mine has dared to cross the threshold of this house!’ The woebegone expression was beginning to lift and some of his ranting energies were back in place.

‘I know,’ Corinna said quietly, tidying up the room, even though one of the girls would later be coming in to clean.

‘You know!’ he roared. ‘You know and you didn’t even tell me?’

‘He arrived very late last night,’ she said, trying not to let her memory of that disastrous encounter show on her face. ‘Just as I was about to retire for the evening, in fact.’

‘Typical!’ Benjamin roared with some of his usual fire. ‘Typical! Never spares so much as a passing thought to anyone else! Typical!’

‘And how do you find out about his arrival?’ She busied herself stacking his books into a neat pile on the long, low table by the window.

‘Edna. Trooping up here at the crack of dawn to break the happy news! Damned woman thought that I’d be delighted, even though I’ve spent years making it perfectly clear how I felt about him! What a fool! Ruined my day, of course. I couldn’t touch a mouthful of my breakfast, and I’m certainly not coming downstairs. Not until he’s well and truly out of the place!’

He glared at her aggressively and she tried to give him a soothing, professional smile.

‘He doesn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to leave,’ she said, choosing her words carefully, and he shot her a baleful look.

‘He’ll be in a hurry,’ Benjamin said, flapping his arms about and looking quite comical. ‘Oh, he’ll be in a hurry when I set the dogs—the—Edna—the police on him!’

Personally Corinna didn’t think that the police would feel much inclined to storm the place and capture Antonio Silver by force simply because his father didn’t want him around, but she refrained from saying anything.

‘You can’t stay in bed all day,’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘You’ll be bored stiff in under an hour. Besides, I may take you for walks in your wheelchair, but you know that you need to exercise your limbs by walking around the house. You know what the doctor said——’

‘I refuse to budge. I don’t care what you or that quack of a doctor says.’

‘Dr Harman isn’t a quack, in fact, he’s noted——’

‘Noted, boted,’ Benjamin cut in with rising irritation. ‘I’m not budging. Though why I should be a prisoner in my own home I fail to understand. This is my home, dammit! How dare he walk in here and shut me up in my bedroom? You’ll have to get him out!’

‘What, me?’ She stopped what she was doing and then looked wryly at him as he gave her a sly smile.

‘So, I see he’s got to you, has he? What did you think of him, then?’

‘If you must know,’ she said calmly, ‘I thought he was overbearing, arrogant and unpleasant.’

‘But good-looking, eh? He used to be damned fine-looking when I last saw him. What does he look like now?’ He glanced down at his gnarled fingers and then clasped them on his lap, continuing to peer at them with overdone fascination.

‘Passable,’ Corinna said. She extracted some clothes from his wardrobe and laid them out on the bed. Grey flannel trousers, a pale blue long-sleeved shirt because Benjamin had no time for short-sleeved shirts, whatever the weather, a pair of charcoal-grey socks.

She could feel her heart step up a beat as she remembered Antonio Silver’s formidable physical impact. In the cold light of day he was probably nowhere as overwhelming as he had appeared the night before, but she still couldn’t prevent the tell-tale flush of colour on her cheeks.

Benjamin, though, wasn’t looking at her. He was still peering at his hands.

‘Well, I won’t see him,’ he said finally, ‘so you might as well put those clothes right where you found them.’

‘Now don’t be silly,’ she began, and he lay down on his side and pretended that she wasn’t there. She wasn’t at all perturbed by this reaction. Benjamin Silver could be childishly truculent at times. He had a fine, sharp mind that had been blunted by disuse. Too little mental stimulation filled him with an energy which his body did not allow him to exhaust and his way of coping was to try and rule the roost around him. Angus McBride was right, he needed more than the walls of Deanbridge House to fill his days.

‘You’ll have to face him some time,’ she said bluntly. ‘He doesn’t look like the type who’s going to disappear just because you want him to. I know that it’s your house, but honestly, what can you do? You’ll just have to face him.’

‘Did he say why he’d come?’ he asked in a muffled voice, and she stiffened, recalling the conversation with a feeling of remembered unpleasantness.

‘That’s something you’ll have to discuss with him,’ she said, looking down, and he rolled over to face her.

‘My curiosity isn’t that great,’ he informed her loftily and she shrugged. She was beginning to feel like piggy in the middle and it was a feeling for which she had no taste. Why did Antonio Silver have to appear on the scene? Things were going so smoothly in her life. For the first time in ages, she felt truly relaxed, having quit her job and left Michael, two aspects of her life which she only realised in retrospect had been pulling her down. Why had he come along and spoilt everything with his accusations and his sophisticated mockery?

She opened her mouth to inform him that there was no way that she was going to play intermediary, but before she could speak he was waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

‘Shoo!’ he said. ‘Have the day off. Just so long as you keep that so-called son of mine out of my hair!’

With a cross sigh of defeat, she left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her and made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

There was a parlour which had been specifically designed to be used as a breakfast-room, but neither she nor Benjamin ever used it in that capacity. The kitchen was a much warmer place. It was Edna’s pride and joy and in the entire house it was the one room to which no concessions to glamour had been made. Only the cooking utensils were the best that money could buy, because Edna prided herself on her cooking. She never allowed any of the girls to help her, cultivated her own personal herb garden, and produced simple but lovely fare. She was a great fan of the roast meal, and detested things with too much cream or alcohol as being travesties of good cooking.

‘Sure road to indigestion,’ she was fond of saying. Benjamin, of course, was wont to inform her that she was clearly behind the times, but he too preferred simple cooking, so the arrangement suited him perfectly.

Corinna walked into the kitchen wearing a frown of concentration and immediately stopped dead in her tracks. She had all but convinced herself that Antonio Silver was only an ordinary human being, a mere mortal with no more than a bit of an acid temperament, but seeing him now, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee in front of him, casually dressed in a beige shirt which had been rolled to the elbows to expose his strong forearms, she felt a sudden urge to turn tail and flee. He was every bit as commanding as her very worst memories. In the light of day, she could see that every bone in his face was stamped with hard, self-assured assertiveness. He was darker than she had thought, his skin bearing the hallmark of a life in a kinder climate, which made his silver-grey eyes appear more startling because of the contrast.

He watched her as she poured herself a cup of coffee, and, when she had sat down, he finally said politely, ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ Corinna returned awkwardly, shifting her gaze away from his probing stare. ‘Did you sleep well?’ she asked politely, and he raised his eyebrows as if ironically amused by the lack of sincerity in her question. The open hostility was no longer quite as apparent as it had been the night before, but it was still there, of that she had no doubt, simmering away under the surface, temporarily replaced by an equally disconcerting iciness. If only that could distract her from his intense physical appeal, but she was alarmed to find that her body was reacting to his blatant masculinity with edgy awareness.

‘I’ve had better nights,’ he returned, sipping some coffee and looking at her over the brim of the cup. ‘I trust you’ve seen my father and informed him of my presence?’

‘He already knew before I saw him this morning. Edna told him.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’ She fixed him with a blank, innocent stare. She would have preferred not to be sitting here, not to be struggling with her treacherous, racing nerves, but, since she was, she wasn’t about to indulge in open warfare. If this was a cold war, then she would play the rules of that game.

‘And what was his reaction?’

Corinna gave it some thought. Appear calm and collected, she thought, and you’ll feel calm and collected. ‘He wasn’t a hundred per cent impressed,’ she told him calmly. There was fresh bread on the table. She took a slice and buttered it, making sure not to look at him. Passable, she realised, was not an adequate description of Antonio Silver. He had the build of an athlete, his body hard and finely tuned, and a face which would make most women stop dead in their tracks, and no doubt he was very much aware of that. Conceited, she decided at once. The man was probably brimming over with conceit, as well as being thoroughly dislikeable, and conceit was hardly one of the world’s most admirable characteristics, was it?

She could feel those silver-grey eyes on her and she looked up with a polite, detached expression.

‘Not a hundred per cent impressed,’ he drawled lazily, sitting back in the chair to give her the full benefit of his attention. ‘I had forgotten that you British were the masters of understatement.’

‘We British? Aren’t you forgetting that you’re at least half British? Surely not; you made such a point of reminding me of that fact last night.’

There was a brief silence, then he unexpectedly smiled, and that smile filled his face with such devastatingly sexy charm that she felt her cheeks go pink in sudden confusion. She almost found herself preferring the angry insults to this.

‘Where’s Edna?’ she asked quickly, not caring to dwell on the impact he was making on her.

‘Gone to the village. My father may be unimpressed with my arrival, but Edna thinks it’s the return of the prodigal son. She’s gone to stock up on all my favourite foods. God knows how she remembered them. She must have the memory of an elephant.’

So, she thought sourly, the formidable Edna has turned pussycat. He probably had that reaction from every woman he came into contact with.

‘And where’s my father?’ he asked, lowering his eyes in almost precisely the same manner that Benjamin had a short while ago.

‘In his bedroom.’

‘Hiding?’

It was so near the mark that she was taken aback. ‘Trying to get over the shock of realising that you’re here,’ she said tartly. ‘I don’t think he wants to see you, at least not at the moment.’ Maybe you could try again in a few years’ time, she thought, when I’m well and truly out of here.

‘Well, he’s going to see me whether he likes it or not,’ Antonio said coolly, ‘and without you playing the little mediator. No doubt running between the two of us would give you no end of pleasure, but I intend to see him and that’s that.’

‘I can’t think of anything worse than running between the two of you,’ Corinna said tightly, already beginning to feel rattled. ‘He’s your father, you sort your troubles out yourself.’

‘And I won’t have you trying to influence him either.’

She slammed her cup down on the table and looked at him angrily. ‘I have no intention of trying to influence your father!’ she informed him.

‘So you haven’t told him what we discussed last night?’

‘No,’ she said in a more controlled voice, ‘I haven’t told him what you discussed last night. I don’t recall having discussed anything with you.’

‘And you haven’t run to him with any derogatory descriptions of me?’

Corinna opened her mouth and closed it.

‘Trying to find an appropriate lie to that one?’ he asked her, looking at her coldly.

‘He asked me what my impression was of you, and I told him the truth.’

‘Which was…?’

‘That you struck me as being arrogant and objectionable.’

She expected him to hit the roof with that one, but he didn’t, and she shifted uneasily in the chair.

‘I can’t think of too many women who have called me that before,’ he said softly, staring at her, and she thought to herself, No, I don’t suppose you have, I suppose they’ve all been too busy trying to get you to give them one of those lazy, charming smiles of yours. Well, not me, buster.

‘No?’ she asked politely. ‘They must be very short-sighted, then.’

‘Or maybe you’re the one with the misguided judgement. You are, after all, in a minority. Of course, you could be an expert on men. Is that it?’

‘I forgot one more adjective,’ she said, ignoring his question, and he raised his eyebrows in a question. ‘Egotistical.’

‘Now might I be permitted to subject you to the same character assassination as you’ve just subjected me to?’ he asked, and she reddened, not saying anything.

Her coffee had gone cold and she refilled her cup, not liking this turn in the conversation one bit. She didn’t want to get involved in any word games with this man. In fact, she would have liked to be able to ignore his presence completely.

‘Do I have a choice?’ she asked. ‘I gather you’ll force your opinions on me whether I like them or not. You did last night.’

‘Well,’ he said, folding his arms and looking at her from under his thick, black lashes, ‘you’re a relatively plain little creature, but I wouldn’t describe you as background material. No, quite fiery in fact, and with lots of that so-called honesty which some English people think is a virtue when in fact it’s only a mark of rudeness.’

‘A mark of rudeness…!’ she spluttered, furious.

‘That’s right,’ he agreed silkily. ‘Have you cultivated that in an attempt to win my father over? I remember him as being brilliant and temperamental, a man who wouldn’t be able to abide any coy simpering around him. Did you think that the quickest and surest way to win him over was to meet fire with fire?’

‘I don’t have to stay here and listen to this.’ She stood up, trembling, and turned to go.

‘Wait!’

‘Don’t order me about! You might get away with that where you come from and with the sort of women you mix with, but not me!’

They stared at each other and she felt a heated, unwelcome awareness of his masculinity. When he stood up, she had to force herself not to move, to remain where she was when every confused instinct was telling her to run. He walked across to her, not taking his eyes off her face, and she glared at him with resentment. Plain, was she? Scheming, was she? She wished that the ground would open and swallow him up. She would stand and watch him disappearing with a smile.

‘The sort of women I mix with?’

‘You heard me! From what you said they fall at your feet, but don’t expect the same sort of reaction from me!’

He looked at her speculatively, as if digesting that remark, and she wished that she hadn’t said anything. There was no reason why she had to defend herself to this man and it irked her that she was continually being forced into a position of self-defence.

‘No?’ he said, watching her mouth, then flicking his eyes along her body, then back to her face. ‘The financial reward not tempting enough?’ Her face darkened and he laughed with acid amusement. ‘Or maybe the little mouse with the fiery temper prefers to scurry into a corner and observe life from the sidelines?’

He was deliberately antagonising her. It was obvious. But the desire to wipe that cool assessing sneer off his dark face was so strong that she had to clench her fists tightly to overcome it.

‘Is there anything else you want or can I leave?’

‘Which is my father’s bedroom?’

She began telling him but he interrupted her and said, ‘Take me there. I think the time for confrontation has arrived.’

She nodded and spun round, walking briskly into the hall, then up the staircase to the right wing of the house, tensely aware of his presence behind her. Was he nervous? she wondered. He didn’t appear nervous. In fact, he gave the impression of someone who didn’t have a nervous bone in his body, but he could just be a good actor. She tried to imagine him having butterflies in his stomach and failed.

They had reached Benjamin’s bedroom and she knocked on the door, pushing it open and stepping in.

She wasn’t looking at Antonio, so she didn’t see his reaction, but Benjamin’s face mirrored his shock. She had a strange feeling of being superfluous and made to move away, but Benjamin bellowed at her, ‘Where do you think you’re going? I told you that I didn’t want to see him!’

Antonio’s mouth hardened but he didn’t say anything. He walked into the room, round to the side of the bed, and stood there looking down at his father, his face unreadable. It didn’t look as though it had the makings of a touching emotional reunion and Corinna reluctantly entered the room as well, shutting the door behind her.

‘You’re not wanted here,’ Benjamin said breathlessly, beckoning to her to come over, which she did, and then clasping her hand tightly, all of which she could see his son noting, jotting down, no doubt, in that computer mind of his to be recalled and used against her at a later date.

‘My heart,’ Benjamin said, ‘my blood-pressure. I can’t take this. The shock will kill me.’ He lay back looking faint and Antonio shot her a doubtful look.

‘I did write to tell you that I’d be coming,’ he said, reverting his eyes to Benjamin who had his eyes closed and was breathing heavily.

‘Perhaps you’d better leave,’ Corinna interjected worriedly, reaching next to the bed for her bag which contained her instruments. If Benjamin’s blood-pressure was up, then Antonio would have to leave whether he liked it or not.

He ignored her. ‘Didn’t you receive my letter?’

‘I preferred to think that it had been a mistake.’ He opened his blue eyes and peered at his son with defensive hostility on his face. Side by side, she could see the resemblance between them, which had not been so noticeable before. Their features weren’t identical by any means, and Antonio, with his deeply bronzed skin, looked distinctly foreign, but there was a similarity of expression stamped on both their faces, the same strong, stubborn look in their eyes. Two forceful personalities, she thought, destined to clash.

‘I never make mistakes,’ Antonio said, glancing at her, and she returned his look with equanimity.

‘Well, you made a mistake coming over here,’ Benjamin said. ‘You haven’t set foot in this house for years and that’s suited me just fine. As far as I am concerned, I haven’t got a son.’

That brought a dark flush to Antonio’s cheeks, but whether it stemmed from anger or discomfort, Corinna couldn’t say.

‘We both know the reasons that I left here in the first place,’ he answered tautly. ‘Not,’ he continued harshly, ‘that I want to have our dirty linen aired in front of your nurse.’

‘Why not?’ Benjamin threw at him, ‘she’s more a part of my life than you are.’

‘A dangerous situation, wouldn’t you say?’ Antonio said grimly. ‘She’s a nurse, she’s not indispensable.’

‘Will the two of you stop talking as if I weren’t here!’ Corinna burst out. She faced Benjamin and said quietly, ‘Your son’s right, I shouldn’t be here. The two of you should talk your differences out without a third party present.’

‘I have nothing to talk out,’ Benjamin said stubbornly. He looked at his son, one hand clenched. ‘I didn’t invite you here. I don’t know why you’ve come and I don’t want to know. Just seeing you is going to set my blood-pressure soaring.’

‘It’s fine,’ Corinna said. She had taken it unobtrusively a short while ago and was surprised to find that it had been stable.

‘For the moment,’ Benjamin growled, ‘but not if I have to be subjected to this sort of scene for much longer.’

Antonio gave an impatient click of his tongue. ‘Look, I’ve been away a long time,’ he muttered, glancing across to where Corinna was standing. ‘I grant you that all this should have been cleared up a long time ago.’

His face was tight, and she could tell straight away that he was not a man who felt comfortable making concessions of any description.

‘Should have been, but wasn’t,’ Benjamin said, refusing to bend. ‘Now if you don’t mind leaving, I feel very tired. Close the door behind you.’

Antonio shook his head and spun round on his heel, slamming the door behind him.

‘Well?’ Benjamin muttered to Corinna. ‘Don’t just stand there pretending that you have nothing to say. And for God’s sake stop fussing around these damned bedclothes! What are you thinking? You might as well tell me instead of wearing that tight-lipped expression.’

Corinna hesitated, then said, ‘You could have handled that a bit better.’

‘A bit better? A bit better! So he’s got to you, has he? That’s the way the ground lies, is it?’

‘Don’t be foolish. Nobody’s got to me. I just think that you could have accepted his apology.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it might have been the start of some kind of truce between you.’

‘It’s a truce I could do without.’

She shrugged and Benjamin’s eyebrows met in a frown. ‘He’s not wanted and don’t try and be saintly. Didn’t it strike you that he doesn’t approve of you? Dispensable, he called you, I believe.’

She lowered her eyes. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’

‘Well, it bothers me. I don’t want to hear what he’s got to say, and if part of the reason that he’s found his way here is because he’s got to know about you and thinks you might have designs on my bank balance, then he’s wasted his time.’

Corinna looked at him, startled. She had known that Benjamin was shrewd, but his astuteness amazed her.

‘So I’m right, am I?’

‘How did you guess?’

‘I suppose that fool Angus has written to him about you,’ he said, continuing when he saw her bewildered expression. ‘He’s been trying to get us together for years. Keeps in touch with Antonio, you see. Throws me titbits about his life every now and again to whet my appetite, no doubt, as if I’m interested.’ He gave a shout of laughter. ‘Well, I’m not about to forgive and forget as easily as that!’

‘You’re a stubborn old man,’ she said with resigned affection. ‘You know what they say about pride.’

‘And you know what I say about you philosophising,’ he retorted. ‘Now could you go and fuss somewhere else?’

‘You’re not coming down?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘And what about food?’

‘Get that witch Edna to bring it to me. It’s time she worked for her keep.’ He closed his eyes, his way of dismissing her, and she let herself out of the room quietly.

As she looked up she saw Antonio waiting for her, lounging against the wall at the top of the stairs, and she did her best to walk past him, but he wasn’t about to let her. He reached out and held her and for some reason which she could only put down to dislike, her body began doing strange things. Her skin tingled where his fingers were curled round her forearm and she found that she was breathing quickly, as if she had just run a marathon.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said grimly.

‘Take your hand off me.’

That had the opposite effect of making him grip her tighter.

‘I watched you,’ he said, ‘the way my father responds to you.’

‘How interesting. Now do you mind?’

‘I don’t know how you’ve done it but you’ve managed to become a necessary part of his life. I won’t let you take him for a ride.’

Her eyes flashed angrily as she contemplated that statement. ‘You’re not in a position to put your foot down on anything, Mr Antonio Silver. Not that there’s anything to put your foot down about, anyway! And not that it’s any of my business, but all this sudden rush of concern for your father, how do I know that it’s not because you feel your inheritance being compromised? Is that why you flew over here at a rate of knots the minute you heard about me?’

His mouth thinned. ‘You’re right, it’s none of your business, but I’ll set your little mind at rest anyway. I don’t need my father’s estates. I have enough money of my own to buy my own estates.’

‘Oh.’

‘Satisfied?’ he sneered. ‘Or would you like to see a few of my bank balances?’

‘You can’t blame me for thinking…’ she muttered, and he jerked her towards him.

‘Keep your thoughts to yourself in the future,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘You’re a nurse, have you forgotten? You’re not here to speculate on things that don’t concern you, you’re here for my father’s health, though I’m surprised you haven’t driven him into the grave with that tongue of yours.’

That hurt. ‘That’s unfair,’ she whispered, looking down, and there was silence. ‘Your father and I get along well together.’

‘Too well.’

‘I resent your assumptions. If what you’re aiming at is to force me from this house, then you’re wasting your time. I like it here, I like your father, and that has nothing to do with the size of his bank balance! Your cynicism might help you in that concrete jungle you live in, but it’s out of place here!’

‘Is it?’ He gave that some thought, and she looked at his downturned eyes, the dark sweep of his lashes, a little uneasily.

‘All right. We’ll have it your way. Maybe I misjudged you.’ His voice was soft and smooth. ‘I must admit that when I came over here I didn’t expect to find someone like you.’

The question was too tempting to resist. ‘What did you expect to find?’

‘Someone,’ he drawled lazily, ‘a bit sexier. A bit more—filled out, so to speak. And definitely a brunette. My father has only ever been attracted to dark-haired women, did you know that? That’s a little titbit for your scrap-book, isn’t it?’

There was something dangerously hypnotic about his deep voice and steel-grey eyes.

‘How do you know that?’ she asked calmly, blinking away the desire to be mesmerised.

‘A confidence exchanged a long time ago. A passing remark that’s stuck in my head over the years.’

So, the thought struck her, there must have been warmth there at one point. What had gone wrong? She would never ask either of them and she had a feeling that the information would never be forthcoming.

He was looking at her with intense concentration and she began to feel even more uncomfortable.

‘What are your plans now?’ she asked, trying to get the subject on to more neutral ground.

‘You already know what my plans are. I have work to do here, apart from everything else.’

I hope it keeps you out of the house, she thought, viewing a succession of fraught encounters with something approaching panic.

‘Fine,’ she said, ‘now could you let me go? You seem to enjoy taking the caveman approach with me, but I’d really prefer you to keep your hands to yourself.’

‘If you say so.’ He let go of her, then said before she could walk away, ‘But first——’ he reached behind her and unpinned her hair in one easy movement and it cascaded down to her waist, long, straight and like spun silk ‘—I’ve been intrigued to see whether you’re as icy and untouchable-looking with your hair loose.’

Vivid colour flowed into her face. She could feel her heart beating like a drum inside her chest and for once she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Without a word, she began walking away.

‘Wouldn’t like to know what I think?’ she heard him ask from behind her, and there was amused laughter in his voice.

Damn him! Was his opinion of her so low that he felt he could do and say anything he pleased to her? The back of her neck was still prickling from where his fingers had brushed against it and, whether she admitted it or not, her blood was racing with a terrible, forbidden excitement.

CHAPTER THREE

BENJAMIN didn’t emerge from his room until the following morning, by which time he had harnessed some of his raging temper, at least as far as Corinna could make out. She laid out his clothes on his bed, and he emerged from his bedroom half an hour later with a few additions to what she had set out. A blue silk cravat and the comfortable loafers which he normally used around the house had been discarded in favour of a pair of tan shoes which looked far too smart for everyday use.

Corinna eyed him with some amusement and he scowled at her.

‘Something the matter?’ he barked, allowing her to take his arm as they walked down the staircase.

‘You look very dapper,’ she said seriously. ‘Are you going somewhere?’

‘Can’t a man look halfway smart in his own house?’ Benjamin barked, ‘without being subjected to wisecracks?’

‘I wasn’t being funny!’

‘Well, it sounded that way to me,’ he muttered grumpily, and she grinned. ‘Where is he, anyway?’

‘Oh, have you dressed to impress?’

‘I have not!’ he denied with a little too much vigour. ‘Why would I do that? I don’t even want him under my roof!’

‘Well, I don’t know where he is.’ They had reached the kitchen and Corinna began laying out his breakfast. Kippers, toast, coffee, juice, while Benjamin took his place at the table and eyed her speculatively.

‘You seem to have improved your image a bit as well,’ he commented slyly, ‘now that we’re on the subject.’

Corinna didn’t look at him but she felt her face redden. All right, so she had decided to wear a little make-up and a deep pink blouse with a matching skirt instead of the usual invisible colours she favoured, but that didn’t mean anything at all. It certainly didn’t mean that she was trying to create any sort of impression on Antonio Silver, because she wasn’t. She hadn’t seen him at all since his arrogant gesture in releasing her hair, just for fun, and in the interim she had decided that she really loathed the man. She didn’t like his massive self-confidence bordering on downright arrogance, she didn’t like his too striking good looks, she didn’t like his easy, sexual charm lurking just below the surface, and most of all she didn’t like the way he always managed to get under her skin and do strange things to her composure. She had always been a very composed girl and she meant to stay that way. Men like that frightened her. They were too powerful, too clever, too self-assured. She had always longed for the non-threatening. Hadn’t she?

‘Well?’ Benjamin prodded in his usual forthright manner, which she was beginning to see wasn’t all that different from his son’s. ‘So what’s behind the charming pink outfit which, might I say, is far and away the nicest thing I’ve seen you in since you were here?’

‘Nothing,’ Corinna remarked, pouring herself a mug of coffee and sitting down. ‘And if you think that there is, then your imagination’s running away with you.’

‘A bit like yours was a minute ago,’ he said mildly, crunching into his toast, and she looked at him with resigned exasperation.

‘Well, now that we’ve sorted that one out,’ she said after a while, ‘what are we going to do today? Shall we take the usual walk and then spend some time on your writing, or would you like to do something different? We could go to the local library. You’ve been talking about needing some books which you haven’t got in your library.’

‘Yes, why don’t you?’ The deep, familiar voice threw them both into startled confusion and Corinna looked up, her blue eyes clashing with Antonio’s.

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