“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought this was a merchant bank... not a marriage bureau.” Letter to Reader Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN Copyright

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought this was a merchant bank... not a marriage bureau.”

“It is a bank, and I am its chairman,” Reid said calmly.

“You wouldn’t be for much longer if your shareholders heard what you’re suggesting. They’d think you were out of your mind. You can’t buy a wife.”

“It isn’t the usual method of acquiring one,” he agreed, going back to his chair. “But these are unusual circumstances. I have neither the time nor inclination to follow the traditional course. You are in urgent need of someone to straighten out the financial shambles you find yourself in. If you agree to marry me, your mother won’t have to move and you won’t have to worry about her future. I’ll take care of that. Think it over, Francesca. When you’ve had time to assess it, I think you’ll agree it’s an eminently sensible plan.”

Dear Reader,

For twenty years, with my husband, usually in late spring and early fall, I’ve been crossing the range of mountains that separates France from Spain.

There are many different ways to cross the Pyrenees, from the sweeping curves of the autopista at the Mediterranean end to the narrower, more twisting minor roads in the central and eastern sections. We’ve tried most of them, including the route through the tiny principality of Andorra.

In between times, flying to London to meet my editor, often I’ve had an eagle’s view of inaccessible valleys so high up that the snow never melts. It never ceases to amaze me that the long, uncomfortable, perilous journey of earlier centuries can now be accomplished in two hours by air. Even by car, it takes only a few days. We like to do it slowly, picnic-lunching in woods or by the banks of streams, spending the night at quiet country hotels.

On a recent journey, it struck me that it was time to write a book about these magical mountains that, if not as remote as they once were, still retain a feeling of tranquillity long lost in more populous areas.

A short time later I happened to catch a brief glimpse of a tall, striking man and a beautiful girl, both wearing shorts and walking boots. I shall never know who they were...and they will never know they were part of the inspiration for the story you’re about to start reading.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Bartered Bride
Anne Weale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

EXPECTING him to be a middle-aged toad, Francesca was surprised when the man who rose from behind the large orderly desk was a tall dark thirtysomething, not precisely handsome but undeniably personable.

‘Ms Turner...please sit down.’ He gestured to the chair on the outer side of the desk and waited until she was seated before resuming his own seat.

She knew nothing about him, except that his name was Reid Kennard and he occupied a large office on the highest floor of a prestigious office block in the City.

This area of London was one of the world’s great money markets. Judging by his discreetly luxurious surroundings, this man was one of the market’s moguls.

To Fran, until very recently, money had been something she spent with careless extravagance on clothes for herself, presents for others and anything else she wanted. Now the supply had dried up. That was why she was here in the formidable presence of this well-built six-footer whose physique didn’t match her mental image of a top-level financier.

All she knew about him was that Mr Preston, her late father’s lawyer, had said that Reid Kennard wished to see her and might be able to help her and her mother out of their predicament.

Predicament being the understatement of the year, Fran thought wryly, leaning back in the comfortable leather chair and automatically crossing her legs, remembering a moment too late that this was a no-no in the books of advice on how to impress interviewers.

The movement caused Mr Kennard to shift the focus of his cold grey gaze from her face to her shapely knees and then to her slender ankles.

Fran was accustomed to men admiring her legs furtively or openly according to temperament. Reid Kennard belonged to the latter group, but whether his frank appraisal was appreciative, critical or indifferent it was impossible to tell. He had the most deadpan expression she had ever come across. It made her nervous. She wasn’t used to being nervous. She didn’t like it.

The appraisal didn’t last long, perhaps not more than three seconds. Leaning forward, his forearms resting on the edge of the desk and his long-fingered hands loosely clasped, he returned his gaze to her face.

‘You’re in trouble, I hear.’

Lacking any regional or social accent, his voice gave no clue to his background. Self-assured and brisk, it was a voice she could imagine giving decisive orders people would jump to obey.

Had she met him in surroundings not indicative of his occupation, and been asked to guess it, she would have surmised that he held a senior rank in one of the special units of crack fighting men called to the world’s trouble spots when drastic action was the only solution. He had an air of contained physical power. A man of action rather than a desk-bound number-cruncher.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘we are. Since my father’s death, my mother and I have discovered that instead of being comfortably off we’re extremely hard up... virtually penniless.’

‘Not penniless,’ he said dryly. ‘The watch you’re wearing would pay the grocery bills of an average family for several months.’

‘I shan’t be wearing it much longer.’ She looked down at the stylish Cartier watch her parents had given her for her eighteenth birthday. ‘But I don’t mind that. I can cope with the change in our circumstances. It’s my mother I’m worried about. She’s not young. She has never worked. She—’

He interrupted her. ‘Nor have you, I understand. The press describe you as a playgirl.’

‘The press puts labels on everyone...not always accurate. It’s true I’ve never had a job. There was no point. My father was rich...so we thought. I wasn’t brainy enough to train for one of the professions. I don’t have any special bent. The most useful thing I could do was help to keep other people employed, not take a routine job someone else needed.’

‘You don’t have to justify your butterfly existence to me, Ms Turner. But without any work-experience, you’re not going to find it easy to start supporting yourself, particularly not at the level you’re accustomed to.’

‘Presumably you didn’t ask me here to tell me what I already know,’ she replied, with a flash of irritation.

There was something about his manner that put her back up. He hadn’t smiled when he greeted her. Beyond standing up when she was shown in by his secretary, he hadn’t done anything to put her at ease.

‘Why did you send for me?’

Rising, he picked up a file lying on the top of his desk. He walked round to hand it to her. ‘Have a look through that.’ He strolled away to a window looking out on a vista of rooftops. He stood with his hands behind him, the right hand clasping the left wrist.

The file held plastic pockets containing illustrations taken from magazines and the glossier kind of catalogue. Mostly they showed pieces of sculpture, paintings and other objets d’art. There were also several photographs of horses, an aerial view of an island off Scotland and a picture of a small French château.

Half turning from the window, he said, ‘They’re all things that caught my eye over the last few years. Some of them are now mine. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to indulge my acquisitive impulses...as I expect you did before your father died.’

‘Not on this scale,’ said Fran. She couldn’t see where this was leading.

As she glanced enquiringly at him, Reid Kennard returned to his desk, resting one long hard thigh along the edge of its polished surface and folding his arms across his chest.

‘There’s one picture in there you’ll recognise. Carry on looking.’

Intrigued, she obeyed, turning the pages more rapidly than before. Suddenly, with an indrawn breath of surprise and puzzlement, she stopped. She hadn’t expected to see a photograph of herself.

It had been taken at a party for socialites. She was wearing a figure-hugging dress of black crushed velvet and showing a lot of sun-tanned cleavage, having recently returned from a winter holiday in the Caribbean.

‘What am I doing here?’ she demanded, baffled.

‘You, I hope, are going to be my next major acquisition, Ms Turner.’ For the first time a hint of amusement showed in the hard steel-grey eyes and flickered at the corners of his wide, chiselled mouth.

Inconsequently, it struck her that his mouth was at variance with the rest of his features. It was the mouth of a sensualist in the face of a man who otherwise gave the impression of being supremely self-disciplined.

But it was the meaning of his extraordinary statement, rather than the contradiction between his mouth and his eyes that preoccupied her at the moment.

‘What do you mean?’ she said warily.

‘I need a wife. You need financial support. Do you understand the word fortuitous?’

‘Of course I do,’ she retorted, her long-lashed green eyes sparkling with annoyance at the implied aspersion on her intelligence.

It was true she had been considered a dunce by most of her teachers and had never done well in examinations. But that was because she hadn’t been interested in the things they wanted her to learn...grammar, maths, physics and incredibly tedious bits of history, all of them taught in a way guaranteed to send most normal teenagers—particularly the sort of restless, hyperactive teenager she had been—into a trance of boredom.

She said, ‘It means happening by chance...especially by a lucky chance. But I can’t see anything lucky about my father dying of a massive coronary in his middle fifties with his business on the rocks and his wife destitute,’ she added coldly.

Matching her coldness, he said, ‘In my experience, most people make their own luck. Your father’s lifestyle wasn’t conducive to a long healthy life. As a businessman, he took too many risks for a man with responsibilities.’

‘Did you have dealings with him?’

She knew next to nothing about her father’s business life. Since her late teens he had spent little time with his family. It was years since he and her mother had shared a bedroom. Fran knew there had been other women.

‘Not directly. But after seeing that picture, I made a point of finding out more about you. I was on the point of making contact when your father died and I put the matter on hold. In the light of subsequent events, I’ve adapted my original plan to deal with things more expeditiously. If my information is correct, you have no relationships with men in train at the present time?’

‘How did you find that out?’

He said coolly, ‘I had you investigated...a reasonable precaution in the circumstances. Marriage is a very important contract. When people are buying a house, they have searches made by surveyors and lawyers. I had you checked out, very discreetly, by a private detective. You may want to run a similar check on me. For the time being my secretary has prepared a file which will give you most of the information you need.’

Retrieving the file she was holding, he placed another slimmer folder on the edge of the desk in front of her.

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought this was a merchant bank...not a marriage bureau.’

Fran’s eyes were both baffled and angry. He didn’t look like a crazy person. In his expensive suit and diagonally striped silk tie—perhaps the emblem of one of those old boys’ networks which still wielded so much influence—he looked eminently sane and sensible. But he must be out of his head to believe he could buy a wife as casually and easily as everything else in the file he was putting away in a drawer.

‘It is a bank and I am its chairman,’ he said calmly.

‘You wouldn’t be for much longer if your shareholders heard what you’re suggesting. They’d think you were out of your mind. You can’t buy a wife.’

‘It isn’t the usual method of acquiring one,’ he agreed, going back to his chair. ‘But these are unusual circumstances. I have neither the time nor inclination to follow the traditional course. You are in urgent need of someone to straighten out the financial shambles you find yourself in. If you agree to marry me, your mother won’t have to move and you won’t have to worry about her future. I’ll take care of that. Think it over, Francesca. When you’ve had time to assess it, I think you’ll agree it’s an eminently sensible plan.’

For some reason his use of her first name detonated the anger which had been building inside her. Despite the red glints in her chestnut hair, it was rare for Fran to lose control of her temper. But she did now.

Jumping up, she said fiercely, ‘I don’t need to think it over. Nor would any sane person. I’m furious you’ve made me come here, thinking I’d hear something useful. This trip to London has been a complete waste of time. I’ve a damned good mind to write to your board of directors and tell them they’ve got a nutcase in control.’

Without waiting for his reaction, she marched to the big double doors of solid mahogany and yanked one of them open. Glowering at the startled secretary at her desk in the outer sanctum, she slammed it resoundingly behind her and returned to the private lift which had brought her up to this rarefied level of the building.

‘Is everything all right, Mr Kennard?’

His PA didn’t know why he had sent for Francesca Turner, but she knew there could be no justification for the girl to emerge from his room scowling like one of the snake-haired Furies in classical mythology.

A conservative fiftysomething who had been promoted to PA while the late Sir Miles Kennard was chairman, Miss Jones knew enough about Ms Turner to conclude she was thoroughly spoilt.

Perhaps Mr Kennard had told her a few home truths. Although diplomacy was one of his many skills, when it was appropriate he could be outspoken, even ruthless. He was a much tougher man than his father. And needed to be. The world was a harsher place now than when she had joined the bank as a junior secretary almost thirty years ago.

‘Everything’s fine, Miss Jones, thank you.’

Although he was always formal, sometimes he gave her a smile which was far more rewarding than the casual use of her first name. That he should smile now surprised her. She had expected Ms Turner’s ill-mannered exit from his presence to leave him in one of his forbidding moods.

As his visibly baffled PA withdrew, it crossed Reid’s mind that Barbara Jones and Francesca Turner were about as dissimilar as any two women with roughly the same background could be.

The only child of middle-aged parents, Miss Jones had spent her adult life caring for them in their old age. She was the most selfless, reliable, deserving person he knew. The only rewards she could expect were the satisfaction of duty well done and a modestly comfortable pension.

Francesca represented the opposite extreme. It seemed likely she had never performed an unselfish act in her life. Unfairly, she had all the assets his PA lacked: a beautiful face and figure, a vibrant personality and a high degree of self-confidence, partly inborn and partly the result of an expensive élitest education.

Although Reid could usually predict how most people would react to any given circumstance, not having met Francesca he hadn’t been sure how she would respond to his proposition. On the whole her spirited reaction had pleased him.

It showed that she was hot-tempered, impulsive and combative. At the same time it revealed that she wasn’t a coward, willing to clutch at any straw to save herself from having to grapple with the gritty realities of switching from rich girl to poor girl.

From the moment she had entered the room, he had known that the shots in the social pages of the glossies hadn’t given a false impression. In reality she was even more attractive than she looked in her photographs.

Although his main motive for marrying was not the customary one, it wasn’t his plan to have the kind of relationship where physical pleasure was something found outside the marriage. The extra-marital liaisons engaged in by many of his peers were not on his own agenda. In his view there was no reason why a practical marriage shouldn’t include good sex.

Taming that pretty firebrand until she ate out of his hand was a challenge he hadn’t foreseen but expected to enjoy.

Contrary to what she had angrily told Reid Kennard, Fran had another reason for coming to London: to pack all the personal belongings in her father’s London pied-à-terre. This was now in the hands of an estate agent who expected to sell it quickly. Whatever price it fetched wouldn’t help Fran and her mother. It would go towards paying off George Turner’s numerous creditors.

The flat was near Marble Arch, part of a low-rise block built on the site of a large private mansion. All the trees had been carefully preserved, making the gardens surrounding the block seem an oasis of peaceful greenery in the heart of the noisy metropolis.

After her father bought the apartment, Fran had supervised the redecoration and chosen the furnishings. She had done the same at their home in the country. Her mother, a dedicated gardener, had no interest in interiors.

Occasionally Fran had toyed with the idea of taking a course in interior design and starting a business. But always something had happened to distract her. Anyway her most serious and important ambition had been to be Julian’s wife.

As soon as she got back to the flat, she changed out of the businesslike black suit she had chosen for the interview with Reid Kennard. Under it she was wearing a white bodysuit, a flesh-coloured bra and sheer black pantyhose over micro-briefs. She stripped them off, stuffed her thick mane of hair into a plastic cap and took a long hot shower.

After putting on fresh underclothes and the apricot sweatshirt and jeans she had brought in her overnight case, she began to feel better, calmer, capable of reviewing the episode more rationally.

Coming back in the taxi, too upset to remember that taxis were a luxury she could no longer afford, she had found herself trembling with rage...and some other emotion not as easily defined. Now the most sensible course was to put the experience out of her mind. Forget it. Get on with the job in hand, clearing the flat of her father’s things and her own.

Her mother had never come here. Daphne Turner disliked London. Big cities had nothing to offer her. Even the famous Chelsea Flower Show didn’t appeal. She was a country person. Which was just as well because sometimes George Turner had entertained other women at the apartment.

Once, five years ago, Fran had arrived in London unexpectedly and found him in bed with an unknown woman at four in the afternoon. She could still remember the horrified looks on their faces when, thinking the flat was empty and puzzled by the strange noises coming from her father’s bedroom, she had disturbed a scene deeply shocking to a seventeen-year-old virgin.

She had already guessed that her father was unfaithful, but to catch him in the act had been traumatic. Her affection for him, never as strong as her love for her mother, had turned to revulsion.

Her own experience of sex had been limited to a few kisses. By that age most of her friends had gone all the way, but Fran had been saving herself for Julian. She had known since she was fourteen that he was the love of her life and also that he wouldn’t like it if she let other boys do more than kiss her.

The day his mother had told her he was engaged had been the worst day of Fran’s life. She had always believed that he loved her but, because he was the son of Jack Wallace, her father’s chauffeur, was keeping it under wraps until he had established himself.

Two months ago, she had been a guest at Julian’s wedding. By the day she heard him say ‘I do’, she had pulled herself together enough to get through the service and the reception without showing the misery she felt. A week later her father had died. Soon after that, when the truth about his business came out, her mother’s world had caved in.

Recently, life had been a series of disasters. But that was the way it went. One damn thing after another. And it wasn’t over yet. She had to find somewhere affordable for her mother to live and the means to support them both. A tall order.

She was on her way to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee when someone pressed the front-door buzzer. Answering it, Fran found a motorbike messenger outside.

‘Ms Turner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Package for you. Would you sign for it, please?’

Fran wrote her name on the form and took the padded bag. There was nothing to indicate where it came from, only a plain white label with her name and address printed on it. Perhaps it was something she had ordered and forgotten about?

She closed the door and, walking back to the living room, pulled the tab that opened the bag and peered at the contents, immediately recognising the file Reid Kennard had said was a résumé of his life. Now there was a sheet of headed paper clipped to the cover.

Aiming at the sofa, Fran flung the package from her. Bloody cheek! Infuriating man! As soon as she’d had her coffee, she’d find some sticky tape and a label and send the file back, unstamped, with UNSOLICITED, UNWANTED BUMPH written large above the address.

She went to the kitchen, half filled the electric kettle and perched on a stool at the breakfast bar. Usually she drank herb tea, being on a more or less permanent health kick. But sometimes, on days like this, she allowed herself a shot of caffeine.

Postponing dealing with the package, she spent the next hour going through her father’s wardrobe, making sure there was nothing in the pockets of his suits before she folded them. Rather than giving them to a charity shop, she hoped to sell them. The chaos he had left behind him made it essential to raise money in every way possible.

With the hanging cupboards empty, the next job was the drawers...but after another cup of coffee, or maybe a glass of white wine.

She opened a bottle of Muscadet and filled a glass. Instead of taking it back upstairs, she couldn’t resist her curiosity about the letter that man Kennard had sent with the file.

Later she debated going to a movie to take her mind off her problems for a couple of hours. But there was still a lot to be done and she had already wasted half an hour reading the contents of the file.

She decided to phone for a pizza and concentrate on the job in hand. Some time during the evening she would telephone her mother. Mrs Turner didn’t know about the interview with Kennard. Fran had felt it best not to mention it. She’d been trying to play down the financial side of their situation.

Her supper arrived sooner than she expected. But when she opened the door, it wasn’t a pizza delivery man who stood outside. It was Reid Kennard.

Fran’s friendly expression froze into a mask of dislike. ‘What do you want?’ she said curtly.

‘I thought you might have calmed down a little by now.’

‘I haven’t...and I’m busy.’

She started to shut the door but he put a foot across the threshold and the flat of his hand on the door to hold it open.

She had never expected to hear herself saying, ‘How dare you?’ to anyone, but it was what sprang to her lips, followed by, ‘Get out!’

‘I’m not inside yet,’ he said blandly. ‘We have things to talk about. May I come in?’

‘We have nothing to say to each other. You have no right to pester me like this. If you don’t go away, I’ll call the security man and have you thrown off the premises.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘Making a nuisance of yourself.’

Reid Kennard smiled, but it wasn’t a kind or amused smile. It was the sort of expression she associated with sadists about to do something which would give them pleasure but cause excruciating pain to their victim.

‘I think you’re bluffing.’

He stepped into the hallway. To her chagrin, Fran let him. Not that she had much option. He was far too large and muscular for her to use physical means to deny him access. She had muscles of her own, but not in the same class as his.

He had looked a strong man in his office, but that might have been partly good tailoring. Now that he had changed out of his city suit into chinos and a dark blue cashmere sweater over a cotton shirt, it was clear that the breadth of his shoulders owed nothing to clever padding.

‘This is outrageous,’ she snapped, while instinctively backing away to avoid coming into contact with that tall and powerful male body as he closed the door.

‘Don’t pretend to be in a panic. You know perfectly well I’m not going to harm you.’

‘How do I know that? You’ve already shown signs of derangement.’

‘Not really. I’ll admit to being unconventional. You’ll get used to it.’ He glanced round the hall and then, with a gesture at the open door of the living room, said, ‘After you.’

Having no choice but to act on her threat or let him speak his piece, Fran walked ahead of him. If he expected to be invited to sit down, he could think again.

Grinding her teeth, she saw that she had left the file on the low glass-topped table in front of the sofa. Even worse, it was open, proving she had looked through it.

But the first thing that caught his eye wasn’t the file. It was the half-full glass of wine—her second—she had left by the telephone.

‘A bad habit...drinking alone,’ he remarked, with a sardonic glance at her hostile face.

‘I don’t as a rule. It’s been a trying day. I’m not used to dealing with people who think they can trample roughshod over the rest of the world.’ She folded her arms and glared at him. ‘You have to be the most objectionable person I have ever met.’

‘Because I want to marry you? Even if they don’t wish to say yes, most women regard a proposal as a compliment.’

‘Not when it comes from a stranger who regards women as chattels.’

‘There are cultures where it’s the custom for girls not even to see their husband’s face until after the marriage ceremony. Marriage is a practical institution. It’s because our culture ignores that that we have so many divorces. Wouldn’t you rather stay married?’

‘I’m not interested in marriage...certainly not to you.’

‘Why not, if there’s no one else in your life? Or did my investigator slip up there?’

At this point the buzzer sounded again. She saw him looking displeased by the interruption as she went to answer the door. This time it was the takeout delivery man. She took the box to the kitchen before paying him the money she had ready in her pocket.

Rejoining Kennard, she said pointedly, ‘My supper’s arrived. I’d like to eat it while it’s still hot.’

Ignoring the hint, he said, ‘You ought to keep your door chained until you see who your caller is.’

‘Normally I do. It’s only because I thought you were the man with the pizza that you were able to barge in.’

‘That was lucky...for me.’ He began to look round the room, taking in the colour scheme, the books and paintings, and the mirrors. Fran loved mirrors, especially antique ones. As a child, her favourite book had been a copy, inherited from her grandmother, of Through the Looking-Glass. Somehow the wrong-way-round view seen through a mirror always looked better than what was really there. She had often wished she could step through the frame of a mirror into a world where things were the same but different; her parents’ marriage a happy one and herself a model pupil like her elder sister.

‘Nice room. Who designed it?’ asked Kennard.

No one had ever remarked on the way the room looked. She couldn’t help feeling a slight sense of gratification that someone had finally noticed the effect she had spent a lot of time and thought achieving.

‘Nobody well known,’ she said. ‘Please...I want to get on with my supper and I have to have everything packed by tomorrow afternoon. I really don’t have time to talk...even if we had anything sensible to talk about.’

‘A pizza’s a poor sort of supper...especially if you’re eating alone. Let me buy you a decent dinner and try to convince you that my plan makes a lot of sense. Then, if you like, I’ll give you a hand with the packing.’

‘Absolutely not! No way!’ Fran said emphatically, but not with much hope he would accept her refusal.

He didn’t. ‘No to dinner, or no to help with the packing?’

‘No to both...no to everything. Have another look through some magazines and pick out some other woman. I’m not for sale, Mr Kennard.’

‘Do you like music?’ he asked.

Disconcerted by the seemingly irrelevant question, she said, ‘Some music...yes.’

‘How do you feel about Smetana?’

‘Never heard of him.’ It was an exaggeration. She had heard the name but that was the limit of her knowledge.

‘He was a Bohemian composer who lived in the last century. His most important work was done in Prague, helping to form a national opera. He had a nasty end...went deaf and died insane.’

‘If I wanted to know about the lives of obscure composers I’d borrow a book from the library.’

‘Is reading one of your pleasures?’

‘Yes, as it happens it is, but—’

‘That’s good. It’s one of mine and I have a large private library.’

Feeling her temper starting to simmer, Fran said impatiently, ‘I shouldn’t think it includes the kind of books I enjoy and if Smetana is one of your favourite composers your CDs would send me to sleep. I had enough of that stuff in musical appreciation sessions at school. I only like pop music.’

It wasn’t true. Julian had taught her to share his love for classical music, but if Kennard thought she was what he would define as a Philistine so much the better. It might put him off this insane determination to marry her.

Not visibly deterred, he said, ‘The reason I mentioned Smetana is because his most famous opera is called The Bartered Bride. Barter, the exchange of goods, was how people traded before money was invented. I’m not trying to buy you, Francesca. I’m proposing a trade-off...things I need for things you need. Are you sure you won’t change your mind and come out to dinner?’

‘Definitely not!’

‘In that case I’ll leave you to your pizza and take myself off for some Arbroath smokies at Scotts, or maybe their Loch Fyne smoked salmon.’ As he mentioned two specialities of one of London’s best restaurants, the hard eyes warmed with malicious amusement.

Could his private detective have found out that she adored fish and seafood?

On his way to the door, Kennard added, ‘I’ll call you in the morning. After you’ve slept on the idea, you may find it more appealing.’

‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll take the phone off the hook,’ she snapped, as he let himself out.

CHAPTER TWO

SINCE Julian’s wedding, Fran had had a lot of sleepless nights, prowling around in the small hours, tortured by thoughts of Julian making babies with Alice...babies which should have been hers.

All she had ever really wanted was to be Julian’s wife and the mother of his children. Not the kind of ambition applauded by the teachers at the expensive boarding-school where she and her sister had been sent to learn to be ‘ladies’.

That had been Gran’s idea. Though Gran’s own origins were humble, she was a tremendous snob and hadn’t approved of her eighteen-year-old Daphne marrying a rough diamond like George Turner, even if he had gone on to make pots of money.

Gran wanted to see her granddaughters marrying men who were not only well off but also what she called well-spoken. To that end she had chivvied her son-in-law into sending the girls to one of the most exclusive schools in England. To Gran’s disappointment, her eldest granddaughter, Shelley, had fallen in love with a young man who had once spent a summer working in her mother’s garden. He now had his own plant nursery and was a contented man, but he didn’t make a lot of money. John and Shelley couldn’t afford to support her mother. With two small children and another on the way, they didn’t even have a spare bedroom to offer her.

Had Gran known of Fran’s secret passion for the chauffeur’s son, she would have disapproved, at least until his achievements at university had signalled an impressive future.

The irony was that Gran would probably regard Reid Kennard as a wonderful catch. She didn’t think much of love as a basis for wedlock. She wouldn’t admit it under torture, but her granddaughters suspected there had been a metaphorical shotgun in the background of her wedding, and the marriage hadn’t been happy.

In the morning Fran woke with a headache, the result of too little sleep and too much wine the night before. Staying up late, she had finished the bottle.

She spent the morning sorting out things in her bedroom and waiting for Reid Kennard’s call. When the telephone remained silent, she should have been relieved. Instead she felt oddly uneasy.

What if he’d changed his mind? What if her animosity had made him have second thoughts? During his solitary dinner he might have decided he couldn’t be bothered to wear down her opposition when there were plenty of women he could have for the asking.

The longer she considered this scenario, the more it seemed to Fran that she might have rejected in haste an opportunity she would live to regret turning down.

As things stood, all the future offered was relative penury for her mother and a dull job for herself. It wasn’t an attractive prospect.

The trade-off Reid had suggested—suddenly she found herself thinking of him by his first name instead of his surname—would mean that if they were miserable, they would at least be miserable in comfort.

But what about her side of the trade-off: being the wife of a man she didn’t love and who didn’t love her?

Well, love, for long the first item on her private and personal wish list, had been crossed off the day Julian married Alice. So that brought it down to the question of whether she could face having sex with someone other than Julian in order to have some babies. They wouldn’t have the father she had dreamed of, but any father had to be better than none.

Thinking about sex with Reid, Fran felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. He had all the physical makings of a good lover; his aura of animal magnetism deriving from a great body, a sensual mouth, hands that looked strong enough to crush, but also capable of performing the most delicate and subtle caresses. Just thinking about the components of his disturbing personality sent strange little quivers through her.

Even though still a virgin, her innocence saved as a gift for her first and only love, Fran knew all the theory, knew what those frissons meant. She had recognised the passionate depths of her nature a long time ago. From the beginning of adolescence she had been excited and moved by amorous scenes in books and movies, recognising her capacity to feel the same fiery emotions as the women in the stories and on the screen.

But she had also had a strong streak of idealism. After falling in love with Julian, keeping herself inviolate for him had seemed more important than indulging her natural curiosity about what it felt like to do the things many of the girls in her class had experienced as soon as they were sixteen.

A lot of them were the over-indulged, under-disciplined children of broken marriages. During the holidays they had too much pin money and not enough supervision. Several girls she knew by sight hadn’t completed their time at school. They had been expelled for serious misdemeanours ranging from night-time truancy to drugs.

Fortunately, although described as ‘lazy’, ‘inattentive’ and ‘irresponsible’ in her school reports, Fran had never been taken up by the group known to the serious-minded girls as The Decadents. The fact that she was reserving herself for Julian would have debarred her from that clique. Although far from being a teacher’s pet, from The Decadents’ point of view Fran was one of the girls they called The Nuns.

She was thinking about her lack of sexual experience and wondering what conclusions the detective had drawn about her in that respect, when the telephone started to chirrup.

She forced herself not to grab it, letting it signal six times before she said coolly, ‘Hello?’

‘Good morning.’

If the distinctive voice at the other end of the line had mocked her about not leaving the phone off the hook, she would have cut the connection and dashed round the flat disconnecting all the extensions.

But Reid didn’t refer to her parting shot. He said, ‘I’d like to show you my library. Will you have lunch with me?’

She drew in her breath, knowing she was on the brink of one of the defining moments of her life.

‘If you’re worried about being alone with me, you needn’t be,’ Reid went on. ‘My household is run by staff who are far too respectable to stay with any employer who doesn’t live up to their standards. But even if that were not so, I’ve already made it clear my intentions are honourable.’

She could guess from the tone of his voice that there would be a sardonic quirk at the corner of his chiselled mouth.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘What time and where?’

When he had rung off, she looked at the exclusive address she had jotted down on the notepad and wondered why she had relented.

Less than twenty-four hours ago she had stormed out of his office, convinced he was out of his mind. Now she was going to have lunch with him. Had she gone out of hers?

Before setting out for their lunch date, Fran reread the file Reid had sent her.

He was thirty-four, twelve years older than herself. A big age gap. It seemed likely that wasn’t the only gulf between them.

Kennards, a merchant bank dealing with long-term loans for governments and institutions and advising on takeover bids, had been founded by his great-grandfather. The controlling influence had been retained by Thomas Kennard’s descendants.

Unlike her father, Reid hadn’t had to claw his way up from nothing. The facts in the file indicated that from birth he had been groomed for the position he occupied. But family influence couldn’t have made him head boy at his public school if he’d lacked the qualities needed for that position, nor could it have gained him an impressive degree at one of England’s most prestigious universities. He had to have a brilliant brain.

So why pick someone as unbrainy as me? Fran pondered uneasily. She knew she had other equally important qualities and had never wanted to exchange them for a superior intellect. But for a man like Reid deliberately to select a female who operated by instinct rather than logic seemed strange, not to say suspect.

He lived in a large house in one of the most select squares in the ultra-fashionable Royal Borough of Kensington. The butler opened the door to her and took her coat.

A man in his fifties, dressed in an ordinary dark suit with a discreet tie, he led her up a sweeping staircase, past a line of family portraits, to a large first-floor landing. As they reached it, Reid was descending the stairs from the floor above. She noticed his thick dark hair was damp and wondered why. It seemed an odd time of day to take a shower.

‘You’re admirably punctual,’ he said, holding out his hand to her.

As they hadn’t shaken hands the day before, it was her first experience of the firm clasp of his fingers. Then he took her lightly by the elbow to steer her across a rose and gold Aubusson carpet and through open double doors in an elegant drawing room with three tall windows overlooking the square.

Normally Fran would have swept an appreciative glance around the beautiful room, taking in some of the details. Instead she was overwhelmed by the strength of her reaction to their first physical contact.

‘I nearly kept you waiting,’ said Reid. ‘I came back from the bank at eleven to go for a run in the park. As I was coming home I saw an old man on a bench who obviously needed medical attention. That held me up.’

‘Do you run every day?’

‘I try to. Are you a runner?’

Fran shook her head. ‘I play tennis and ski. I don’t do work-outs.’

He slanted an appraising glance at her figure. Today, in place of the black suit, she was wearing a designer outfit bought on a holiday in Italy. It consisted of a fine jersey-knit top in lilac, a waistcoat in violet, and a swirling chevron-striped skirt combining those colours with pink and pale pistachio-green. The audacious colour combination was perfect with Fran’s dark red hair and green eyes.

‘You look in good shape,’ he remarked. ‘But people in desk jobs like mine need some kind of fitness regime to stave off the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Come and sit down. What would you like to drink before lunch?’

She remembered his remark about the wine she had been drinking when he forced his way in the previous evening. Was he one of those people who drank only mineral water and made everyone who didn’t feel on a lower plane?

Fran had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her. ‘A Campari and soda, please,’ she said firmly.

Reid said to the butler, who had been following them at a discreet distance, ‘A Campari for Ms Turner and my usual, please, Curtis.’

With a silent inclination of the head, the butler withdrew.

‘Let’s sit over here, shall we?’ Reid steered her towards a group of comfortable chairs near one of the windows. ‘Have you finished your packing?’

‘Almost.’

Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to sleep, she had worked on it till long past midnight. At half past nine this morning a dealer from whom she had bought a lot of the furnishings had come round to buy them back. Luckily Fran had paid for them out of her bank account. Although the money in it had come from her father, technically they were her property, not his. As soon as his business had been forced into receivership, everything George Turner had owned, including the family home, belonged to his business creditors. But the cash the dealer had handed her could go in her own pocket.

It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing if, when Reid spelt out the terms of this trade-off marriage, she found that she couldn’t accept them.

‘What date is this house?’ she asked, looking up at the elegant cornice around the ceiling and the two crystal chandeliers, their chains swathed with coral silk to match the festoons of silk cord and big coral tassels at the tops of the heavy cream curtains.

‘Late eighteenth century. Are you interested in architecture?’ He sounded faintly surprised.

‘Sometimes.’

The butler came back with their drinks, hers a slightly more vivid red than the coral linen slipcovers on some of the sofas, Reid’s colourless except for a twist of lemon floating among the ice cubes. It could be gin or vodka, or it could be straight mineral water.

Reid said, ‘This was my grandparents’ house. My paternal grandmother still lives here when she’s not staying with her daughters. I moved here when my father died. We had been living in Oxfordshire and commuting by helicopter. For the time being I have an apartment on the top floor. But I thought you would feel more comfortable being entertained in the main part of the house,’ he added, with a gleam of amusement.

After a slight pause, he added, ‘I shall move out when I marry. The country is better for children... if their parents can choose where to live. Most people can’t of course.’

‘Where are you thinking of moving to?’ Fran asked.

‘I haven’t decided.’ His expression was enigmatic. ‘Where would you choose to live, given a free choice?’

Fran considered the question. Once the answer would have been ‘Wherever Julian wants to live’.

She said, ‘Probably not in England. Ideally, I’d like more sun than we get in this country. I wouldn’t mind living by the sea...or a lake would do as long as it had mountains round it. I’d like to look out on mountains... big ones with snow on top.’

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sounds as if New Zealand would suit you.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it’s a beautiful country but it’s too far away from Europe. Have you been there?’

Reid nodded. ‘The scenery’s magnificent...when it’s not raining. The South Island shares England’s problem. Unreliable weather. Where have your travels taken you?’

‘Mostly to holiday places...the Caribbean in winter... resorts round the Med in summer. My mother’s a passionate gardener. She doesn’t like travelling alone, even in a group. I’ve been on some garden tours with her...the south of France, Ireland, California. Where do you go for your holidays?’

‘I used to go with my father who also liked someone with him. We went to Japan together and to other Pacific Rim countries. I travel a lot for the bank. For pleasure I usually go to France or Spain. Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?’

The question, tacked on to innocuous small talk, took her by surprise.

‘I haven’t agreed to marry you,’ she said coldly.

‘If you found the idea unthinkable, you wouldn’t be here,’ he said dryly. ‘Let’s be straight with each other, Francesca. I need you...you need me. It’s a sensible, practical arrangement.’

She knew that at least the first part of what he said was true, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Was it pride that made her reluctant to fall in with his plan too readily?

She said, ‘I’m not clear why you’ve selected me.’

‘You’re very attractive...as I’m sure you’re aware.’

‘Is that all you want in a woman? An acceptable face and figure? Don’t you care what I’m like inside?’

‘I can make some intelligent guesses. People can’t hide their characters,’ he told her casually. ‘Even in repose a face gives a lot of clues to its owner’s temperament. Apart from yesterday’s evidence that you have a short fuse, I haven’t detected any characteristics I wouldn’t like to live with.’

His arrogance took her breath away. In that moment of silent shock, she was struck by the thought it would be both a challenge and public service to bring this man down from his lofty pinnacle and convert him into an acceptably unassuming person.

But perhaps it was already too late. One of Gran’s favourite sayings was, ‘What’s bred in the bone must come out in the flesh.’

Reid, with his long-boned thoroughbred physique and his autocratic features, looked a descendant of generations of men who had felt themselves to be superior beings and never experienced the doubts felt by ordinary people.

In a different, more rough-hewn way, her father had been the same. Probably, somewhere far back in Reid’s ancestry, there had been a man like her father: a roughdiamond unscrupulous go-getter who had founded the Kennard fortune.

Perhaps, if George Turner had married someone better equipped to handle him than her quiet and easily cowed mother, her father might have been saved from becoming an overbearing braggart.

Whether, at thirty-four, Reid’s essential nature could be modified was problematical. But it could be interesting to try.

She said, ‘I don’t find you as transparent as you seem to find me. It takes me longer to make up my mind about people.’

‘You haven’t had as much experience of summing up people as I have.’

The butler reappeared. ‘Luncheon is ready when you are, sir.’

They ate in a smaller room with a view of a large garden, an oasis of well-kept greenery in the heart of the city. The surface of the round Regency breakfast table had the gleaming patina resulting from nearly two centuries of regular polishing. It reflected the colours and shapes of the red-streaked white tulips arranged in what Fran recognised as an antique tulip-pot, its many spouts designed to support the stems of flowers which had once been costly status symbols.

The meal began with potted shrimps served with crisp Melba toast, tiny green gherkins and a dryish white wine which they continued to drink with the main course, chicken with a minty yogurt dressing.

While they ate Reid talked about plays and art shows he had been to recently. It was the kind of conversation made by strangers at formal lunch parties and although his comments were interesting, Fran thought his choice of subjects irrelevant to this particular situation.

When the butler had withdrawn, leaving them to help themselves to a fruit salad with fromage frais, or to a selection of more substantial cheeses, she said, ‘Why do you want a wife when you could go on having girlfriends and change them when you get bored?’

Offering her the elegant Waterford compote, its apparent fragility emphasising the powerful but equally elegant form of the hands in which it was cradled, he looked at her with unexpected sternness.

‘I have a responsibility to my line. I need sons to carry on the traditions established by my predecessors.’

She found his solemnity irritating. ‘Are you expecting me to provide proof of my fertility?’

Before she could add that, if he was, he could forget it, Reid said, ‘No, I’m prepared to chance that.’

‘Big deal!’ Fran said sarcastically.

She had the feeling that Reid wouldn’t hesitate to divorce her if she failed to live up to his expectations in some way.

But although he struck her as a monster of coldhearted self-centredness, she couldn’t deny that he was extraordinarily attractive. Every movement he had made since they sat down had heightened her awareness of the lean and muscular physique inside the well-cut suit and the long legs under the table. His hair was dry now but still had the sheen of health. There was nothing about him suggestive of stress or tension. He seemed entirely relaxed. Yet why did he need to arrange a businesslike marriage instead of falling in love the way people usually did?

Wondering, suddenly, if he might be in the same situation as herself, heartbroken, although it didn’t seem likely, she said, ‘When did you dream up this scheme?’

‘It’s an idea I’ve had for some time...probably since my contemporaries started divorcing. I have about a dozen god-children, most of whom now have stepparents, some official, some not. I don’t want that for my children.’

‘Did your parents stay married?’

It seemed to her that his face underwent a change. His lips didn’t tighten. His eyebrows didn’t draw together. But there was a subtle hardening and chilling, reminding her of the impression of formidable coldness she had received yesterday morning when they sat on opposite sides of his imposing desk.

Now they were at a table designed for a more intimate and relaxed conversation. But she sensed a change in the atmosphere and knew she had trespassed in an area of his life where she was an unwelcome intruder.

‘They separated. They were never divorced,’ he answered.

Fran wanted to ask how old he had been when the separation happened, but something made her hold her tongue.

Later, going back to the flat in the taxi he had laid on for her, she regretted restraining her curiosity.

When—if—two people were going to many, there shouldn’t be any ‘No go’ areas between them...or at least none of that nature. His past girlfriends were not her business, but his family life certainly was. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be put off. From now on she wouldn’t be, she told herself firmly.

Later that afternoon, her sister rang up.

‘How’s it going?’ Shelley knew about clearing the apartment but not about the interview with Reid.

‘I’ve more or less finished. How are things with you?’

‘Fine, but I’ve just been talking to Mum and she sounds at the end of her tether. You don’t think she might crack up...have a real nervous breakdown, do you?’

‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Fran replied. ‘Imagine Gran’s reaction to anyone in her family going to pieces. She’d consider it letting the side down.’

But despite her cheerful response, intended to soothe Shelley’s anxiety, Fran wasn’t as sanguine as she . sounded. Her mother’s state of mind had been worrying her for some time.

‘Gran’s made of sterner stuff than Mum,’ said her sister. ‘You’re like her and so am I, up to a point. But Mum’s nothing like her. She takes after Grandad’s sister, the one who was jilted and never really recovered.’

‘Maybe...a bit. But Great-Aunt Rose wasn’t strong and Mum is. There’s nothing wrong with her physical health. She’ll be all right, Shelley. Just give her time to get over the shock of it all.’

‘I hope you’re right.’ Her sister didn’t sound convinced.

‘I live with her. I ought to know. In some strange way it may be harder for a woman to come to terms with the end of an unhappy marriage than to lose a husband she loved. Mum can’t look back and say to herself, “Well, I can’t complain because we had thirty great years which is more than lots of people do.” Her marriage was one of the duds.’

‘You could be right. Even though everyone else feels it was all Dad’s fault they didn’t get on, I think she blames herself...and I guess if she had been different, he would have been. Still, that’s all in the past. What worries me is her future. She’s never going to marry again, that’s for sure, and she isn’t equipped to stand on her own feet. Somehow, between us, we’re going to have to look after her... but how?’

This was ground they had already been over several times and Fran didn’t want to rehash it until she had made up her mind whether the solution offered by Reid was feasible.

By the following morning she had come to a decision. She rang Reid and told him.

‘Good,’ he said calmly. ‘We’d better have dinner together. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

It seemed a prosaic response, but then this was a practical down-to-earth union they were setting up.

Not knowing where he would take her, but assuming it would be somewhere fairly sophisticated, she wore a white silk-satin shirt and a narrow black wrap-over skirt. She cinched her waist with a wide belt and fixed large rhinestone stars in her ears.

Reid called for her in a taxi, wearing a Savile Row suit and conventional shirt with an unexpectedly flamboyant tie in wonderful Gauguinesque colours.

When she complimented him on it, he said, ‘Even bankers have to break out sometimes.’

The restaurant he had chosen for the occasion was on the south bank of the Thames but high above the river with a panoramic view of the buildings on the far bank through walls made of sheets of glass. The décor was modern and minimalist, very different from the period elegance of his house in Kensington, although of course she hadn’t seen his own part of it.

‘You’ve been here before, I expect?’ he said, as they sat down in leather tub chairs.

‘No, as it happens I haven’t.’ She hoped the chef wasn’t a minimalist. She had a heartier appetite than many of the people who patronised London’s smart restaurants and tension always made her hungrier.

They had come directly to the restaurant without stopping off in the bar.

‘Something to drink before dinner, sir?’ the wine waiter enquired.

‘Do you like champagne?’ Reid asked her.

Fran nodded. She didn’t like the cheap champagne sometimes served at weddings but she guessed that whatever he ordered would be the best.

‘Let’s make our decisions now, shall we?’

Reid was referring to the menu, but his choice of words reminded her of the momentous decision they were, if not exactly celebrating, at least ratifying. In theory she could back out right up to the moment of official commitment. But she knew she wasn’t going to do that. The die was already cast, her future as his wife settled.

The champagne came, a bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon.

‘Someone called this “psychological magic”,’ said Reid, raising his glass to her.

‘We could do with some,’ she said dryly.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘We don’t have the usual kind of magic.’ She nodded her head in the direction of a couple at another table gazing at each other as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

‘We can easily conjure some up.’ He reached for her free hand and lifted it to his lips, brushing them against the back of it and then turning it over and pressing his mouth to her palm.

Fran felt like snatching it back but managed to control the impulse and remove it from him with a semblance of graciousness. ‘I don’t think we should pretend anything we don’t feel.’ After a slight pause, she added, ‘At the same time I’d rather no one else knew that it’s a...a marriage of convenience. I know it would disturb my family if they realised it wasn’t a love match.’

‘In that case we’re going to have to put on a show of amorous feelings in front of them,’ said Reid, his expression sardonic.

‘Yes... up to a point,’ she acknowledged. ‘When will you make it public?’

‘Unfortunately I’m committed to going overseas, leaving tomorrow. I shan’t be back for ten days. When I am, we can meet each other’s families before putting a notice in The Times to let all our friends know.’

He gave her an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘I would rather not go away just now, but a lot of arrangements are in place and it would cause great inconvenience if I were to cancel the trip. I’m sorry about it.’

‘That’s all right. It will give me more time to get used to the idea.’

‘Or to change your mind.’

‘If I wasn’t certain, I wouldn’t be here,’ she said firmly. ‘Once I make up my mind, that’s it. I’m not a ditherer.’

‘Neither am I.’

She had half expected that he might produce an heirloom ring to seal their bond. But perhaps that rite came after he had presented her to his grandmother and possibly some of the aunts he had mentioned.

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ she asked. Siblings hadn’t been mentioned in the file on him, although the report on her had referred to her sister and brother-in-law.

‘Unfortunately not,’ he said. ‘Tell me about your sister. Do you get on well with her?’

It wasn’t late when he took her back to the flat. Towards the end of dinner she had begun to wonder if he would expect to make love to her. She wasn’t ready for that. In the taxi, she braced herself for the awkwardness of refusing what he might now consider an entitlement.

But her apprehension proved unnecessary. He asked the driver to drop them off at the entrance to the gardens surrounding the flats, but told him to wait there. Then Reid walked her to her door, unlocked it for her and switched on the hall light.

‘Goodnight, Francesca.’

He kissed the corner of her mouth. For a fleeting moment she felt the hardness of his chin and the masculine texture of his cheek against her smoother skin.

Then he straightened. ‘Don’t forget to put the chain on.’

The day after her return home, when she was still debating how to broach the subject of her impending marriage, two things happened, both unexpected.

First, a large florist’s box arrived. Her mother was there when she opened it. ‘What gorgeous flowers. Who are they from, Fran?’

There was only one person they could be from. Fran read the card enclosed with them. In a clear and distinctive hand which it didn’t take a graphologist to recognise as the writing of a strong, perhaps overbearing personality, Reid had written, no doubt in the expectation that the card would be seen by others, I would rather be talking to you.

‘They’re from someone I met in London... someone rather special. I think I’ll be seeing him again.’

‘What’s his name? Where did you meet him?’

‘His name is Reid Kennard.’ Fran knew the surname wouldn’t ring any bells with Mrs Turner, to whom the Financial Times and even the business pages of the popular newspapers were of as little interest as documents written in Sanskrit. ‘We met at a party some time ago.’ A small lie seemed forgivable in the circumstances. ‘He’s had to go overseas on business. I’m not sure when I’ll be seeing him again.’

‘Reid...that’s an unusual name. What does he do?’

‘Something in the City.’ Forestalling her mother’s next question, Fran said, ‘He’s tall and dark with grey eyes.’

‘He must be very taken with you to spend so much money on flowers.’

Fran made no comment on that. She said, ‘Would you do them for me? You’re better at it than I am.’

‘I’d love to. But they need a long drink of water before going into a vase.’ Mrs Turner took them away.

Soon after this Mr Preston, their lawyer, rang up and arranged to call on them that afternoon.

‘He says he has some good news for us,’ Fran told her mother.

‘That’ll make a change.’ Mrs Turner’s mouth quivered. ‘It’s been such a dreadful year. I don’t know how I’d have got through it without you, love.’

‘That’s what families are for...to stand by each other when the going gets rough.’ Fran put an arm round her shoulders and kissed her mother’s cheek.

Inwardly she shared some of her grandmother’s impatience with what Gran called ‘Daphne’s lack of spunk’, but she tried never to show it. Some people were natural survivors and some weren’t. Her mother wasn’t. She needed someone to lean on.

Mr Preston didn’t keep them in suspense. As soon as he’d shaken hands, he said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear that certain developments since I was last in touch have put a more cheerful complexion on your situation, Mrs Turner. I don’t think it’s going to be necessary for you to sell this house until such time as you yourself wish to move.’

‘What’s happened to change things, Mr Preston?’ Fran asked.

‘To put it in a nutshell, Miss Turner, an offer has been made for the assets of your father’s company...a very generous offer. I must make it clear that before your mother and you receive any benefit from it, the creditors have to be paid. In official order, they are the Inland Revenue, then the secured creditors, which means your father’s bankers, and then the unsecured creditors. But, at the end of the day, there should be sufficient left to cover your foreseeable overheads.’

Mrs Turner burst into tears. Relief made Fran feel a bit weepy herself, but she controlled her emotions.

Before she asked Mr Preston to explain the situation in more detail, she took her mother upstairs to lie down and recover.

That evening Reid rang up. He was in New York where it was still afternoon.

‘I didn’t expect you to act so fast,’ said Fran, after confirming that the solicitor had been to see them.

‘I always act fast whenever possible. Is your mother feeling better?’

‘She can’t quite believe the threat of eviction is no longer hanging over us. It’ll take her a few days to get used to it.’

After he had rung off, she realised she had forgotten to thank him for the flowers.

Explaining the good news to Shelley and John was more difficult. They couldn’t understand how, when George Turner had been unable to raise the investment capital his business needed, someone should make a good offer after the business had failed.

Fran managed to blind them with science by tossing out phrases picked up from Mr Preston. But afterwards she wondered if they would put two and two together when she became engaged to a leading figure in the banking world.

CHAPTER THREE

A WEEK later Fran returned from walking the dogs to find a sleek black Porsche 911, a car she had always longed to drive, parked near the front door.

She paused to admire the classic lines of what a man she had dated, although not for long, had told her had been one of the world’s most desirable vehicles since before she was born and was still an object of desire to people who knew about cars and could afford the best.

Then she walked round the side of the house to the tradesmen’s entrance. In the quarry-tiled lobby the dogs had their water bowls below the hooks for their leads.

Leaving them slurping, she went into the kitchen.

‘Who’s the visitor, Janie?’

Janie had come to the Turners as a fifteen-year-old nursery maid when Fran was a baby. She had grown up in an orphanage, with the added disadvantage of a stammer.

She had a flair for cooking and now produced all the meals as well as supervising the three part-time helpers who did the housework and ironing.

‘Gentleman to see your mum.’

Fran knew Janie wouldn’t have asked his name because, except in the family, she was self-conscious about her indistinct diction.

‘I took in a tea tray twenty minutes ago. Shall I make a small pot for you?’

‘No, thanks, I’ll have a cold drink.’ Fran went to the fridge for a bottle of spring water. Filling a tall glass, she said, ‘Perhaps he’s after the house...heard rumours it may be for sale.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Janie, ‘we’d be better off somewhere smaller. It would upset your mum at first, but she could make another garden. When you leave home, this’ll be far too big for just her and me.’

Fran nodded. She wondered, not for the first time, if Janie was really resigned to a lifetime of living in someone else’s house, never having a place of her own, or a husband and children. It seemed terribly unfair when she would make a much better wife than many women who didn’t have her impediment.

‘I’ll go and find out why he’s here,’ she said.

Crossing the wood-panelled hall, she was surprised to hear her mother talking in an animated way most unlike her usual manner with strangers. Whoever the visitor was, he must have a gift for bringing quiet, reserved people like Mrs Turner out of their shells.

Fran opened the door and joined them.

‘Oh, you’re back.’ Her mother jumped up, looking pleased to the point of excitement. Not since the birth of her grandchild had she looked so radiant with delight.

Rushing across the room, she embraced Fran and kissed her. ‘What a dark horse you are! Yes, I know you did give me a hint...but you made it sound as if it was just the beginning. I wasn’t expecting to be asked for my consent to your marriage. Not that you need it, of course, but it’s very nice to be asked.’

She turned round and beamed at Reid who had been sitting in the armchair with its back to the door, but was now on his feet, watching Fran’s reaction to her mother’s announcement.

The moments of silence which followed were ended by Mrs Turner saying, ‘Well...you two must have a lot to talk about and I need to do some watering. You will be staying the night with us, Reid?’

‘Unfortunately I can’t. This is a flying visit.’

‘Oh, what a pity. I thought... Still, if you can’t, you can’t.’ She moved towards the door, to be overtaken by Reid who held it open for her. ‘Thank you.’ She disappeared.

He closed the door and returned to where Fran was standing. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked thoughtfully down at her. ‘What was the hint you gave your mother?’

She hadn’t forgotten how disturbing he was at close quarters, but remembering it wasn’t the same as experiencing it. The weight of his hands on her shoulders, being so near to his tall, lithe body, being subjected to a searching scrutiny all combined to make her breath catch in her throat. She felt her composure desert her. Why did he have this effect? Other men never had, not even Julian.

‘I told her I’d met someone interesting...someone I might be seeing more of. Thank you for all the flowers and cards.’

‘My pleasure...but isn’t a verbal thank-you rather formal from a wife-to-be to her future husband? Wouldn’t a kiss be more appropriate?’

She was wearing an old pair of deck shoes. Rising on her toes, with her palms on his chest for balance, she lifted her lips to his cheek.

‘Still too formal,’ said Reid. An arm went round her, drawing her firmly against him in a light but close chest-to-breast, thigh-to-thigh contact. His other hand circled her neck, the pad of his thumb tilting the base of her chin.

Just being in his arms was enough to make her heart pound. There could be no glancing away from his searching gaze. The only way not to meet his eyes was to close her own, and she didn’t want to do that. It might convey the wrong message.

‘Why are you nervous?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to bite you. Not yet. That’s for later, when we know each other much better...and even then they’ll be very gentle bites. You’ll like them...and so shall I.’

He had lowered his voice to a deeper, more intimate tone and the look in his eyes was so different from the coldness of his first appraisal the day she had gone to the bank that she found it hard to believe this was the same man.

He was making love to her, she realised. Using his voice to caress her and make her respond. He was obviously very experienced. How would he react when he found out that she wasn’t? That kissing was as far as she had gone, because everything else she had been willing to wait for until she could share it with Julian.

Julian. Somehow her memory of him wasn’t as sharp as it had been. Once every detail of his face had been as clear in her mind’s eye as the features of the man looking down at her. But that was beginning to change. She still felt pain when she thought of him. But not as intensely, and not while Reid was holding her and sending little shivers through her.

‘I didn’t think you’d be back till the weekend,’ she murmured, postponing the moment when he would bend his head.

‘The original plan was to spend it with an American banker and his family. When I explained the circumstances they let me take a rain check.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That’d I’d just become engaged and wanted to get back to you.’

‘But now you say you can’t even stay the night.’

‘My grandmother’s expecting me to meet her at the airport. She’s been staying in the south of France with my senior aunt. They’re both coming over to meet you. Why don’t you come down by train some time tomorrow? Then the following day I’ll bring you back in the car. We might call on your sister en route...get all the introductions over and done with.’

‘How did your grandmother take it? Wasn’t she very surprised?’

‘She was delighted. She’s been urging me to marry for years.’

Before Fran could ask another question, he swooped like a hawk and kissed her, not, this time, on the corner of her mouth but full on the lips.

Compared with some of the slobbery, tongue-thrusting goodnight kisses she had experienced at parties and on several first-and-last dates, Reid’s kiss was restrained and gentle. Yet it had more effect than any of the hungry, heavy-breathing kisses.

There had been a few times when men had kissed her nicely, but never as nicely as this. It was actually a succession of mini-kisses, each one a soft momentary pressure in a fractionally different place, sometimes more on her upper lip and sometimes more on her lower. The effect was startlingly enjoyable.

By the time he stopped, instinct was urging her to slide her arms round his neck. As she opened her eyes, Fran saw that he was smiling.

For a few seconds she thought he was going to kiss her again, this time with less restraint. Instead he released her and stepped back, causing a twinge of disappointment and making her wonder if he hadn’t found the experience as pleasant as she had.

‘You’ve been out with the dogs, I hear. What sort of dogs?’

‘A Labrador and a whippet. They were my sister’s until she got married. She and John were living in a minuscule cottage, both working flat out to raise money to set up the nursery, so the dogs were an encumbrance. It was better for them to stay here. It’s where they’ve always lived. When I go, Janie will walk them. She likes them and they like her.’

‘Janie?’

‘Our “treasure”’—wiggling her forefingers. ‘The person who opened the door to you.’

‘Does she live in?’

‘Yes, she’s been with us for years.’

‘How will your mother cope with life on her own when you leave home?’

‘It won’t bother her. She’s a naturally solitary person. It was having to leave the garden that was wrecking her. Her plants are her closest companions. She talks to them.’

‘My other grandmother does that. It sounds as if she and your mother have a lot in common,’ said Reid. He looked at his watch. ‘I must go if I’m going to be at the airport on time.’

‘It was a long way to come for such a short stay... especially when you must be tired from your trip.’

But he didn’t look jet-lagged, she thought. He had the air of someone who has just come back from a holiday on a high of energy and vitality.

Fran went with him to the car where, having unlocked it, he took off the coat of his suit and tossed it in the back. Then he took off his tie, a more conservative choice than the one he had worn when they dined together.

‘I thought I’d better look respectable when I came to ask for your hand,’ he said, rolling the tie round his fingers, his mouth straight but his eyes amused.

‘How ought I to dress to make a good impression on your family?’ Fran asked.

He looked at the sweatshirt, jeans and deck shoes she had put on to walk the dogs.

‘From what I’ve seen so far, you have an impeccable dress sense. Wear whatever seems appropriate.’

He put the tie in the car and unbuttoned the neckband of what, from the way it fitted the extra-broad span of his shoulders, had to be a made-to-measure shirt. With the collar open, exposing the base of his throat, he looked younger and less formidable.

‘By the way, I hope you don’t want an elaborate wedding. They take too long to organise. Also it seems to be one of Murphy’s laws that the more elaborate the wedding, the less chance there is of the couple making a go of it. I’m thinking of most of the weddings I’ve been to over the last ten years...and I’ve been to a lot.’

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