Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

About the Author

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Permission To Love
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO, it’s all settled then. The weekend after next we’ll go down to Gloucestershire and break the news to my parents, and of course you’ll want to tell your brother.’

‘Stepbrother,’ Lindsay corrected absently. Since she had accepted Jeremy’s proposal, she had had the disconcerting suspicion that he expected her to turn almost overnight from an independent career woman into a dutiful, clinging fiancée, but she quelled all the doubts crowding into her mind, reminding herself that she was twenty-four; old enough and mature enough to accept that it was far better to choose a marriage partner for practical reasons rather than emotional ones. After all Jeremy was everything that her father had wanted for her in a husband. He was something in the City; his parents were comfortably-off landowners and if she personally had not particularly taken to Sir John and Lady Irene then she was not so very much different from thousands of other females who at times found it difficult to get on with their inlaws.

‘Brother, stepbrother … it’s one and the same thing,’ Jeremy informed her fussily. ‘But you’ll have to let him know. The parents will want to hold an engagement party for us and then there’ll be the press announcements. It would look rather off if he learned of our engagement second-hand. In fact it might be an idea if we went to see him together this weekend. He’ll want to talk to me about handing over the responsibility for your inheritance anyway.’

Something cool flashed in Lindsay’s normally warm golden eyes for a moment, but she knew that Jeremy was oblivious to her momentary anger. Jeremy was not a man who felt at ease with female emotions, but it seemed childish to mentally berate him for his lack of understanding of her feelings now, when originally, his calm unflappableness had been one of the things that drew her to him. Ever since she had been seventeen Lindsay had been pursued by the male sex, but she had come to wonder how many of her supposed admirers had wanted her for herself and how many had been drawn to her by the magnet of her father’s wealth. She was attractive enough in her own way she supposed, if one liked tall, slender women with slightly irregular features and honey blonde hair, but she would never have described herself as beautiful. Many of her escorts had however. Her full lips thinned slightly. What had they wanted? Her or her inheritance.

Strange to remember that until Lucas’ engagement it had never occurred to her to think of herself as a rich prize that a man might marry to secure her wealth.

Her father had over-protected her of course, and perhaps that was natural. The death of her fragile, delicate mother after the birth of her stillborn son had had a traumatic effect on her father. For months afterwards he had barely let Lindsay out of his sight. He had blamed himself for her mother’s death; she knew that, cursing himself for taking her away from her natural environment and subjecting her to the rigours of life as the wife of a man with his way to make in the world and with no means of doing so other than his own brain and will.

Her parents’ marriage had been a true love match. Privately Lindsay thought her mother must have possessed a much stronger personality than her father had thought, otherwise how had she found the courage to leave her parents and everything else that was familiar, behind her, to run away from that luxurious pampered existence to marry the son of her parents’ gardener?

At the time the press had been full of the story. When she had been old enough to pick up scraps of gossip Lindsay had gone down to the local library and turned up the old story. Her mother had been eighteen when she ran away with her father. He had been twenty-two and they had been married most romantically at Gretna. In true high emotional fashion Lindsay’s grandparents had refused to have anything to do with their erring daughter and it was this unrelenting attitude that had led to her father’s determination, obsession almost; that Lindsay should marry into the class that had so cruelly rejected her mother and thereby vindicate her mother’s sacrifice in marrying him.

Over the years Lindsay had come to realise that her father’s grief had left him scarred and intractable over this issue. Even when he had married for a second time, he had not abandoned his determined stance over Lindsay’s marriage. In fact there had been a time when Lindsay suspected that it had been the only thing that kept him alive; his fierce determination that his daughter should not be looked down upon and rejected as his wife had been. And he was a wealthy enough man to ensure that Lindsay should have the best of everything, including a top-drawer husband. The financial success which had come too late to save his delicate wife, was the weapon he was determined to use against what he considered to be the rejection of her family. Lindsay had grown up from the age of seven knowing what her father had planned for her; knowing and accepting it because she sensed that to do otherwise would hurt her father.

Lindsay had grown to care very deeply for her stepmother. Sheila Armitage had been their housekeeper, joining the household three years after her own mother’s death. Lindsay had been ten at the time and had responded readily to Sheila’s warm mothering. She had responded even more readily to Lucas’ affectionate toleration of her. Seven years her senior, Sheila’s son by her first marriage, Lucas had been Lindsay’s god and when he and her father had struck up a close rapport, nothing could have pleased her more. Lucas took the place of the son her father had always wanted. He was old fashioned in that he considered all women to be delicate plants to be shielded from the harsh realities of life, and because he was her father and she loved him Lindsay went along with the role he had devised for her. After leaving school, her father intended that she was to go to Switzerland to be ‘finished’. His business was expanding rapidly, and Lucas was his right hand man. Despite the traumas of being a teenager, Lindsay was conscious of being happier than she had ever been in her life. Sheila provided a buffer between her and her father, shielding Lindsay from the full force of his determination. Lindsay had been able to tell Sheila how unsettled she felt; how much she would have preferred to use the brain God had given her and go on to University rather than finishing school, and Sheila had been gently sympathetic.

In fact when she looked back on that last summer before everything had changed so dramatically, she could think of only one jarring note.

It had happened one hot afternoon—a Saturday in July. Over lunch her father had been talking about her future, telling her that he hoped while she was at finishing school she would make the right sort of contacts. He had never made any secret in the family circle of his plans for her, but listening to him Lindsay remembered how she had glanced at Lucas and been shocked by the bitter, grim expression darkening his eyes. It had gone almost the moment she saw it, and later she had wondered what Lucas could have been thinking about. That was before she had known about Gwendolin.

She had gone into the herb garden after lunch, curiously restless and wishing she had the courage to explain to her father that the life he was equipping her for was not necessarily the one she wanted. But she knew how bitterly disappointed he would be … how hurt … and she just could not bring herself to deliver the blow. She would tell him later, she comforted herself. Somehow before the summer was over she would find a way … She had been lying face down, full length on the small camomile lawn when a shadow fell across the sun. Rolling over, she had squinted up into Lucas’ shuttered face, her own breaking into a warm smile. Lately whenever she saw Lucas it had become oddly difficult to breathe whenever she was close to her stepbrother. It had occurred to her to wonder if she was suffering from some sort of crush on him, but she had dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Lucas was her brother … or as good as. As he came down beside her she studied him carefully. Looking at Lucas always gave her a special kind of pleasure. There was something so strong about his features that just to look at them comforted her. Lucas would never allow anyone to push him into a situation he didn’t want. He was as dark as she was fair, his hair thick and straight where hers waved. There had been some sort of crisis at the office which had necessitated both him and her father working late, and as a consequence he had not had time to get his hair cut and it curled thickly down over the collar of his shirt.

His face was all planes and angles, hard boned and very male. There were times like now when she wanted to reach out and touch him; to see if the living flesh felt as hard as it looked, but something always stopped her. Lucas had always had a certain remoteness about him; an air which warned against taking too many intimacies. His eyes, searched her face with cool grey precision, almost as though he were looking for something, and Lindsay felt herself tremble.

‘I don’t want to go to Switzerland.’ The words burst from her before she could stop them, a childish plea, which she regretted instantly. She was sixteen, not six, she told herself angrily.

‘Then you must tell your father so.’ Lucas sounded cold and remote. He wasn’t going to help her, Lindsay could see that.

‘He won’t listen to me … I don’t want to hurt him.’

She could feel thick tears blurring her throat, closing it up and she hung her head in anguish.

‘And because of that you’ll sacrifice yourself to marriage with some idiotic county type who’ll marry you for your father’s money. Is that really what you want from life Lindsay?’

It was so unlike him to be so cruel to her that Lindsay could say nothing. Tears flowed hotly down her face, but she made no move to check them, or to hide them from him. She heard the thick exclamation he made in his throat and through her own pain was dimly aware of something in his eyes that could have been pity and then she was in his arms, being comforted and rocked as she had been on countless occasions in the past. Much as he loved her, her father was not a demonstrative person, and it was always to Lucas that she turned for warmth and physical affection.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.’ His fingers, rough and slightly calloused brushed away her tears, ‘But Lindsay, can’t you see what’s going to happen to you if you don’t take charge of your own life. Can’t you see what you’ll be missing if you go along with your father’s plans for you?’

She had managed a watery smile and asked mistily, ‘Like what?’

‘Like this.’

The sensation of having Lucas’ mouth moving against her own almost robbed her of the ability to breathe. She was dimly conscious of her heart racing madly, thudding against her chest wall. Her lips softened beneath the cool assault of Lucas’ and then abruptly he was pushing her away and standing up, his expression morose and brooding as he looked down at her.

‘If you settle for the life your father’s planning for you that’s what you’ll be missing Lindsay … reality and all the pleasures and pains that go with it.’

He was gone before she could speak, and she remembered she had touched her mouth wonderingly. Lucas had kissed her many times before but never like that. A little shiver ran down her spine, and she was conscious of a sudden restlessness, an excess of energy that demanded some outlet.

It seemed hard to believe that the man who had spoken to her like that was the same one who eighteen months later was urging her to accept the proposal of the son of a neighbouring landowner; a young man who fulfilled all the qualifications her father wanted for her in a husband and yet who sexually left her completely cold. Tears stung her eyes and Lindsay was surprised to find them there. She was aware that Jeremy had gone quiet and raised her eyes to meet his.

‘Where were you?’ he questioned coolly. ‘You know Lindsay you’ll have to stop going off into daydreams like that, otherwise my family’s going to think you’re not quite right in the head.’

‘But since I’m an extremely wealthy heiress, they’ll be prepared to overlook it?’ She said the words with a smile, but knew she had shocked Jeremy from his expression.

‘You know you’re beginning to get quite a hang-up about this money,’ he told her curtly.

‘Would you want to marry me if I didn’t have it?’

Be honest with me Jeremy she prayed inwardly, I’m so sick of sycophantic men whispering words of love when what they love is not me but my bank balance … And yet she wanted to be married … to have children, a home, roots … perhaps because of the loss of her mother when she was so young and then the double blow of her father and stepmother’s deaths in a plane crash that summer she was seventeen. Those losses had left her with a deep-seated need for security perhaps, but not at any price.

She saw Jeremy’s slightly uncomfortable expression, but he responded with dogged honesty. ‘I don’t know … All my life I’ve been brought up with the responsibility that the family needs money,’ he told her half curtly. ‘That’s just the way it is. I’m thirty years old Lindsay and you’re twenty-four … can’t you accept that we’re both the type of people whose passions don’t run very deep. That doesn’t mean to say that because …’

‘Sexually we don’t turn one another on?’ Lindsay supplied wryly for him, watching the angry colour creep up under his skin.

‘I thought we’d agreed we’d wait until we were married,’ Jeremy interposed stiffly. ‘After all … we’re not teenagers … you share your flat and I share mine, and …’

Suddenly Lindsay was tired of tormenting him. Was it his fault that like her he had been brought up to accept that his future lay along certain lines? She knew all about Jeremy’s family. Her flat mate Caroline was a distant cousin of his. The title went back to Regency times and since the first world war the family had had to struggle to hold on to their land. Jeremy’s grandmother had been the daughter of a wealthy American, but Jeremy’s father had been one of four children and their mother had insisted that her money was divided equally between them. Jeremy himself had two younger sisters. As the only son it was his duty to marry someone wealthy enough to help him retain the family home. Lindsay could understand Jeremy’s position. She also suspected that his family were not too keen on her. She had met them all at Christmas. His mother had been coolly distant; his father overjovial. Lindsay had sensed them thinking that she was not really their type; she loathed hunting for instance and Jeremy’s father was Master of the local Hunt. She also had a career whilst Jeremy’s mother had made it clear that anyone who married her son would have to devote herself to the type of committee/good works life she enjoyed. She was torn, Lindsay knew that. She and Jeremy had known each other for several years. She had met him through Caroline and they had several interests in common. She knew he would make her a good husband—if somewhat dull. He was a very placid man, stuffy in some ways perhaps as befitted a junior partner in an old established firm of stockbrokers. He tended to look down on Lindsay’s work. She worked for one of the foremost Unit Trust organisations in the country, and the salary she earned through selling their Unit Trusts was phenomenal. There was more of her father in her than he had ever suspected, she often thought. She enjoyed the cut and thrust of her business life, and yet another side of her, her mother’s side perhaps, yearned for a home and children.

‘Sex isn’t everything.’ Jeremy looked embarrassed as he made the comment. Lindsay had discovered early on in their relationship that anything to do with such a personal topic embarrassed him. When she had first guessed that he intended to propose to her she had suggested they went away on holiday together. She was a virgin by choice, never having met any man whose touch or kisses aroused her to the point where she craved his possession and she desperately wanted to feel at least some of that craving for Jeremy, but he had been horrified by her suggestion. Rather stiffly he had told her that he had too much respect for her to take advantage of her suggestion; indeed he had gone on to say that he had heard that she had a reputation for being unobtainable sexually and she had sensed then that this had pleased him. She had chosen Jeremy freely and yet every now and then nagging doubts arose. Was there perhaps something wrong with her? Was she totally incapable of intense sexual desire? There were people with low libidoes and if she was one of them it was as well that she was marrying a man like Jeremy.

Contrite, she proffered a brief smile. ‘No, perhaps you’re right,’ she agreed.

Relieved Jeremy smiled back at her. ‘So you’ll arrange for us to visit your brother and his wife this weekend?’

Sensing his impatience to return to his office, Lindsay nodded her head. She wasn’t looking forward to going down to Dorset but it would have to be done. Although she was well over age for a legal guardian, she still had to have Lucas’ approval to her prospective husband before she could come into her inheritance, and Jeremy would not want her without it. Not that Lucas was likely to disapprove. Jeremy was everything her father had wanted for her in a husband. Who would have thought that Lucas could change so much? Jeremy was paying the bill; Lindsay stood up. She intended going straight back to her flat after lunch. She had taken the afternoon off, but there was some paperwork she wanted to catch up on. Jeremy kissed her briefly on the cheek before depositing her in a taxi. His lips were dry and faintly chill. Sighing, Lindsay gave the driver her address.

Lucas had bought the flat for her when she first came to London and it was situated in an elegant Regency block. At first she had raged that she could manage on her own, but a month of living in grotty digs, feeding herself on beans and toast every night had soon brought her down to earth. It had been Lucas who insisted on her advertising for a flat-mate and who had carefully vetted the applicants. She had taken little interest in the proceedings. It had been pride and nothing more that had led to her leaving home, and the pain of parting from all that she loved; the pain of being betrayed by the one person she had thought would never let her down had anaesthetized her against feeling anything else.

She had worked hard to get where she was and she was proud of her success. Jeremy wanted her to give up work when they married. Sighing faintly, Lindsay paid off her taxi and walked towards her front door.

She had decorated the flat herself, choosing soft, feminine shades of peaches and greys and she was very pleased with the effect of the pale peachy rag-rolled walls, and the soft, plain grey carpet. Ignoring the large sitting room she went instead into her own small study. Because of the nature of her work her hours were flexible and she could if she chose, work at home in preference to in an office, and her flatmate knew that this particular room was out of bounds to everyone apart from Lindsay herself.

It should have been the easiest thing in the world to simply pick up the ‘phone and tell Lucas that she was going down this weekend.

It hadn’t come as a surprise to her on her father’s death to learn that he had appointed Lucas as her guardian and that he had left Lucas in charge of his business empire. The house had been left to them jointly but there was a stipulation in her father’s will that unless she married, Lucas would always have control of her inheritance and that when she did marry it must be to a man whom Lucas approved of.

She had been stunned by this knowledge, but at sixteen the trauma of coping with the death of her father and Sheila had vastly overridden any concern she might have felt about the will.

Her father had been dead for three months before she began to realise how much Lucas had changed. For a start he had tried to insist that she went to finishing school as her father had wanted her to. That had been his first betrayal and the shock of it had caused her almost as much pain as her father’s death. Lucas himself had been the one to tell her to make her own way in life, but when she tackled him about this he had simply said grimly that things had changed.

It was about that time that she had first become aware of Gwendolin. She had never particularly liked the older girl, who was the daughter of her father’s solicitor, and her constant visits to the house under the guise of ‘helping’ made her feel extremely prickly. She wasn’t a child, she remembered telling Lucas hotly on one occasion; she was more than capable of seeing that they ate proper meals … and that the house was kept clean.

After Sheila had married her father they had never taken on another housekeeper, Sheila preferred to manage with help from the village, and at the time she had not properly understood Lucas’ grim, ‘That you’re not!’

Which only went to prove how much of a child she actually had been. No. It had taken Gwendolin to open her eyes to the truth. People were talking about her and Lucas, she had told Lindsay spitefully. And when she had asked why, Gwendolin had pointed out that they weren’t related by blood. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at him,’ she had added nastily. ‘Poor Lucas, he must find it difficult to deal with such a mammoth crush. It isn’t fair to him at all of your father to have landed him with the responsibility of you. And what about when he marries?’

Lucas married? A coldness had crept through her limbs. ‘What’s the matter,’ Gwendolin had demanded acidly. ‘Surely you realise that Lucas is an extremely virile man? Naturally he will marry … and when he does you can hardly suppose his wife will want a teenage stepsister on her hands.’

Lindsay knew without having to hear it in so many words that when Gwendolin talked of Lucas’ wife, it was herself she had in mind. A deep pain tore through Lindsay when she turned the conversation over in her mind later. She didn’t want to lose Lucas as well … not so soon after losing her father and Sheila, and marriage would take him away from her … she knew that.

Gwendolin hadn’t been content to leave matters there. She had told Lindsay in Lucas’ hearing that people were starting to talk … that there were those who thought it wrong for a teenage girl to live so closely with a man who after all was no blood relation to her. Lindsay had been instantly defensive. ‘Lucas might not be my brother,’ she had cried painfully, ‘but I love him as one …’ Can’t you see, she had wanted to say, he’s all I’ve got left, but the words had stuck in her throat, and later on when Lucas had changed from the warm, smiling man she knew into a grim-faced stranger she had been filled with dread.

At first when he had insisted on taking her out with him when he went visiting their neighbours she had thought it was because he wanted her company, but her pleasure had turned to pain when she realised the truth. He was trying to get her married and off his hands.

He gave her the ultimatum the night after Richard Browne had approached him for permission to marry her. Either she accepted Richard or she went to finishing school.

His treatment of her had hurt her bitterly. Where was the Lucas she knew and loved? All her appeals to him met with stubborn resistance. He had even flinched away from her when she tried to touch him, his eyes cold and hard. ‘You can’t stay here alone with me,’ he had told her bluntly.

It was then that she had grown up. ‘Not quite six months ago you were telling me to take charge of my own life, Lucas,’ she had reminded him coolly.

His smile had been openly derisive. ‘That was before I realised how incapable of doing so you are. You’ve been brought up almost from birth to fulfil one purpose and one alone Lindsay. Your father had made it plain what he expects me to do … I owe him too much to ignore his wishes.’

‘But I don’t want to go to finishing school and I don’t want to marry Richard.’

He had looked at her broodingly after her passionate outburst and then asked, ‘So, what do you want to do.’

What might have happened if she hadn’t said those next foolish words? There was no knowing. ‘I want to stay here with you,’ she had told him emotionally.

His whole expression had changed, hardening, rejecting her silent plea for understanding.

‘What as Lindsay?’ he had demanded harshly, ‘My bed-mate? Because that’s what everyone will think you are. Look at yourself.’ He had spun her round so that she could see her own reflection in the mirror. ‘Although you may not know it yet there’s a potent streak of sensuality in your nature. You might be innocent, but you don’t look it, and if we continue to live here alone, your reputation will be ruined.’

There were so many things she could have said—they could have got a housekeeper … they could have … but what was the use of thinking that now. His announcement had shocked her, stunned her into silence and pain. All she was aware of was his rejection. Did he, like Gwendolin, think she harboured some secret love for him. Was that why he was so keen to get rid of her. Pain heaped up on pain and suddenly all she wanted to do was to be free … free to escape from Lucas and from her pain.

She had left that night, taking with her a suitcase and Post Office savings book.

It hadn’t taken Lucas long to track her down to the dingy lodgings which were all she had managed to afford. One look at his grimly angry face as he opened the door and stared at her had killed for all time any childish longing she might still have had that she could run into the safe harbour of his arms and that everything would be made all right.

‘Pack your things, I’m taking you home.’ That was all he said to her, and it wasn’t until he had got her back to Dorset that he broke the shattering news to her that he was going to marry Gwendolin. Of course she knew that Gwendolin wanted him. The look in the older woman’s eyes when she looked at him was openly obvious, embarrassingly so, but although Lucas had had plenty of girlfriends, Lindsay had never seen him single Gwendolin out for any special attention, but now he was telling her he was going to marry her. Remembering Gwendolin’s claim that no wife of Lucas’ would want her around, she announced grimly that he had wasted his time in bringing her back because the moment the wedding was over she was going to leave.

They had argued about it up until the wedding and beyond. Lucas had even postponed having a honeymoon because he did not trust her not to run away while he was gone. After he had married, his temper had become even more savage, and Lindsay had suffered several verbal maulings from him because he eventually conceded that it might be best for her to live away from home. He had suggested university, but by that stage she was in no mood to fall in with any of his suggestions and so had insisted on London. What a trial she must have been to him. It was no wonder he was always so cool and distant to her on the rare occasions when she did go back. Her father had left the house to them jointly … but she never thought of it as home now. Gwendolin had brought in a firm of designers once she and Lucas were married, and although the results were very stylish Lindsay found them cold and unappealing. But now she would have to go back. Lucas would have to know she was getting married and Jeremy was right. It would be both silly and childish to leave him to find out second or even third hand. And what was more, it would be cowardly too, Lindsay admitted. She had been avoiding facing Lucas for far too long.

CHAPTER TWO

THE soft Dorset burr of the woman who answered the telephone was unfamiliar to her. Gwendolin had employed a live-in couple from Barbados when she and Lucas were first married, and Lindsay wondered if perhaps they had left. If so, she was not surprised. In her opinion Gwendolin had overworked them unmercifully. But never when Lucas was there. No, Lindsay had learned early on in her relationship with the older woman that Gwendolin presented a far different face to those whom she wanted to impress than she did to those she didn’t, and Lindsay herself, and her staff were patently among those she did not.

At first when Lucas had announced that he was to marry Gwendolin she had been shocked, and yes hurt somehow, although she knew the latter emotion to be an unreasonable one. Of course it was natural that Lucas should want to marry. He had had many girlfriends, some of whom she had liked in a luke-warm sort of way and some of whom she had not, but at the time he had made his announcement to her she had been almost overwhelmed by something approaching revulsion that he should even contemplate marrying Gwendolin. For one thing she had pursued him so blatantly that Lindsay had been sure Lucas would reject her on those grounds alone. For another it was widely gossiped locally that Gwen had had more than one affair. She had been no inexperienced girl when she married Lucas, and Lindsay vividly remembered her own sense of inadequacy and embarrassment when Gwendolin had once mocked her for her own inexperience. She shivered slightly even now, not wanting to picture Lucas and Gwen as lovers, but unable to stop herself from doing so, images of Lucas’ athletic naked body sensually entwined with that of his dark-haired wife. The sensations aroused by the images stunned her. Distaste caused nausea to rise up in her throat and almost choke her. What was wrong with her that she could feel like this about another couple and yet when it came to Jeremy … or any other man for that matter … she felt so intrinsically cold?

Gathering her thoughts together she asked to speak to Lucas and was told by the new housekeeper who introduced herself as Mrs James that he was away on business overnight.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed she did expect him back by the weekend, when Lindsay introduced herself. Forcing down her reluctance Lindsay asked to speak to Gwendolin. There was a small hesitant pause before Mrs James said uncertainly, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Armitage is not here either.’

Taking a chance, Lindsay arranged with Mrs James that she and Jeremy would arrive late Friday evening. As they had to go and visit Jeremy’s parents the following weekend, she would have to tell Lucas about her forthcoming engagement soon, and although she would have preferred to do so by ‘phone, Jeremy who was a stickler for everything that was proper and correct, would frown over her doing so.

It amazed her that after all this time the rift that had opened up between herself and Lucas that last summer, should still hurt her so much. She was six years older for goodness sake, no longer a teenager but an adult herself. At Gwendolin’s insistence she had always spent Christmas at home with them, but she had always found her visits uncomfortable occasions, longing for them to be over. Gwendolin was an extremely social person and the house always seemed to be packed with guests; friends of hers in the main, unknown to Lindsay and whom she did not find particularly convivial. Lucas always remained remote and cold towards her appearing, so it seemed to avoid her company, reminding her shamingly of Gwendolin’s assertions that he had found Lindsay’s feelings for him embarrassing and annoying. In many ways it did not surprise her that they had not had children—Gwendolin was the most unmaternal woman she had ever met, but Lucas, she remembered had always been good with them and she would have expected him to want a family of his own.

Sighing faintly as she replaced the receiver, she tried to concentrate on her work, but her mind kept wandering, replaying memories from her childhood, Lucas … playing tennis with her, coaching her … Lucas, helping her with her homework … The warmth he had always shown her and the loneliness she had felt when he went to university. She heard a door slam and realised that Caroline was back. Her flatmate poked her head round the study door, having knocked briefly.

‘Busy?’ she enquired, ‘Or do you fancy a coffee?’

‘I’d love one. I ought to be working,’ Lindsay admitted, ‘but I just can’t turn my mind to it.’

‘Mmm … I wonder why. Most unlike you.’ Caroline looked at her shrewdly. ‘Your inability to concentrate wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain cousin of mine would it?’

‘Sort of. We’re going down to see Jeremy’s parents the weekend after next,’ Lindsay told her, answering her unspoken question.

Caroline grimaced faintly and rolled her eyes. ‘Poor you. His mother’s a bit of a stickler. Jeremy’s the apple of her eye of course, and no girl could possibly be worthy of him. Of course you have got one thing in your favour.’

‘My money you mean?’ Lindsay stood up with fluid grace, kneading the tension knots at the back of her neck. ‘Mmm …’

‘Still you’re hardly springing a surprise on them,’ Caroline comforted. ‘Ma was saying the last time I went home that it was high time the pair of you got engaged. What about your family?’

‘Well there’s only Lucas of course,’ Lindsay told her. ‘Jeremy and I are going down to see him this weekend.’

‘Lucky you.’ Caroline dimpled a smile of feminine envy at her. ‘It’s just as well that he’s your stepbrother and safely married, otherwise poor Jeremy wouldn’t stand a chance.’ She saw Lindsay’s expression and grinned. ‘Oh come on Lin, surely even you can see that he’s living, breathing temptation to our poor vulnerable sex. The dreadful thing is that he doesn’t even seem to be aware of the effect he has on us. I wonder what he ever saw in Gwendolin.’

‘She’s very attractive,’ Lindsay responded weakly, feeling honour-bound to defend her stepsister-in-law.

‘Sure if you like icebergs,’ Caroline came back forthrightly, ‘I’m sure she doesn’t have an ounce of human warmth in her, and Lucas never strikes me as being a man who’s madly in love with his wife, does he you?’

‘He’s always been adept at hiding his feelings …’

‘Is that what it is? Sometimes I get the feeling he’s put them into cold storage,’ Caroline came back. ‘I wonder if he’s faithful to her?’

She saw her flat-mate’s expression and grimaced. ‘Okay, so he’s everything the perfect husband should be, but she’s very far from being the perfect wife. I didn’t say anything before but when I was in Gstaad this winter I saw her there … and not with Lucas.’

‘She’s a very keen skier,’ Lindsay told her a little stiffly, ‘Lucas is a busy man … perhaps he couldn’t get away. And anyway just because you saw her with another man that doesn’t mean …’

‘That she’s having an affair with him? Don’t you believe it,’ Caroline told her. ‘They might have had separate rooms and they might have been discreet but they were lovers all right … you can’t mistake the signs.’

‘Don’t tell me … I don’t want to hear any more,’ Lindsay wanted to plead, and like a warning bell, a comment of Lucas’ surfaced from the past. ‘You always want to avoid awkward situations Lindsay, but you can’t spend the rest of your life doing that. One day I hope you’re going to opt for pleasing yourself rather than simply pleasing others.’

And it was true. Intelligent; attractive, popular, she knew she was all of those things and yet deep inside herself she saw herself as a coward. As a child she had striven desperately hard after her mother’s death to please her father … to take the place of the woman they had both lost, and had always been nagged by the feeling that she had somehow failed; that the intelligence and stamina she had inherited from him, detracted, in his eyes, from her character and that he would have preferred her to be more like her delicate, hesitant mother. At school too, she had tried to please, breaking the pattern only that summer she had been sixteen, and then of course with Lucas. Lucas was the only person she suddenly realised, with whom she had been able to be properly herself. He had always encouraged her to state her own opinion, to argue with him if she felt so inclined. Lucas had never demanded that she fitted herself into any preconceived ideas he might have about her. But Lucas had changed when her father died; he had ceased being a beloved brother and mentor and become instead a remote, cold stranger, who no longer hugged or touched her in any way; who did not encourage her to talk to him and who eventually married Gwendolin, thus ensuring that there would be a gulf between them for ever. Was Caroline right? Was Gwen unfaithful to him? But why? She had never made any secret of her desire for Lucas. She had in fact pursued him relentlessly, so why break her marriage vows and take a lover?

‘Seeing Jeremy tonight?’ Caroline enquired, changing the subject. Lindsay shook her head. ‘I need an early night. I’m taking a break from the office next week, so I want to clear my desk first.’

‘Are you and Jeremy going away?’

Once again Lindsay shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t had a break yet this year. I thought I might do a little bit of shopping … unwind a bit, relax …’

‘Mmm … well I’d better fly. Simon’s taking me to dinner, and if I don’t get a move on I won’t be ready.’

Simon was the new man in Caroline’s life. Her menfriends lasted on average a matter of weeks rather than months, and unlike Lindsay she was constantly falling in and out of love.

LINDSAY finished work early on Friday afternoon and returned home to pack. She had almost finished when the ‘phone rang. Her nerves tensed totally unexpectedly, and until she picked up the receiver and heard Jeremy’s familiar voice she didn’t realise that her tension had been in case the caller was Lucas.

‘Lindsay I’ve got some bad news,’ Jeremy began without preamble. ‘I’m not going to be able to make it this weekend. Something’s come up and I have to fly up to Scotland to see a client.’

There had been several occasions recently when Jeremy had had to work at the weekend, and as Lindsay suppressed her annoyance she heard him saying, ‘Look why don’t you go home as planned—after all, you’re going to want to tell your brother about our engagement before we make it public. My parents will want to put a notice in the Times, once we’ve made things official next weekend.’

What Jeremy was saying made good sense, Lindsay knew that and yet she was filled with an intense feeling of reluctance to do as he suggested. She didn’t want to see Lucas without the protection of Jeremy’s presence, but why?

Shaking aside her nebulous fears, she spoke to Jeremy for several more minutes, eventually agreeing that she would go ahead as they had planned.

Once she had replaced the receiver she wandered into her bedroom wondering what to wear for the journey, and eventually settling on an attractive soft green wool crêpe pleated skirt with a toning sweater. The green reinforced the unusual tawniness of her eyes, and her skin which tanned well, glowed softly golden. They had had a good spring and early summer, and the sun had bleached her hair slightly adding natural highlights, but as she applied her make-up with deft, practised strokes Lindsay was unaware of her own attractions. She didn’t want to go home, she recognised unhappily, but she had to … It’s only for one weekend, she reminded herself, and yet inwardly she was dreading it; dreading seeing Lucas … and of course Gwendolin.

She left London an hour later, driving the Escort car she had bought for herself several months earlier. By most people’s standards she and Jeremy could live quite comfortably on their joint salaries, but of course Jeremy had responsibilities towards the estate—heavy and expensive responsibilities, which she suspected were the main reason he was marrying her. What did she want, she asked herself in exasperated impatience as she automatically turned her car in the direction of her home. She didn’t love Jeremy passionately herself and yet here she was questioning his own lack of passion for her. Hadn’t she accepted yet, in spite of all the evidence to support it, that she was simply not a woman with deeply passionate sexual feelings?

The late afternoon traffic was heavy and she forced herself to switch her attention from her unprofitable thoughts to her driving.

As she drove westward, Lindsay found the traffic gradually thinning out and when she took the familiar turning off the motorway several miles before Bath, she had the narrow road almost all to herself.

Almost all too soon she was driving through the familiar villages, the last one, Hinton St Jude, still as chocolate box pretty as ever with its thatched roofed cottages, their front gardens a rich blaze of colour. It was only a couple of miles from the village to the house, a small square Georgian building set in attractive parklands.

The electrically operated gates stood open and Lindsay’s stomach muscles clenched as she drove through. She was dreading the weekend more and more with every moment that passed.

She parked her car in front of the house, a little surprised to find the gravel parking area otherwise empty. Climbing out of the car without pausing to check her make-up or hair she walked up to the front door. It still seemed strange to be knocking on the door of what was legally at least still her home, but Gwendolin had made it quite plain shortly after her marriage that Lessings was now her home, and that as its mistress she expected Lindsay to behave as a guest.

Five minutes went by without any sign of anyone coming to answer her knock. She still had her old keys—it had seemed foolish to keep them but for some reason she had, and feeling more like an intruder than a member of the household, she fished through her bag for the front door keys, wondering as she inserted them into the lock if they would still work or if Gwendolin had had the locks changed. The door swung open easily as the key fitted, and once she was inside the hall, a wave of nostalgia overwhelmed her as she breathed in the unmistakable scents of pot-pourri and wax polish. In her mother’s and then Sheila’s day the house had always smelled like this, and it had been a smell she loved, but Gwendolin hated it, describing it as medieval, and the bowls of pot-pourri and the old fashioned beeswax had been banished. Now it seemed both were back.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, Lindsay called out experimentally, but there was no response. The distinct feeling that she was alone in the house would not leave her, and she walked slowly into the kitchen. Where was everyone?

A note was propped up conspicuously on the refectory table, and Lindsay picked it up skimming through it. At least she now had an explanation for the housekeeper’s absence. It seemed her sister had been involved in a car accident and she had been called in to take care of her. But where was Gwen? Her sister-in-law, Lindsay remembered had an extremely active social life, but even so she felt a tiny prick of annoyance that there was no one here to welcome her. She left the kitchen and wandered back through the hall into the immaculate drawing room. Gwen had called in a team of interior designers shortly after her marriage, and Lindsay had never liked the cold sophisticated rooms they had created. She had preferred the faded chintzes of her mother’s and Sheila’s time, and she grimaced in faint distaste at the sterile purity of the now almost all white and chrome room.

As she remembered the only room the designers had not been allowed to touch were the kitchen and Lucas’ study, and her old bedroom.

Lucas! Her stomach felt as though it had suddenly been twisted painfully, her nerves so on edge that she felt acute nausea. Where was he? At work no doubt at this time of day. Her mouth hardened slightly. Couldn’t he even be bothered to come home to welcome her? Welcome her? A harsh bitter laugh escaped her compressed lips and echoed into the thick silence. That would be the day. No doubt he was as anxious to get his weekend over with as she was herself.

And yet, almost without volition her footsteps led her in the direction of his study. The door was half open and Lindsay walked in, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead as she saw the neat pile of correspondence on his desk. She walked closer and saw on the top of one pile a neatly written note in what she now recognised as the housekeeper’s handwriting. ‘Miss Lindsay ‘phoned’, it read, ‘she and a friend are coming down for the weekend. I have put Miss Lindsay in her old room and her friend in the guest suite.’

Lindsay thought quickly. Did this mean that Lucas didn’t know she was coming down this weekend? But why would the housekeeper leave a note for Lucas? Why not simply tell Gwen? Frowning deeply Lindsay made her way back to the kitchen and filled the kettle. While she was waiting for it to boil she pondered on what she ought to do. Plainly whatever business had taken Lucas away from home had delayed him and the housekeeper had not had an opportunity to inform him of her visit. On the other hand it was equally plain that he was expected home imminently—the fridge was full of food for one thing. Although it was tempting to simply get back in her car and return to London all she would be doing was putting off the eventual ordeal. She hadn’t realised until now how much she had been nerving herself for this meeting. If she left without seeing Lucas she would have it all to live through again. The kettle boiled and Lindsay automatically went through the motions of making herself a pot of tea. She would take it upstairs with her and have a shower. That might help her to relax. At least she knew where she was sleeping. If, when Gwen came back she objected to the way she, Lindsay, had made herself at home, well she had only herself to blame for not being on hand to receive her. Her mind made up Lindsay poured her tea and went back into the hall.

Her bedroom had not suffered too much from the decorators; the theme of lemon and white she had chosen as a teenager was still retained; the bedhangings, curtains and chair were all in a soft lemon and white chintz, the carpet a toning pale lemon. Lucas had been the one to suggest that she was old enough for a more grown-up colour scheme than the old pink and white she had had since childhood—he had arranged for her room to be redecorated as a fifteenth birthday surprise, she remembered. She had been so excited and thrilled … Sighing faintly she went back downstairs; garaged her car at the back of the house and brought up her suitcase.

She had just stepped out of the shower when she became aware of someone’s presence in her bedroom. Thinking it must be Gwendolin she pulled on her robe hurriedly, grimacing faintly as the thin silk clung to her still damp skin, and opened her shower room door.

It wasn’t Gwen who stood there watching her but Lucas, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown, his skin stretched almost too tightly over the bones of his face.

‘Lindsay … what the devil …’

There was a grimness to his mouth that Lindsay well remembered, but the pain darkening his eyes was new, and so too was the tiredness plainly discernible in his drawn features and almost gaunt frame.

Suddenly becoming aware from the way he was looking at her, of the flimsiness of her damp robe, Lindsay hugged her arms protectively around her body, and muttered crossly. ‘I thought you were Gwendolin …’

‘Now why, I wonder should you think that.’

The tiredness was gone and in its place was a febrile bitterness that mocked and taunted. ‘What are you doing here?’

His tormenting was replaced by curt anger, and it lit a corresponding flame of anger in Lindsay.

‘This is still my home,’ she reminded him, her chin lifting belligerently, ‘even though you have contrived to make it as uncomfortable a one as possible for me.’

He had the grace to colour faintly, but there was no remorse in his eyes as they locked on her face. ‘I repeat, what are you doing here.’

‘Nothing that you need worry about,’ Lindsay told him acidly, ‘In fact I think when you hear what I’ve got to say you’ll be pleased. I’m getting engaged.’

‘Engaged!’

Just for a moment she thought he looked shocked, ill almost but instantly his expression changed to be replaced by one of cynical mockery. ‘Well, Well … and who is the fortunate man?’

‘Jeremy Byles,’ Lindsay told him curtly. Why was it that every time they met they rubbed one another raw like this? If they could not regain their old camaraderie, surely they could still meet as civilised human beings; not the snapping snarling enemies the sight of one another seemed to turn them into. ‘Jeremy was to have accompanied me here … he wanted to advise you of our engagement before his parents make a formal announcement next week.’

A bitter smile curved the thin mouth. ‘To advise me of it, or to gain my approval?’ Lucas queried. ‘He does know the terms of your father’s will I take it?’

‘Of course,’ Bitter anger flashed in Lindsay’s topaz eyes, ‘but you need not worry Lucas, Jeremy is everything my father would have wanted for me in a husband.’

‘Which is why you chose him?’

‘Am I allowed to marry for any other reason?’ Until she had said it she hadn’t realised how much of a burden her father’s wishes were to her. She didn’t love Jeremy she acknowledged, at least not as she had once dreamed of loving a man, and she could sense the speculation in the look Lucas was giving her.

‘Since you can’t produce your fiancé for my inspection and approval, I can’t see that there was much point in coming down here,’ he infuriated her by saying. ‘Why did you?’

‘I’d already made my plans.’ Lindsay was seething … her temper, normally so slow to ignite already at danger point. ‘This is my home, Lucas,’ she reminded him sharply, ‘I don’t need your permission to come here, no matter how unwelcome you choose to make me. Jeremy is everything my father wanted for me in a husband,’ she pointed out for a second time. ‘You could have no possible grounds for refusing to …’

‘Hand your inheritance over to him? Poor Lindsay, do I really keep you so short of money that you’re obliged to marry the first blue-blooded idiot you can find?’

‘It has nothing to do with the money—at least not on my side, you must know that,’ Lindsay stormed back at him.

‘Then why so concerned about my approval? True love needs no approval.’ He all but sneered the words at her, and Lindsay knew that he was telling her he did not believe she loved Jeremy. Perhaps he was right … but knowing that only whipped up her resentment and anger.

‘What do you want me to do? Spend the rest of my life living alone without husband or children, all because I …’

Just in time she stopped herself from completing what she had been about to say, too appalled by the words that had been on the tip of her tongue to even be aware of the way Lucas was watching her. ‘Because I couldn’t have you,’ she had been about to say, and she started to tremble, terrified of the totally unexpected emotions her subconscious had suddenly dredged up. ‘You’re being totally unreasonable Lucas,’ she said tiredly instead. ‘You haven’t even met Jeremy yet and you know nothing about him. I’m sorry if my being here is an inconvenience to you. Just say the word, and I’ll pack and go. I had thought after all this time we could perhaps as least talk civilly to one another, but it seems I was wrong.’ She turned away from him and bent down to pick up her case.

‘I’ll leave you to make my excuses to Gwendolin, although I don’t expect she wanted me here any more than you do.’

‘I’m quite sure you’re right,’ he mocked sardonically, ‘Or at least you would be if Gwen still lived here.’

Lindsay’s head shot up, her eyes rounding in stunned amazement as she stared at him. ‘She …’

‘She and I decided to go our separate ways shortly after Christmas,’ Lucas told her curtly. ‘The divorce came through several weeks ago.’

Lindsay felt so shaken that she subsided on to her bed, her case forgotten. ‘You and Gwendolin are divorced …’ she shook her head, unable to comprehend what he was saying. ‘But why … why didn’t you let me know … why …’

Lucas shrugged powerful shoulders, turning his back on her as he replied hardily. ‘Why should I? There was never any love lost between the pair of you, and besides my marriage is hardly your concern is it?’

Angry colour flamed hotly in Lindsay’s face. ‘You are my brother, Lucas,’ she reminded him stiffly, only to be corrected with his soft answer.

‘Stepbrother … there’s no real tie between us Lindsay, you know that.’

Lindsay decided to ignore his pointed gibe and instead said huskily, ‘But you and Gwen … I can hardly believe it …’

‘Oh I don’t think I believe that. Gwen made her dissatisfaction with our marriage plain enough I always thought. The man she went away with wasn’t her first lover.’

So Gwen had left him! Odd, she had never thought of that happening. Gwen had been so determined to marry him … so obvious in her desire for him that Lindsay could not believe that she had actually been the one to be unfaithful. And Lucas … he had married Gwen after all, so why should she be so surprised because he sounded so hurt and bitter. He must have cared for her. Just because she did not care for Gwen it did not follow that Lucas had not done so … quite the contrary; after all he had married her; and was apparently so bitterly unhappy about their divorce that he was losing weight, the bitterly cynical streak in him increasingly marked.

He moved suddenly wrenching off his tie, and thrusting open the top buttons of his shirt. For a moment he looked so tired and defenceless that Lindsay’s soft heart ached. He was still after all the same Lucas whom she so admired and worshipped …

‘You look tired.’ The soft, sympathetic words were out before she could stop them. Lucas grimaced faintly but made no attempt to respond with the bitter mockery she had come to expect. ‘Transatlantic flight does have that effect.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Where the devil’s Mrs James?’

‘She’s left you a note,’ Lindsay told him. ‘Apparently her sister’s ill and she’s needed to nurse her.’

‘Hell!’ Lucas swore explosively. ‘I’ve got an American client coming over at the end of the week for a business meeting. I had intended to put him up here. We desperately need to secure a contract with him …’

‘Is the business in difficulties then?’ Lindsay was instantly worried.

‘Not to any extent that will jeopardise your inheritance, if that’s what’s worrying you.’ Lucas gave her a sour smile. ‘It’s just that last year we invested in some pretty expensive re-equipping that will pay off in the long run, but which has left us short of working capital for the present. We’re still making enough profit to provide a skimming of butter on our bread, but the American contract would guarantee the jam … Worried that I might abscond with your inheritance Lindsay and that your blue-blooded suitor might reject you?’

He sounded so bitter that Lindsay was puzzled. Lucas knew the terms of her father’s will as well as she did herself, but surely he knew her better than to believe she would marry simply to get her hands on her inheritance? The money did not matter in the slightest to her; no, what concerned her was her own sense of loyalty and duty to her father’s wishes—old-fashioned perhaps, but then that was how she had been brought up, and yes, it hurt that Lucas should not know without her having to say it in so many words, why she was committing herself to marriage with Jeremy.

‘No, Lucas,’ she told him levelly at last. ‘I obviously have more faith and trust in your sense of honour than you do in mine. I’ll pack my things and leave,’ she added, getting up off the bed and reaching for her case.

‘No.’ His denial was forceful and sharp. ‘It’s too late for you to set off back to town at this time of evening,’ he told her when she looked at him. ‘You might as well stay now you’re here.’ He rubbed long fingers over the dark stubble on his jaw. ‘I’d better go and grab a shower and a shave. I was on my way to do so when I heard the shower running in here. I thought for a moment that someone had broken in.’

‘And having done so was taking a shower?’ Lindsay’s eyebrows rose, her irrepressible sense of fun bringing a smile to her lips, but Lucas didn’t respond with a smile of his own. Instead his eyes changed from charcoal to black, smouldering darkly into her own before he turned on his heel and left her room.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR a long time after Lucas had gone, Lindsay simply stood, staring out of her bedroom window. Gwendolin and Lucas were divorced; it seemed almost impossible to believe. Almost as impossible as believing that Gwen had been the one to stray … to take a lover … no, lovers, if Lucas was to be believed. But why? She had never liked the older woman, but she had recognised her fiercely intense desire for Lucas.

Frowning slightly Lindsay withdrew from the window, suddenly becoming aware of the chilly breeze and the thinness of her robe. As she walked towards the wardrobe, the mirror on the dressing table threw back her reflection and she grimaced faintly. The thin robe clung silkily to her skin, outlining the full curves of her breasts, following the indentation of her waist and then the narrow out-thrust of her hips. Disturbed by her own inner awareness of her sexuality she dressed hurriedly. Lucas had not proved overreceptive to the news of her engagement; in fact he had been almost brutal in his mockery of it. Her chin tilted proudly. Yes, it was true in some respects that without her father’s money Jeremy would not want to marry her, but that was not something she did not already know. What did Lucas want her to do? she wondered wrathfully. Fall in love with someone totally unsuitable just so that he could have the pleasure of pointing out her folly to her and reminding her of her father’s wishes?

Of course it was only natural that Lucas should be bitter and angry at Gwendolin’s desertion, but why take it out on her? She would have plenty of opportunity to talk to him over dinner, she reminded herself, wishing again that Jeremy had been able to accompany her. If Lucas could see and talk to Jeremy himself he would realise the rightness of her decision. Perhaps there was no excitement or deeply intense emotion in her relationship with Jeremy, but there was liking and mutual respect that would build a good life together. Sexual chemistry was all very well in its way, but Lindsay wasn’t sure if she would trust such volatile emotions. Startlingly, for the first time it struck her that the reason she might never have experienced intense physical desire was because she had deliberately programmed herself against doing so. She could remember quite vividly the feeling of self disgust and shame she had experienced when Gwendolin had accused her of wanting Lucas as a man and not as a brother. Her seventeen year old self had been shocked by the older woman’s vitriolic claim and had instantly denied it, but she could not deny that Lucas was an extremely attractive man. Even just now, despite his bitter anger, she had sensed the magnetic pull of his personality; the heady, breathless sensation of no longer being quite in control of herself or her reactions.

She was here to inform Lucas of her impending engagement, not to daydream about the past, she reminded herself severely, opening her wardrobe and surveying the clothes she had brought with her. She had come prepared for all contingencies, knowing Gwendolin’s love of entertaining, but it seemed hardly appropriate to wear an evening dress simply to dine with Lucas. She frowned over a tweed skirt and toning silk shirt, dismissing them as not dressy enough and eventually decided on the soft lilac Jean Muir dress she had owned for several seasons and which remained a firm favourite, the excellence of the fabric and its cut ensuring that it was suitable for a whole host of occasions.

The colour suited her, emphasising the delicacy of her pale English complexion, the long lean line of the dress with its swing of pleats from the hip, comfortable and yet at the same time subtly feminine. Brushing her hair thoroughly she secured it in a loose chignon, on impulse putting in her ears the pearl and diamond studs which had been Lucas’ eighteenth birthday present to her. She wasn’t wearing Jeremy’s ring. He wanted to present it to her formally next weekend when they went to visit his parents but for some reason tonight she would have welcomed its presence on her finger. Why? Because she felt that wearing it might convince Lucas of the rightness of their engagement. She didn’t need his permission to marry she reminded herself … Jeremy was everything her father had wanted for her in a husband. Sighing faintly she sprayed her wrists lightly with perfume and then remembering the housekeeper’s absence, decided that if they were to eat dinner, she’d better go downstairs and see about preparing it.

In the event there wasn’t a good deal of preparation necessary. The housekeeper had left everything ready in the fridge, and all Lindsay was required to do was to heat it up in the oven. She was a good cook who enjoyed exercising her skill. When she was married to Jeremy she felt sure she would have plenty of opportunity to do so. He would not want her to work; he had already told her that much and when, as was eventually planned, he took over the running of the estate from his father, she would have plenty to occupy her time. Until then she would be expected to occupy herself preparing clever little dinner parties for Jeremy’s friends and clients, shopping … gossiping … having children. It was the accepted mode of wifely behaviour amongst Jeremy’s set.

It seemed silly when there was just the two of them for them to dine formally in the vastness of the dining room, so instead Lindsay placed cutlery and glasses on the much smaller table of the little breakfast room just off the kitchen. She had always liked this room which caught the early morning sun and although Gwen had completely altered the decor and furnishings, standing by the window observing the view she had observed so often as a child, brought back a stream of half-submerged memories.

‘Wondering how you can get your own way?’

She hadn’t heard Lucas come in, and she turned tensely at the sound of his voice, instantly aware of the clean male scent of him … of the fact that his hair was still faintly damp from his shower, and that his body, beneath its civilized sheath of sophisticated clothes, moved with all the predatory grace of the hunter.

‘No … as a matter of fact, I was remembering how I fell in the lake the year I was twelve, and how you fished me out.’

It was no less than the truth, and just for a moment his mouth softened slightly and she was almost able to persuade herself that he was once again the old Lucas whom she had loved so much … and who, she had once thought, loved her in return.

‘Yes … You don’t know how close you came to being walloped. You’d been expressly forbidden to ride your bike along the lake path.’

The bike in question—a brand new two wheeler had been a birthday present and she had desperately wanted to try it out. It had been raining heavily for several days though and the lakeside path had been dangerously muddy. She had known all this, but still she had defied Lucas’ suggestion that she wait to try the bike until he could go with her. She had paid for her defiance with a thorough soaking and a bad fright … Lucas had been furious … she remembered grimacing faintly, and she could well remember sensing how angry he was with her. But he had taught her to ride … and then she had known instinctively that beneath the anger there was a deep vein of caring. Where had it all gone?

‘Dinner’s ready,’ she told him, forcing herself back to the present. ‘If you sit down I’ll go and get it for you.’

‘Buttering me up, Lindsay?’ he asked unpleasantly, and then as though sensing her lack of comprehension he added drily. ‘I’m not used to being waited on these days. Dinner is normally a meal I manage to grab somewhere between ‘phone calls. No doubt in the ordered household you intend to run after your marriage, things will be very different. Why are you marrying him, Lindsay?’

He sounded so derisive that she almost lost her own temper. ‘Because I want to.’ She held his gaze levelly, and then asked softly, ‘What do you expect me to say Lucas? Because we’re madly in love with one another? I can’t pretend to emotions I don’t feel, but I can honestly say that I don’t trust that sort of sexual fascination … it dies … and I don’t believe it to be a good foundation for an enduring marriage …’

‘And you of course, have a vast wealth of experience,’ he mocked her suddenly savage in the way he looked and sounded. His fingers closed painfully around her wrist as he yanked her round so that the light from the window fell sharply across her pale face. ‘Just how often have you experienced sexual desire to be able to talk so knowledgeably about it Lindsay? How often have you been savaged by the sharp teeth of frustration … How often have you lain alone in bed at night, burning up with the need for another human being.’

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