“I assume you’re single, too.”

“Single?”

“As in unmarried.”

“Of course,” Dee laughed. “…Why?”

Baxter hesitated, then finally decided to get round to the reason he’d approached her. He grimaced before relaying, “You can’t be married because that’s part of the job—getting married.”

Getting married? Dee repeated the words to herself, as if by doing so, they might take on a new meaning, but they didn’t. Then she took to staring at him as if he were completely and utterly mad.

He wanted her to marry him and she didn’t even know his name!

ALISON FRASER was born and brought up in the far north of Scotland. She studied English literature at university and taught maths for a while, then became a computer programmer. She took up writing as a hobby and it is still very much so, in that she doesn’t take it too seriously! Alison has two dogs, two children but only one husband. She currently lives in Birmingham, UK, and is in her early forties—she doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up!

Bride Required
Alison Fraser

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

BAXTER was just about to give up the search when he found the right girl.

She was sitting in a long corridor that connected underground platforms. He looked for the usual cardboard sign saying ‘hungry and homeless’. There wasn’t one. She sat, eyes on the ground, playing a flute, and left passers-by to choose whether to throw a coin in her instrument case or not.

But she was still one of them: the dispossessed, the destitute, the growing army of young people living on the streets. It might have shocked him, their number—it was such a contrast to the affluence of central London—but he’d been warned that the capital had changed in ten years. And, besides, he’d seen worse on the streets of Addis and Mogotu.

Later he was to question why he’d selected her. At the time it was first impressions. She was wearing an army-surplus jacket and torn jeans, but at least they looked reasonably clean. She was young, but not too young. The flute playing put her one up the scale from begging, but still suggested she might be desperate enough.

Or perhaps it was simply the dog.

He’d seen several homeless people with dogs. Mostly men or couples, New Age travellers—whatever they were—with some scrawny animal, perhaps in the hope of eliciting more sympathy than their merely human plight. But they’d been mongrels, dogs cast on the streets like their owners.

This girl’s dog was something else—a pure-bred retriever with a healthy coat and benign disposition; he barely opened a sleepy eye at the world passing by.

The girl didn’t look up either, even when he drew near and threw a pound coin in the case. She might have nodded in acknowledgement of the offering, but her eyes remained fixed on the ground while her fingers continued to scale the instrument.

Baxter walked along, stopping only when he’d turned a corner. He was in two minds. He hadn’t really caught a good look at her face, but what he’d seen of her—hair cropped short, and the three gold rings adorning one earlobe—wasn’t exactly to his taste. She wasn’t the sort of girl he would have dated, but that was scarcely relevant. At least she didn’t look as if she might do nightshift as a hooker, which was more than could be said for some of the girls he’d considered that day.

He rehearsed what he was going to say before retracing his steps and coming to a halt before her.

Dee had a good memory for shoes. After all what else did she stare at all day? You didn’t stare at the punters. They were nobody. Start looking at them and they might think they were somebody. Terry had told her that. He worked a pitch on the Northern Line, playing a guitar—badly.

So it was the shoes she recognised. Brown laced boots of the walking kind. They had passed five minutes earlier, dropping a pound in her flute case. Now they were back, and she didn’t think it was to admire her virtuoso performance.

She resisted taking a squint at their owner, and kept playing. It had happened before. Guys who fancied their chances. Guys who imagined she might like to make more money flat on her back. She kept playing, but this one stood where he was, waiting for her to acknowledge him.

When she finally looked up, she was surprised.

She’d expected some creepy-looking individual, and instead registered a tall man with brown hair streaked blond by an un-English sun, straight brows and an angular face that could have belonged to a male model.

The handsome face creased into an equally handsome smile that had Dee muttering ‘Phoney,’ to herself even before he spoke.

‘You’re very good.’ He nodded towards the flute.

‘I know,’ she responded, unimpressed.

He was disconcerted for a moment, then murmured dryly, ‘Not hampered by false modesty, either.’

She shrugged, dismissing his opinion, then, raising her flute back to her lips, waited for him to move on.

It was a heavy enough hint, but he chose to ignore it.

She decided an even heavier one was required. ‘Look, mate, I have a living to earn, so, unless you’re a talent scout for the London Philharmonic…’

‘Unfortunately, no.’ He briefly flashed straight white teeth at her in a smile that never reached his eyes. ‘I do have another proposition for you, however.’

‘I bet,’ Dee muttered darkly in return.

‘Not that kind.’ He was quick to correct any wrong impressions.

Dee continued to look at him sceptically, but then she looked at all men that way now.

‘Look—’ he took out his wallet and produced a twenty-pound note ‘—I’ll pay for your time.’

‘You do think I’m cheap, don’t you?’ Dee wasn’t sure what the going rate for an afternoon quickie was, but she felt it should be more than that.

His eyes narrowed, displaying the first trace of anger. ‘I just want to talk to you. Nothing sexual. Believe me.’

The reassurance rang true, as did his glance, which travelled over her asexual clothing, thin, pallid face and cropped hair. Whatever this man wanted, it wasn’t her body.

Dee should have been pleased. She dressed this way specifically not to attract the opposite sex. But to have someone look at her quite so dismissively was offensive.

‘We can go to the nearest café and I’ll buy you and Rover a tea.’ His glance was warmer when it was directed at the dog.

‘Henry.’

‘Pardon?’

‘That’s his name,’ Dee informed him, wondering why she had.

‘Henry,’ he repeated, and put out a hand as the dog slowly lifted himself to a sitting position so he could be petted.

Dee watched as the stranger stroked her dog on the head and scratched him in exactly the right position behind his ears.

‘Sucker,’ she muttered to herself as the dog responded by licking the man’s hand and spoiled any chance of her claiming him to be fierce. Right from a puppy, he had been a slave for affection.

‘Henry!’ She glared at the dog until he subsided on stiff back legs.

‘How old is he? Eleven? Twelve?’ The man judged the dog by his movement.

‘Thirteen.’ Her eyes shaded with sad thoughts; it was a brief lapse before she added, ‘His teeth are still sharp enough.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ he conceded, but there was a definite smile in his voice. He knew dogs and realised this one was as likely to bite him as he was to win a greyhound derby. ‘He looks very mean and hungry.’

Dee understood it as sarcasm but chose to take it literally. ‘He’s never hungry! He gets fed fine.’

She glared at him as if he were an RSPCA inspector.

‘I can see that.’ His eyes travelled over the dog’s rounded flank, then switched their scrutiny to her. ‘It’s you who looks like you could do with a meal or two.’

‘Thanks.’ Dee pulled a face, recognising an insult when she heard one.

Nonetheless he was right. She skipped meals—sometimes because she had no option—and it showed.

He upped the price. ‘Thirty pounds, and you and Henry, here, can dine like royalty tonight.’

Thirty pounds was hard to resist. But Dee wasn’t a fool.

‘You’re going to give me thirty quid just to sit in a café and talk…? Stroll on, mate.’ Her tone was hard with disbelief.

Baxter didn’t blame her. He was beginning to think it a crazy idea himself. But, now he’d come this far and actually approached a girl, he had nothing to lose.

‘As I said, I have a proposition…call it a job if you like,’ he went on. ‘Unusual rather than dangerous, and emphatically not of a sexual nature… I’m not interested in young girls,’ he added on an unequivocal note.

That figures, Dee thought, admitting to herself—now that it was safe—that she had found him passingly attractive.

‘I read you.’ She defrosted a little to a fellow underdog.

‘I doubt it,’ he replied dryly.

‘Makes no odds to me, mate,’ she assured him. ‘Live and let live is my motto.’

‘Look, that’s not…’ About to correct any wrong impressions, Baxter decided not to bother. Why not leave her thinking it, if it was to his advantage?

‘Right, I choose the café,’ she suddenly conceded as she began to collect up her earnings and box her flute.

‘Right,’ he echoed.

She stood before adding, ‘Money up front, of course.’

Baxter looked at her outstretched hand, his eyes narrowing in distrust. If he gave her the money now, what was to stop her making a run for it?

He hesitated too long.

‘Forget it, then.’ She made to walk away.

He caught her arm. Not roughly, just to stop her. ‘All right. Half now, and half when we’ve talked.’

‘Yeah, okay.’ Fifteen pounds was better than nothing if she decided to give him the slip, Dee considered.

Only he was thinking ahead of her. When he said half, he meant half. She watched him tear a twenty-and a ten-pound note down the middle and present her with the two halves.

Dee grimaced but took the money, and, shouldering her rucksack, picked up Henry’s lead.

Baxter noticed how laden she was. ‘I’ll take that.’ He relieved her of the flute case before she could protest. ‘And the rucksack if you like.’

‘Don’t bother.’ Dee could have read it as a gentlemanly gesture, but didn’t. ‘You have enough insurance with my flute.’

Insurance against her running away, she meant.

Baxter raised a brow. ‘Such scepticism in one so young… How young, by the way?’ For an awful moment he wondered if she might be too young. Who knew with these runaways? She talked as though she were thirty and her eyes were old with knowledge, but her skin was unlined.

‘How old do I have to be?’ she countered, suspicious again.

Baxter avoided a direct answer, and said, ‘Old enough to have a job.’

He could hardly say sixteen—the age of consent.

‘Yeah, well, I’m that all right.’ Only she couldn’t get one. The recession meant jobs were scarce for most young people—and non-existent for the homeless.

‘Good.’ Baxter nodded in relief and fell in step beside her as she took the steps down to the eastbound platform.

He considered making conversation with her, but her profile didn’t invite any. She was unusually self-contained for a young girl. Was that good or bad for his purpose? Good, maybe. Less likely to be indiscreet.

Dee, for her part, was quite aware of the stranger beside her. She could hardly not be. She had always been tall. It had caused her untold agonies as a child. At sixteen she’d been five feet eleven inches and had thought she might go on growing for ever, but then, thank God, she had suddenly stopped. Still, she towered over most people. But not this man.

She was glad when a blast of cold air heralded the arrival of the tube. They boarded together and went through five stops in silence until they reached Newhouse station.

It was only when they approached the ticket collector that she confessed, ‘By the way, I haven’t got a ticket.’

‘Great, a fare dodger,’ he said in exasperation. ‘I should have known.’

What should he have known? That girls like her had to be dishonest? Dee glared at him.

‘You know nothing,’ she responded. It was an accusation, and they exchanged hostile looks for a moment, before she thrust Henry’s lead at him. ‘Don’t worry about it. You take him. We’ll meet up outside.’

‘Hold on, wait a—’ He didn’t get the chance to finish.

He watched, with a mixture of horror and fascination, as she veered towards the closed booth next door and leapt over the metal barrier.

He thought she was home free, but the collector caught a glimpse of her flashing past and sent a shout up.

The dog shot forward, too. Baxter found himself making excuses as they queue-jumped, and emerged from the barriers in time to see two underground officials restraining the girl.

He could have walked away. He might have if he hadn’t still been attached to a dog who was suddenly barking with surprising ferocity at the guards holding his mistress’s arms. So much for discretion.

Quick at thinking on his feet, Baxter took the initiative. ‘I suppose you think that was funny?’ He addressed the scolding comment to the girl before speaking to the guards. ‘Kids these days, and their idea of fun! I’m awfully sorry about this—’

‘You know her?’ one of the men interrupted.

‘I wish I could deny it,’ Baxter ran on, ‘but, yes, believe it or not, this scruffy urchin is my niece, Morag.’

Both officials were silent for a moment, deciding whether they should believe it or not.

So was Dee. Morag? What kind of name was that?

‘She had a ticket but lost it.’ He seemed to lie with ease. ‘I was, of course, going to buy another at the exit, but the silly girl decided to leap the barriers instead. I believe it’s the latest craze among teenagers. Slightly safer, I suppose, than playing chicken on the motorway.’

‘But more expensive,’ the second guard stated, unmoved. ‘I’m afraid if you’re going to ask us to let her off, sir, you’re going to be disappointed. London Underground have initiated a drive to catch fare dodgers, with the intention of fining them.’

‘Well, I don’t blame you,’ Baxter returned, which made Dee wonder whose side he was on. ‘You’ve been a very silly girl. What’s your mother going to say?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dee mumbled, not sure of her words in this play, but realising she should at least act contrite.

He shook his head at her and asked of his fellow grownups, ‘What can you do with them? It’ll break her mother’s heart… What now…? An on-the-spot fine?’

The first guard weakened. ‘Well, I suppose if you were to pay the maximum fare possible for your route, then that might be acceptable.’

He looked to his colleague, who in turn stared at Dee as if he really would have preferred to hang, draw and quarter her, but then gave way with a shrug. Perhaps it was just too much bother at the end of a long day.

‘Thank you very much.’ Baxter shook both men’s hands in gratitude as they released Dee. ‘What do you say, Morag?’ he prompted her.

‘I…yes, thanks,’ she trotted out dutifully, feeling five years old.

‘Right. Take Henry.’ He handed her back the dog and asked of the guard, ‘How much do we owe you?’

‘I’ll find out.’

One guard went to the ticket office while the other remained with them.

Dee waited till he glanced away for a moment, and mouthed at her ‘uncle’, ‘We could run.’

It drew a black look and a terse but distinct, ‘Forget it,’ in return.

Dee still could have run but it didn’t seem a very honourable thing to abandon him after he’d rescued her. So she waited with him, and just stopped herself from making a rude comment when they were asked for some exorbitant sum—much more than five stops on the tube—to cover her misdemeanour.

The stranger took out his wallet once more and paid it without quibbling.

As they finally emerged into daylight Dee fought a battle with herself. She knew she should thank him for what he’d done, but she resented it as well. It put her in his debt, and she hated that.

‘Normally it’s no problem. They’ve barely enough staff to collect the tickets.’ She justified what now seemed a silly action on her part. ‘Anyway, you should have just left it.’

‘And let them cart you off to jail?’ He reminded her of the alternative.

‘It wouldn’t have come to that,’ she told him knowingly. ‘Even if they’d called the railway police, what were they going to do? Take my name and the address I haven’t got? Fine me money I don’t have? Big deal!’

He shook his head at her streetwise reasoning, then remarked dryly, ‘Such gratitude, quite overwhelming.’

At this, Dee had sufficient grace to concede, ‘Yeah, okay, I suppose I should thank you.’

‘Not if it’s going to kill you.’ He dismissed the subject, and added, ‘Which way to this café?’

Dee had almost forgotten where they were meant to be going. She considered giving him the slip, but now it seemed tantamount to stealing. He’d already half-paid her, and shelled out for her penalty fare. The least she could do was sit in a café and listen for five minutes.

‘This way.’ She let him fall in beside her. ‘It’s not far.’

She led the way off the main thoroughfare to a backstreet café. On occasion she washed dishes for the owner. In return, he gave her a couple of quid and let her sit with Henry and nurse a tea for an hour or so in cold weather.

Rick, the owner, eyed her companion for a moment when they entered, then asked, ‘Everything okay, Dee?’

‘Sure.’ She returned his smile with a brief one of her own. ‘Could we have a couple of teas?’

Rick nodded. ‘I’ll bring them over.’

‘Dee?’ he repeated as they sat in the corner. ‘That’s your name?’

She nodded. Dee was the shortened version. Deborah DeCourcy was just too distinctive to go broadcasting.

She realised Dee probably sounded common to him, and muttered back, ‘Better than Morag, at any rate. What made you pick that?’

‘I’ve found that if you have to tell lies, it’s best to keep them to the minimum,’ he returned. ‘I do have a niece. She is called Morag. And her mother would be horrified if she took to fare dodging… But presumably it’s your main means of transport,’ he concluded with dry disapproval.

‘Actually, no, I normally walk,’ she claimed, quite truthfully. ‘As you might appreciate, it’s hard to keep a low profile, leaping barriers with a large dog in tandem.’

Baxter raised a brow. Not at the sarcasm, but at her use of English. Mostly she talked with an East End accent, but once in a while it slipped. Then she sounded pure Home Counties, and educated at that.

‘You said you were homeless,’ he recalled, ‘so where do you and Henry sleep? A hostel?’

She shook her head. ‘They don’t allow dogs and, even if they did, there’s no privacy.’

Baxter mentally raised another eyebrow. ‘You’ve obviously not heard the expression, “beggars can’t be choosers”.’

He didn’t expect her reaction; she rounded on him furiously. ‘I am not a beggar! I’m a busker. There is a difference!’

‘Okay! Okay!’ he pacified in quick order. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

Her eyes still flashed with anger. Expressive eyes, blue and wide, and revealing a passionate nature behind the cool exterior. He studied her face properly for the first time and was surprised to discover it was more than passingly pretty.

Dee didn’t like the way he was looking at her. In fact, she was contemplating telling him to stuff his money when Rick turned up with the teas.

‘You want work Saturday afternoon?’ he asked as he laid them down.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Dee shrugged, and Rick departed with a satisfied nod.

‘You work here?’

‘Sometimes, when Rick needs someone to wash dishes.’

‘So we’re on your home territory?’ he pursued.

‘Sort of…I live in a squat nearby.’ She didn’t go into specifics.

Baxter added, ‘On your own?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is it relevant?’

They had returned to the suspicious phase of their relationship.

Baxter sighed. ‘To me personally, no, but for this…job I have in mind, it’s best that you’re unattached.’

‘Then I’m unattached,’ she revealed, then added on impulse, ‘What about you? Have you a significant other?’

The question took Baxter by surprise. He half smiled at the cheek of her, before saying, ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ She helped herself to four sugars before she noticed his appalled stare. ‘Got to get your calories any way you can.’

‘With most women it’s the other way round,’ he commented dryly.

She pulled a face, then quipped, ‘Maybe I should write a book, passing on tips. The no home, no hips diet. Live rough and watch the pounds fall off.’

Baxter laughed, although it wasn’t really funny. Perhaps he had compassion fatigue. He’d spent much of the last decade in the Third World, where hunger meant death.

Pity stirred in him as he watched her drink down her tea with great thirst. ‘What’s the food like in this place?’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Great, if you’re into greasy-spoon cuisine and want a cholesterol level in double figures.’

‘I see what you mean.’ Baxter scanned a menu that boasted endless variations of something and chips. ‘Still, I’ll risk it if you will…my treat.’

Dee’s pride told her to turn down charity, but her stomach was speaking a different language. ‘I suppose I could keep you company.’

‘Gracious of you,’ he drawled at her offhand acceptance, then signalled to the owner.

He came over and asked without much interest, ‘Problem, is there?’

‘No, we’d like to order some food,’ Baxter told him.

Rick looked put out, then said in a resigned tone, ‘Yeah, okay.’

‘Dee?’ Baxter invited her to order first.

She hesitated, then decided that if she was going to take charity she might as well go the whole distance. ‘Sausage, bacon, tomato, fried bread, egg and chips.’

Baxter just stopped himself raising a brow at this list and muttered, ‘Twice.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Rick said once more, sighing at the effort it was going to cost him to cook it.

‘Cheery sort of fellow,’ Baxter remarked when he was out of earshot.

Dee wasn’t a great fan of Rick either, but she felt the need to defend him. ‘His wife left him recently. He’s still cut up about it. Cleaned out their bank account, too.’

‘That’s women for you,’ Baxter joked, forgetting she was one for a moment.

Dee realised it and flipped back, ‘Well, if it is, you don’t have to worry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘About women.’

‘Not being married, no,’ he agreed.

‘Nor likely to be either,’ she added a little tartly.

Baxter assumed he was being insulted, but chose to laugh instead. ‘You think I’m so ineligible?’

Dee frowned. ‘Well, naturally, I assumed…unless, of course, you’re bisexual.’

‘Bisexual?’ He looked at her as if she were mad.

‘Okay, okay, just a suggestion.’ She held her hands up, taking it back. ‘Is that some sort of insult if you’re gay?’

‘Gay?’ he echoed again.

‘Lord, is that the wrong term, too?’ Dee was beginning to wish she’d talked about the weather instead. ‘I thought homosexuals didn’t mind being called that.’

He seemed to finally catch up with the conversation. ‘Who told you I was homosexual?’

‘You did, earlier. Remember?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘I won’t go advertising it.’

He seemed about to say something. Dee had the strong impression he was going to deny it. She hoped he wouldn’t. She was beginning to like him, but she couldn’t stand liars.

In the end, however, he said without much conviction, ‘That’s good to hear.’

‘I won’t, honestly,’ Dee stressed. ‘And it’s not as if it’s obvious. I mean you look very masculine, really.’

‘Should I take that as a compliment?’ he asked in ironic tones.

‘No.’

‘I thought not.’

Dee pulled a slight face and wished he would stop trying to put her on the spot.

They lapsed into silence as Rick came to set the table in front of them.

When he’d gone, the stranger asked, ‘Where is this squat?’

‘In a block of maisonettes the council have condemned.’

‘How long have you lived there?’

‘About six weeks.’

He frowned. ‘And the council haven’t noticed?’

‘Why should they?’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve left it boarded up, and the electricity and gas are still disconnected. Even if they did know, they wouldn’t care. They’re pulling it down for redevelopment soon.’

‘And then what? Where will you go?’

The questions could have denoted genuine interest, but Dee was doubtful. ‘Why? Are you doing a documentary or something? “The plight of the homeless?” Been done before, mate, sorry.’

‘No, I am not making a documentary.’ He kept his patience—just. ‘I was simply wondering if you’d made any contingency plans for the summer.’

‘Well, I was hoping to go cruising the Greek islands again,’ Dee replied in the same flippant tones, ‘but my boat’s in dry dock at the moment.’

His mouth tightened. ‘Don’t you take anything seriously?’

‘Like life, you mean?’ She slanted him a look wise beyond her years. ‘And where do you think that would get me—taking the long-term view?’

Baxter saw her point. With nothing to look forward to and no way of lifting herself up out of her current situation, maybe it was best to take each day as it came.

‘Have you no qualifications?’ he asked in a manner that suggested he expected she had none.

Dee decided to surprise him with the truth. ‘Nine GCSES—six As, two Bs and a D. I’m still working on my A levels.’

Baxter grimaced at what he took for sarcasm. ‘Okay, message received. You want me to mind my own business.’

Actually, no. Dee had wanted him to be impressed. To look at her in a new light. To talk to her as if she were worth talking to. But, no, she was just another homeless no-hoper to him—and to almost every other person who passed her on their way to work and the real world.

‘Give the man a coconut,’ she finally responded, just as Rick approached the table.

‘Coconut?’ Rick repeated, not much one for sarcasm. ‘I don’t serve coconuts. You want coconuts, go to one of those West Indian market stalls.’ He dumped two plates in front of them and waited for some acknowledgement.

‘Thanks, Rick,’ Dee said, with a commendably straight face.

‘Yes, thanks, Rick,’ Baxter echoed, in a voice also laced with amusement.

They waited until Rick was out of range before they laughed together.

It was a brief lapse, but laughter transformed her. From a belligerent, cropped-haired punk to a bright-eyed, spirited girl-woman. The change fascinated Baxter.

Then she switched to being a child, eating her meal with wordless, indiscriminate haste.

Dee had grown used to going all day with a virtually empty stomach, not allowing herself to think of her hunger. When presented with food, however, that was all she could think of. She didn’t look up until she’d finished every last scrap.

It was only then that she was aware of his eyes on her, only then that she realised how greedy she must seem.

His own plate remained untouched.

‘How old are you?’ he asked, not for the first time.

‘Eighteen.’ Well, she would be soon.

‘Good,’ he nodded.

‘Good?’ she quizzed.

‘I was worried you might be a runaway,’ he added, assuming she wasn’t.

She had been. She had first left home last summer. It had been easy. She’d had it planned for months. She’d had cash, squirrelled away from birthdays, Christmas and pocket money. It had seemed a fortune, but it had gone after a matter of weeks and she’d returned home rather than live on the streets. Three months ago she’d run away again. This time no one had come looking for her.

‘This thing I want you to do will be complicated enough—’ he resumed the conversation, ‘—without any irate parents appearing on my doorstep.’

‘There’ll be no irate parents.’ Her mother was many things—pretty, silly, vain—but never strong enough to be irate. ‘So, if you’re thinking of murdering me, you can be fairly sure I’ll go unmourned,’ she added with black humour.

It drew no smile in return. Instead he said tersely, ‘If you thought there was any chance of my being a psychopath, why the hell did you go with me?’

‘Why do you think?’ she retorted. She waved the two halves of the notes in front of his face, as he’d done to her earlier. ‘Anyway, you don’t look much like a homicidal maniac… So, assuming you’re not, what are you?’

He hesitated, his eyes narrowing as if he was testing her discretion.

‘You’re not an actor, are you?’ Dee speculated.

‘An actor?’ His tone dismissed the idea. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because you’re so good-looking, I suppose,’ she admitted quite frankly. Of course, she wouldn’t have done so had he been straight. But he wasn’t, so it didn’t count.

He was taken aback for a moment, then said, ‘Are you always so forthright with men?’

‘No, not with—’ Dee caught herself up, about to use the word ‘normal’. It was a minefield, trying to be politically correct. She switched to saying, ‘Not with some men. You know—macho types that interpret “hello” as an invitation to sleep with you.’

His brows rose before he commented, ‘I suppose I should be grateful you don’t class me in that category.’

‘No, well, you couldn’t be, could you?’ Dee continued to display a newly discovered tactless streak. She dismissed a prospective career in the diplomatic service and ran on, ‘Does that mean you’re not an actor?’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he drawled back, ‘but I’m something a shade more pedestrian.’

She lifted a questioning brow.

‘Pedestrian—that means—’

‘Commonplace, ordinary, mundane… Yes, I know.’

‘Sorry, I thought—’

‘That “homeless” equated with “ignorant”,’ she cut in. ‘Well, don’t feel too bad. It’s a fairly universal reaction.’

Baxter found he didn’t feel bad so much as disconcerted. He was used to being in charge, the senior man in most situations. But he suspected this smart-mouthed girl would be no respecter of age or position.

He tried her out, saying, ‘Actually, I’m a doctor.’

He waited for her reaction. Usually people were over-impressed by his profession.

Dee gave a brief, surprised laugh. It was some coincidence.

‘Well, no one’s ever found it amusing before,’ he said with a slight edge to his voice.

She shrugged without apology. ‘You don’t look the part, though I suppose you’re a big hit with the female patients.’ Once more she forgot his sexual orientation.

‘And why do you think that?’ he enquired dryly.

Dee found herself colouring under his amused gaze before muttering, ‘As I said earlier, you’re very good-looking. I imagine you’d send a few hearts fluttering—whether you wanted to or not.’

‘Hearts fluttering?’ He raised a brow. ‘Who would have thought a romantic lay under such a cynical exterior?’

Dee realised he was taking the mickey, and said coldly, ‘I was being ironic. You know what I mean.’

‘Not personally, no,’ he denied. ‘Most of my patients are too busy dying on me to notice my physical appearance.’

He spoke so dryly Dee wondered if he was joking, but something in his eyes told her he wasn’t.

‘I used to work for an aid agency in Africa,’ he explained briefly.

It was Dee who pursued it. ‘In famine areas, that kind of thing?’

He nodded, but, though her interest was patent, he didn’t capitalise on it. Instead he turned to eating his meal.

Dee studied him surreptitiously across the table, wondering if it was true. She knew several doctors. Her father had been one—harassed and overworked, dedicated in the beginning, a burnt-out man in the end. Her stepfather was something else, a hospital consultant with expensive tastes and no real interest in medicine besides what it could earn him. Their doctor friends had been somewhere in between.

But this stranger was different. She couldn’t categorise him.

‘That must be challenging,’ she finally replied, and immediately realised what an inadequate word it was to use for such work.

He probably thought so too, from the brief, tight smile on his mouth, but he let it pass.

Before she could make a fool of herself again, Dee asked, ‘So what sort of job could you possibly want me to do, Doc?’

He pulled a face at the ‘Doc’. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. First I want you to understand something. If you decide you don’t want a part of it, then I have to warn you. You shouldn’t waste your time going to the police or the newspapers or anyone else, because I’ll simply deny it all… And you know who people will believe?’

Not her, Dee acknowledged silently, and felt like kicking herself. It was illegal, this job of his. Of course it was. What had she expected?

She began to rise to her feet, and a hand shot out to keep her there. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Forget it.’ She thrust the two halves of money at him. ‘If it’s illegal, I’m out of here.’

‘It isn’t,’ Baxter lied without conscience, and felt relief as she subsided back in her chair. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘You aren’t already in trouble with the police, are you?’

‘No, I am not!’ she declared indignantly.

‘Okay, okay,’ he pacified her, although inwardly disputing her right to be outraged after the fare-dodging incident. ‘I was just checking. I don’t need any additional hassles…I assume you’re single, too?’

‘Single?’

‘As in unmarried.’

‘Of course.’ Dee laughed, conveying how little she thought of marriage. ‘—Why?’

Baxter hesitated, then finally decided to get round to the reason he’d approached this waif and stray.

He grimaced before relaying the information. ‘You can’t be married because that’s part of the job—getting married.’

Getting married? Dee repeated the words to herself, as if by doing so they might take on a new meaning, but they didn’t. Then she took to staring at him as if he were completely and utterly mad.

He wanted her to marry him and she didn’t even know his name!

CHAPTER TWO

‘I DON’T even know your name,’ Dee said aloud.

‘Baxter,’ he introduced himself, as if that would make it less ridiculous.

‘Look, Mr Baxter…’ She intended to tell him what he could do with his job.

‘It’s not Mr Baxter,’ he corrected, ‘it’s—’

‘I know,’ Dee cut across him. ‘Mustn’t forget the title, must we? Dr Baxter.’

Her tone was derisive. He was not perturbed.

‘Actually, I was about to say it’s Ross.’

‘Ross?

‘Mr Ross, if we’re going in for formalities.’ A slanting smile mocked her in return. ‘I’m not hung up on the “Dr” bit.’

Having made a fool of herself, Dee didn’t exactly feel more warmly disposed towards him. ‘Baxter. That’s your first name?’ she concluded, and, at his nod, muttered, ‘What kind of name is that?’

‘A Scottish one.’

‘Well, that explains it.’

Baxter knew he shouldn’t ask. But he did. ‘Explains what?’

‘Why you talk funny,’ Dee replied with careless rudeness.

‘I talk funny?’ He laughed at the sheer nerve of the girl. ‘Well, at least my accent doesn’t go walkabout.’

‘What do you mean?’ She glared back.

But Baxter reckoned she knew well enough. ‘What I can’t quite figure,’ he ran on, ‘is which one’s real—the cockney sparrow routine or the middle-class girl from the Home Counties?’

‘You don’t need to figure it—’ his perception disconcerted Dee ‘—because neither is crazy enough to marry you!’

He listened without expression, any insult lost on him. Mr Cool.

‘I didn’t actually ask you to marry me,’ he said at length.

Dee scowled. Perhaps he hadn’t said the words, but that was surely his intent. He was just splitting hairs now.

‘So what else were you doing? Asking me to marry someone else?’ Her tone told him that would rate as even crazier.

He hesitated fractionally before saying, ‘Whichever, it’s an irrelevancy. It would, naturally, be what’s termed a marriage of convenience.’

‘No sex, you mean.’ Dee had no time for silly euphemisms. ‘I’d kinda worked that out for myself… You need me as camouflage, right?’

‘Camouflage?’

‘You want to convince the world you’re straight, and you reckon what better way than to acquire a wife. Only you don’t want a real wife, because then she’d expect you to…well, you get my drift.’

‘I think so.’ Baxter realised she was on a completely different road, but possibly they’d arrive at the same destination in time. So why throw her off-course for now?

Dee watched the thoughts crossing his handsome face and imagined she could read them. She relented slightly, saying, ‘Look, I really have no problem with your being gay, and if you want to keep it a secret I can understand that too. But maybe life would be easier if you simply “outed” yourself. Just made a one-off declaration to the world, then just got on with your life…

Lots of people do it—TV personalities, actors, pop stars. You could almost call it fashionable… And you know what they say about honesty being the best policy and all that.’

‘I doubt it applies in this case.’ Baxter realised her sudden sympathy only applied because she thought he was gay.

‘Well, it’s your life.’ Dee decided she wasn’t in the best shape to be advising anyone else. ‘And I suppose a marriage of convenience rates one better than pretending to do it for real.’

‘Sorry?’ She’d lost him again.

‘It’s what some gay men do,’ she ran on. ‘Marry, have kids even, then, hey presto, they hit mid-life crisis and leave their wives for another man.’

‘You’re an authority on this, are you?’ he enquired dryly.

‘Not especially,’ she denied. ‘I just had a schoolfriend whose father did it… They were all devastated,’ she recalled matter-of-factly.

‘Do you know anyone with happy, uncomplicated lives?’ he asked when she’d finished this gloomy tale.

‘No—do you?’ she flipped back.

Her tone said she didn’t believe in happiness. Baxter wondered what had made her so cynical.

‘Actually, yes,’ he responded. ‘My sister, Catriona, and her husband have a marriage that seems reasonably close to perfect.’

‘Seems being the operative word,’ Dee couldn’t resist commenting. From her own experience she knew so-called perfect marriages could hide cracks the size of the San Andreas fault line. Take her mother and stepfather. The world had always seen them as the perfect couple. Come to that, the world probably still did—the perfect couple cursed only by a bad lot of a daughter.

Dee had no illusions. It was what people had thought of her. A bad lot that would come to a worse end.

‘Well, you’ll be able to judge for yourself.’ His voice broke into her thoughts once more.

‘Judge what?’

‘If it’s real, their happiness… But I’m warning you now. They do a great deal of laughing and smiling, and even kissing. So it may be hard for a world-weary cynic like yourself to take.’

He was laughing, too. At her, in this case. Dee tried to take offence, but there was something disarming about the smile he slanted her.

‘I haven’t agreed to anything,’ she said instead, then realised it wasn’t quite positive enough. ‘I mean, I can’t possibly do what you’re suggesting.’

‘Why not?’

Why not? Dee repeated to herself, and didn’t immediately find an answer. A smile touched his lips as he detected her weakening.

She shook her head. ‘You expect me to go up to the wilds of Scotland—’

‘We live about fifteen miles from the centre of Edinburgh,’ he interjected. ‘Almost civilisation, in fact.’

‘Okay, but then there’s the time.’ She raised a new objection. ‘Or are you planning for me to go up on one train, play blushing bride for a day, then take the next train home? I doubt that’ll convince anyone.’

‘No, you’d obviously have to commit to longer. Let’s say a year’s contract.’

‘A year!’

‘At the very most.’ He nodded. ‘But if things go well I’d release you earlier.’

‘Release me?’ she echoed. ‘This is beginning to sound like a prison sentence.’

‘Not quite. You won’t be on bread and water, or sewing mailbags,’ he assured her in dry tones. ‘Basically, you’ll have your own room, three square meals a day and a moderate allowance. Will that be so bad?’

‘Sounds wonderful,’ she said, but gave a visible shudder as she ran on. ‘Going quietly out of my head, playing the little woman at home.’

Baxter laughed in response. Not very wise at this stage of the negotiation, but it was just too absurd.

‘You? The little woman? Apart from looking totally unlike the part, I somehow doubt you’d be that good an actress.’

‘Thanks.’ She pulled a face. ‘So why ask me?’

Good question, Baxter had to agree. ‘There wasn’t exactly a wide choice of candidates.’

‘And beggars can’t be choosers?’ Dee threw his earlier words back at him.

‘Something like that.’ He didn’t deny it.

‘You’re crazy,’ Dee said aloud, then silently to herself. For she had to be crazy, too, listening to this.

He said nothing, but took out a pen and chequebook from the inside pocket of his jacket. Dee watched as he wrote in it, then stared in disbelief as he held the cheque in front of her face.

‘That’s what you’ll get on the day of the wedding,’ he relayed to her, ‘and then the same at the end of twelve months, or whenever I release you.’

Five thousand pounds. Double that by the end. She read and reread it, wondering if she was hallucinating and seeing too many noughts.

‘You’re kidding!’ she scoffed.

‘Scotsmen don’t kid about money.’ He placed the cheque on the table before her. ‘Don’t you know that?’

He smiled, as if it might still turn out to be a joke, but his eyes said different. This was business.

It was Dee who shook her head. This was fantasy. ‘You’ll pay me ten thousand pounds just to marry you?’

‘You think that’s too much?’ he returned.

Dee’s lips formed the word ‘Yes’ but she didn’t utter it aloud. Did she really want to talk the price down?

‘Make no mistake. It’s up to a year of your life—and that’s a long time at your age,’ he warned, eyes resting on her as if assessing just how young she was.

‘How old are you?’ Dee threw back at him.

‘Thirty-four.’ He watched her screw up her face and added, ‘Virtually geriatric to you, I imagine.’

That wasn’t actually what Dee had been thinking. ‘Have you considered what other people are going to make of the age gap? I mean there’s not much point in hiring me for a respectable front if my appearance is going to result in the opposite.’

‘For ten thousand pounds, I expect you could modify your appearance,’ he suggested, without going into details.

He didn’t have to. His gaze went from her earrings in triplicate to her close-cropped haircut.

Dee knew how she looked, with her hair and her combat jacket and her laced up Doc Martens—like a tough neopunk who could take care of herself. It was exactly how she wanted to look. When her hair had been longer and her clothes more feminine, she’d had to fend off the pimps and perverts who preyed on girls in her situation.

‘I expect I could,’ Dee echoed, ‘if I was mad enough to go along with you. But let’s get real. You think anybody—your family or friends—is going to believe we’re each other’s types?’

Not in a million years, Baxter had to agree. His sister might have spent the last decade trying to marry him off, but even she would balk at this girl. Colleagues would imagine he was having a mid-life crisis. And male friends, unable to see any other virtue, would assume she was great in bed. Still, none of that really mattered.

‘Attraction of opposites?’ he suggested, with a smile of pure irony. ‘Don’t worry about it. It won’t be a problem… Just try and tone down a little before you come north of the border. I can give you an advance for clothes if necessary.’

‘Tweed skirts and twinsets?’ she commented dryly, but did wonder what image she was meant to cultivate.

‘Up to you.’ He shrugged, as if it was a small issue.

And Dee, realising he was being serious about the rest, finally found herself considering it. What did she have to lose?

‘Well, how about it?’ He was hardly pressurising her into it.

‘I don’t know.’ She was clearly wavering.

‘Look, if you’re concerned about being able to marry someone else in the future,’ he added, ‘then don’t be. I’ll finance the divorce, too.’

‘That isn’t an issue. I won’t be getting married. Not for real, anyway,’ she amended.

‘Ever?’ He raised a brow.

‘Ever,’ she echoed with utter conviction.

‘Don’t tell me—you’re off men for life.’ He clearly didn’t take her seriously.

‘Not all men—and just marriage.’

‘A woman who doesn’t automatically hear wedding bells. Where have you been all my life?’

He was joking. She realised that. But still it seemed an odd thing for him to say.

She stared at him hard. ‘I didn’t think you were interested in women.’

Baxter stared back briefly, before deciding to come clean.

‘Time to set the record straight, I think—straight being the appropriate word.’

Dee took a moment to catch on. ‘You’re not gay?’

‘’Fraid not,’ he confided in ironic tones.

Something about his manner made Dee believe him. She should have been angry—and she was—but, behind that, she also felt an odd sense of relief.

She didn’t let it show as she demanded, ‘So why did you say you were?’

‘Technically I didn’t,’ he corrected. ‘What I said was, “I’m not interested in young girls”. Which I’m not, preferring a more mature kind of woman… So, you’re still safe.’

Safe, but confused. ‘Then why the arranged marriage?’

‘That’s harder to explain.’ He was obviously in no hurry to do so.

Dee, impatient as ever, jumped to another conclusion. ‘I bet it’s a legacy. You have to get married by your thirty-fifth birthday or you’ll be disinherited by some great-aunt. Am I right?’

Baxter raised a mental eyebrow. She certainly had imagination. He just wasn’t sure yet if he could trust her with the truth.

‘It’s connected with a legacy, yes,’ he finally confirmed.

‘I knew it!’ She looked pleased with herself for guessing.

‘Anyway, I can’t go into details at the moment,’ he asserted. ‘I can only stress once more that it will just be a marriage of convenience.’

He didn’t have to stress it. Dee had got the message. He didn’t fancy her. Did he have to keep labouring the point?

‘Well?’ he added, raising a brow.

Decision time. ‘I’d have to take Henry.’

‘Of course.’ He glanced down at the dog stretched at their feet. ‘He seems a fairly well-behaved animal. Does he like trains?’

‘Is that how we’d be travelling…assuming I agreed?’

He nodded. ‘I haven’t been back long from Kirundi, and am currently carless.’

‘You were in Kirundi?’ Dee read newspapers and magazines dumped in the underground by commuters. She knew something of the civil war that had raged in the African country.

He nodded. ‘For the last couple of years.’

He sounded emotionless about it, but how could he be? It must have been a scene from hell.

‘Are you going back?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I have no plans to do so.’

Dee met his eyes briefly and imagined she saw in them some of the shadows of that hell. It was just a fleeting impression before he looked away, but she knew without being told; she mustn’t ask any more.

‘My contract with the aid agency has just run out,’ he continued. ‘I’ll be taking up a research post at Edinburgh University in the autumn.’

Dee absorbed this information, then said, ‘Okay, give me the time of the train and we can meet at the station.’

It was a moment before he realised quite what she’d said.

‘You’ll do it?’ Her capitulation had caught him by surprise.

Dee wondered if she really was mad, even as she nodded, ‘Yeah, why not?’

‘Great.’ Baxter suppressed any doubts and allowed himself some satisfaction.

Dee decided it was time to go before she changed her mind. ‘If you don’t know times and things, you can phone Rick in the café. He’ll pass on a message.’

He glanced towards Rick, who was now leaning on the counter, perusing the racing pages. He didn’t look the reliable type.

‘Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to pick you up in a taxi?’ he suggested.

‘You mean turn up at the squat?’ She was horrified by the idea. ‘No, thanks. I’ll meet you at the station or the deal’s off.’

Baxter realised she didn’t want him to know where she lived. He supposed that was fair enough from her angle.

He went into his pocket again and found his passport, still there from when he’d flown in a few days ago. He handed it to her.

Dee checked it over, as he’d intended. It came open at the back pages; they were stamped with the names of a dozen countries, mostly in Africa. She flipped to the front and glanced at his picture. It was an old passport, showing a picture of him from some years ago. It looked like him, only without the current signs of age and experience. She checked the other details. Name: Baxter Macfarlane Ross. Occupation: Doctor. Birthplace: Bangkok.

‘Bangkok.’ She read it aloud. ‘As in Bangkok, Thailand?’

‘My parents were missionaries,’ he explained. ‘They happened to be trying to convert South-East Asia round the time of my birth.’

‘So where exactly were you brought up?’

‘Lots of places, but Scotland mainly. That’s where our grandparents lived and that’s where we were sent to school.’

‘Boarding school?’ she guessed, and he nodded in response.

It explained a lot. He had no real accent, despite the fact she’d made a joke of it earlier. Instead he sounded neutral, almost as if he was a foreigner who’d learned to speak perfect English.

‘So, do your parents live up in Edinburgh?’ she asked, and felt a measure of relief when he shook his head. She didn’t fancy playing the blushing bride to some holy rollers who probably still believed in marriage.

‘They died when I was twelve,’ he added briefly.

‘Sorry,’ Dee apologised for her mean thoughts.

‘It was a long time ago.’ He dismissed any need for sensitivity. ‘And I didn’t know them well… My sister lives near me.’

‘Oh.’ So she was to meet some of his family. ‘Are you and your sister close?’

‘Yes and no. I’ve spent a large part of my adult life abroad… What about you? Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

‘No, I’m a little emperor.’ She’d read the expression in a magazine.

‘A what?’

‘An only child. It’s what they call them in China, now they operate a one-child policy… Apparently couples in Britain are also opting to have a single child so they can give them everything.’

‘Is that what you were given…everything?’ He wondered once more about this girl of contradictions.

‘Of course,’ she answered in ironic tones. ‘As you see, I dine at the Ritz, buy my clothes from Harvey Nichols and live in a darling little mews house in South Kensington.’

He gave her an impatient look. ‘I take it that means no.’

Dee shrugged. He could take it how he wanted. In truth she had been spoilt—materially anyway—until the day she had run away in her state-of-the-art trainers, designer jeans, and the baseball jacket that had come with a three-hundred-pound price tag and had fallen apart within weeks of her hitting the London streets.

She handed back his passport, and he said, ‘Now you know who I am, perhaps you could trust me with your address.’

‘Just because you’re Dr Ross?’ She pulled a face, still unimpressed.

‘Point taken.’ He took one of the cheap paper napkins Rick had tossed down in front of them and wrote something on it.

‘The Continental,’ Dee read. ‘Sounds posh.’

He ignored her, writing down the nearest tube station and precise directions on how to find the hotel. ‘Meet me in the foyer tomorrow at nine o’clock, and we’ll go shopping for suitable clothing. Okay?’

Dee nodded and put the napkin in her jacket. She didn’t meet his eyes. If she had, he might have realised she was already having second thoughts. Girls who met up with strangers, however respectable-looking, were asking for trouble.

Baxter watched her as she got up, issued brief thanks for the meal, and, gathering her possessions and dog, made for the door. He was no fool. Chances were he would never see her again.

Dee walked quickly, checking behind her a few times, but there was no sign of him. He trusted her. He actually believed she was going to meet him.

‘Mug,’ she muttered aloud, but it didn’t stop her feeling guilty. She hadn’t meant to lead him on. It was his fault really. It had sounded so attractive—sleeping in a clean bed, eating good food, earning money for virtually nothing.

But nothing was for nothing in this life. She knew better. She thought of her stepfather—respected consultant, charming host, generous father. For a while, at least, until he’d looked for the pay-back.

Dee put a brake on her thoughts. She wasn’t going to get bitter. She wouldn’t let him ruin her life. She wasn’t like the other girls, running away from a lifetime of abuse. Much of her childhood had been happy, and she still had hopes of a future better than her dismal present.

She checked behind her once more before she veered towards the wasteland which surrounded the maisonettes. All boarded up, they looked deserted, but she knew that several had been turned into squats. Hers was at the end of the block and two flights up.

She looked along the balcony and down below, checking she was alone, before dislodging the loose boarding at the bottom of a window. Then she squeezed through and dragged Henry after her. She replaced the boarding and used a brick to hold it in position from the inside. She kept a torch in her rucksack, and used it long enough to locate the candles and matches hidden under the rotting sink-cupboard.

She slept in a back room, where the last occupant had abandoned an old mattress. It was stained and musty, but better than the floor. Dee had her own sleeping bag, which she washed with her clothes at the launderette when she had any spare money. She still never felt clean.

She’d lived like this, in one squat or another, for three months, and she’d begun to get used to it. She supposed it was meeting Baxter Ross that had made her re-evaluate. She went to the toilet and looked in the cracked mirror above the sink. A gaunt face with hollow eyes looked back at her. Once she’d been considered pretty, and was vain enough to wonder if anyone would see her as such again. Or had her looks gone, along with her middle-class attitudes? Blown away by insecurity and desperation?

She thought of what Baxter Ross was offering. Right at the moment it was the only chance of a future she had. Perhaps she was crazy to turn it down. It would mean living a lie, but so what? She had watched her mother doing that for years.

Had her mother pretended with her father, too? Dee wasn’t sure. She had seemed devastated when he died, but within months had been going out with Edward Litton, a consultant at the hospital.

At first Dee had resented it, out of loyalty to her father. But, as time went on, she’d realised her mother couldn’t cope on her own. Edward had seemed to accept her so she’d accepted Edward, and had been a gawky-looking bridesmaid at their wedding.

When had things changed? It was hard to pinpoint, but it seemed, on reflection, that cracks had appeared in the marriage quite quickly. Though beautiful, her mother needed constant reassurance of the fact, and although seemingly vivacious in company, was subject to depressions. Dee’s father had been supportive, but Edward was a different kind of man, and his impatience, as well as his disappointment, was evident.

At times Dee had actually felt sorry for him and had feared he might leave. Feared, because at fourteen she had been as selfish as the next teenager and hadn’t wanted responsibility for her mother’s happiness.

But they’d papered over the cracks and continued to present an idyllic front to the rest of the world. Dee had been part of the conspiracy, then. Grateful that he’d stayed, she’d grown closer to Edward, and he had seemed fond of her, too.

It was Edward who had begun to realise she was growing up and had given her money for trendy clothes rather than the juvenile outfits her mother had bought to keep her looking about ten—which had been difficult when she was already way past adult height by fourteen and filling out by fifteen. It was Edward who had allowed her to go to her first disco and had laughed when she’d arrived home a little tipsy. Edward who hadn’t overreacted to her minor teenage rebellions of smoking cigarettes and bunking off school. And Edward who’d argued against boarding school, claiming that, just going into her final GCSE year at sixteen, Deborah was far too old to adapt.

Only this time her mother had stood her ground, and Dee had been dispatched to a girls’ school in Hampshire. Dee had minded going, but had settled in surprisingly easily. After the tensions at home, the school regime had been almost relaxing.

Still, she’d looked forward to the Christmas holidays, and Edward and her mother had both seemed pleased to see her. There had been the usual seasonal parties, and Edward had paid for several new dresses—including a white mini-dress that showed off her endless legs. She had been self-conscious in it at first, but had worn it at their New Year party and felt tremendously grown-up.

Perhaps she had looked it, too, because no one had objected to her drinking glasses of the wine being passed around. She had been merry rather than drunk, and had danced a lot with an older boy called James. They had ended up kissing in the summerhouse outside. Deborah had enjoyed the kisses and even allowed some minor petting, but she’d had no plans to take things further.

Edward had drawn other conclusions when he’d found them in a passionate clinch. He’d come the heavy father and sent the boy packing, then he’d turned on Dee. She remembered repeating, ‘Nothing happened,’ over and over, but he hadn’t really been listening as he’d grabbed her arm when she’d tried to leave. It was only later she had understood: he’d been drunk, and mean with it.

At the time she’d felt only shame as he’d accused her of being a slut and suggested she’d been ‘begging for it’. There had been more of the same, but, naively, she hadn’t been frightened. Even at that point she’d still assumed he was acting like an irate grown-up. Then the bile about her mother had begun to spill out, and effectively brought their father-daughter relationship to an end.

‘Please.’ She tried to pull away as he regaled her with details of his empty, sexless marriage.

‘Well, at least we know you’re not frigid, little Deborah,’ he went on relentlessly. ‘Not so little, either, now…’

His eyes lowered to her burgeoning breasts, outlined in the brief, tight dress, and the hand that had gripped her arm began to smooth over her bare skin.

Dee fought panic and the desire to be physically sick. This was a nightmare. In a moment, they would both wake up and everything would be as before.

‘Let’s go back to the party, Edward, please…’ Her face was white with shock.

‘Why? So you can let that boy paw you again?’ Edward’s laugh was humourless as he blocked her move to the summerhouse door. ‘Sweet sixteen and obviously dying for it, the way you walk around the house in your shortie nightdresses.’

Dee shook her head and kept shaking it, denying provocation, denying she wanted this, denying his right to do it as he clamped his arms round her and forced his mouth on hers, ignoring her resistance, his teeth cutting into her lip, his tongue a violation. She resisted, and kept resisting, twisting and fighting, kicking and squirming, pushing at his chest until finally, somehow, she was free.

She turned and ran blindly to the house. The party was still in full swing and few noticed as she burst inside and made for the toilet, bolting the door before being violently sick in the bowl.

Dee had intended to tell her mother later, but Edward beat her to it. In his version she had drunk too much and had been throwing herself at everybody, including himself. He made a joke of it, then dismissed the incident as normal adolescence. Her mother didn’t question it, and when Dee tried to say Edward had kissed her she refused to listen.

Now Dee lay on her mattress in the dirty squat and recognised it as the night her childhood had ended. She hadn’t run away immediately; she hadn’t been brave enough. She’d wanted to trust Edward’s promises that it would never happen again, so she had. Until the next time two months later. And the time after that at half term. And so on.

Each time he went a little further and each time she became more locked in the awful conspiracy of silence because she hadn’t blown the whistle loudly enough that first night.

Each episode of kissing or touching or accidentally brushing against her brought them closer to the day he would finally rape her. She threatened to tell on him, but never did. Who to tell? Her mother, who popped a pill at the least upset and was on another planet most of the time? Or family friends, who admired Edward for taking on a ready-made family? And, of course, by not telling she reinforced the lies her stepfather was telling himself: that she wanted him the same way he wanted her.

When he arrived mid-term to take her out for a surprise lunch, Dee wanted to refuse, but what could she say when he sat in the headmistress’s office playing model stepfather? And who else could see what lay behind his smile? Not Mrs Chambers, smiling back as good old Edward charmed and smarmed his way into her confidence. Not her best friend, Clare, who read too many teen magazines and thought her stepfather sexy.

So she went upstairs for her jacket and came down the hard way, throwing herself from the landing. Dramatic, possibly, and certainly painful, as the sprained ankle she’d intended escalated into a torn ligament in her knee. She also had to suffer Edward playing the concerned father and caring doctor, until she wanted to scream at them all, Open your eyes. See him for what he is!

But still it was worth it. A trip to the local hospital took precedence over the lunch.

It was that visit which decided her. She waited until her knee mended and the exams were over, then bought a one-way ticket to London. She stayed in a cheap hotel, unable to find work or the bedsit she’d vaguely planned. After a month and a half her money ran out, and she ended up sleeping in a shop doorway for three nights until the police picked her up, and, not believing she was sixteen, located her on a register of runaways and called her parents.

They came to collect her. Her mother was distressed but forgiving, while Edward just seemed relieved. He walked up to her and hugged her as he had in the old days, with a warmth that was natural and fatherly, and promised her everything was going to be fine. After three nights’ sleeping rough and being terrified, Dee would have believed the devil himself. She arrived home in time for her seventeenth birthday and was lavished with presents.

For eight months Edward kept his promise. Dee didn’t give him much choice to do otherwise, returning to boarding school in the autumn, then spending much of the Christmas holidays on a skiing trip. Then she made the mistake of going home for Easter.

At seventeen, and confident, she imagined she could handle anything, but she was wrong.

She had no real warning. That was the trouble. Her mother had a headache, but that wasn’t unusual. Dee sat down to lunch with Edward and he was in great form, relating amusing anecdotes about hospital life. She didn’t really notice him filling and refilling his glass. She wasn’t aware of a mood change until it was too late…

Dee shut her eyes now. She didn’t want to relive it. What had happened had seemed unreal, but was no less disturbing because of it. She had panicked and she had run, and this time no one had come looking for her.

She had no home now, no family, no past. She could do what she wanted, be what she wanted. She could marry Baxter Ross for ten thousand pounds and not give a damn.

Why not? Would it be so hard to be Mrs Baxter Ross?

She wouldn’t have to sleep with him. She probably wouldn’t have to eat with him either. Talking might not even be required, unless they had an audience.

Ten thousand pounds, and she could lie in a clean bed without listening for every sound in the dark, eat without worrying about where the next meal was coming from, live without fear constantly in the background.

In fact, even a cynic like Dee could see it—Baxter Ross just had to be a dream come true!

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT was the opposite of a guardian angel? A jinx, Dee supposed. Whatever it was, she had one.

Having tossed and turned for most of the night, she slept when the first rays of light squeezed through the boarded windows and only woke when the air was warm and the sun high in the sky. She didn’t need a watch to tell her she was already far too late. She would never reach the Continental Hotel by nine.

She went all the same, with Henry in tow, and used her last money on the fare. The hotel was posh and exclusive, and its doorman wouldn’t let her past the steps. Reluctant enquiries were made. They confirmed a Dr Ross had been there—had being the operative word. It was her fault for being late, but she cursed him all the same. Couldn’t he just have waited?

She drifted off to the nearest tube station and, without a flute to play, did what she hated and begged outright. Her dismal face drew little sympathy, but enough for her fare home, tea and a roll at Rick’s and two tins of dog food.

She made her way home, thinking the day couldn’t get worse, but it did. She saw the caravans first, parked at the near end of the estate. For a moment she thought they belonged to gypsies, until she saw the vans on the other side and was whistled at by two workmen swilling beers on a caravan step. The developers were moving in.

She raced along to her maisonette, thinking she might already be too late to fetch her stuff, but the flats still stood, doors and windows now plastered with orders to quit and a demolition date two days hence.

She’d known it would be soon. When she’d found the place there had been other squatters around her, but most had since disappeared. She rounded the corner of her block to find the couple from downstairs passing stuff out through a gap in their boarding.

They claimed to have somewhere to go and invited Dee to come along with them, but Dee felt safer on her own.

She went up to her flat and was relieved to find the boarding still in place. She helped Henry in first, because he was too stiff to manage on his own. She collected her things together, ready to move on in the morning, then sat on her dirty mattress, trying not to think of the chance she’d let slip by.

It was some hours later when she heard noises again. They were distant at first, probably coming from the far end of the block. She heard the sound of splintering wood. A board being moved. Perhaps it was someone like herself, looking for a place to sleep. Usually she laid low, waiting for whoever it was to settle.

This time, however, it seemed they were checking every flat, searching for something or somebody, and Dee no longer felt like sitting tight. So she slipped through the gap in the boarding and landed soundlessly on the balcony below, then tried to haul Henry through, but he kept backing away. Having been reluctant to wake, he was even more reluctant to go walking.

Dee heard footsteps directly below her and, panic rising, made another grab for his collar. Unfortunately Henry began to whine and scrape and generally protest at the idea of going through the narrow gap for the second time that day. She leaned further and Henry disappeared altogether in the direction of the bedroom.

Dee might have climbed back in, but the footsteps were no longer below her; they were echoing up the far stairwell. As she withdrew from the window her jacket caught on a nail. The sleeve ripped slightly, then held fast. Rather than rip it further, she shrugged out of it and left it hanging as, in panic, she took to her heels along the balcony towards the other staircase.

A voice called out, meaning to halt her, but all it did was make Dee’s heart hammer with more fright. This was no kid out to vandalise a derelict building, but a full-grown man, and he was after her, his footsteps thundering in pursuit as she jumped three steps onto the landing, then stumbled her way down the next flight.

She landed hard and felt a jarring in her knee, but she kept going. She made for the open wasteland and the cover of darkness. But he was right behind her, running hard, gaining on her, closing in as her knee began to give out. She kept running until the second he grabbed at her, then she cried out in fear and rage as she went crashing to the ground.

Hard male hands kept her there. Face down in weeds and muck, she waited for her worst nightmare to begin. Seconds ticked by in her head before her assailant dragged her round, and it was the longest moment in Dee’s life. Nothing, not even her experiences with her stepfather, had prepared her for this.

Then he spoke, and fear dissolved in an instant. Relief followed, but was quickly sidelined by temper.

She lifted a hand and struck at him.

‘It’s me…Baxter.’ He warded off the blow.

‘I know it’s damn well you!’ she screamed back at him, and took another swipe.

He dodged that one, then grabbed at her arms before she could hit him again. ‘I’m not going to harm you.’

‘No, just break my leg in a rugby tackle!’ she shot back.

‘I was trying to grab your arm,’ he claimed, ‘but you halted mid-flight and I fell with you… Sorry.’

‘Sorry!’ Dee exploded at this utterly inadequate word.

He lifted his shoulders. ‘What else can I say?’

‘Try goodbye,’ snapped a still angry Dee, ‘but first could you bloody well get off me?’

He considered it for a moment. ‘Provided you promise not to attack me again.’

Her attack him? Dee stared at him in disbelief. Unfortunately, being flat on her back, she was in no position to argue.

‘Okay,’ she agreed.

‘Good.’

‘Come on then.’

Dee wasn’t scared of him any longer. There was something so calm and rational about this man, it was hard to imagine him as a threat. But she was still lying beneath him, conscious of the weight of his body on hers.

‘I’m waiting,’ he drawled.

‘What for?’

‘Your promise.’

God, he wanted her to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘t’s.

‘I promise not to attack you,’ Dee ground out through clenched teeth.

Baxter caught her eyes, a stormy blue spitting fury. He released her arms slowly and half expected another blow. But perhaps she wasn’t quite that foolish. She remained still as death beneath him, and he levered himself away. He brushed earth and undergrowth from his clothes before offering her a hand.

Dee ignored it. She knew she’d damaged her knee and wasn’t sure if she could stand.

She shot at him instead, ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

‘Looking for you,’ he responded evenly. ‘I assume you’ve backed out on our deal?’

Dee could have contradicted him, but right at that moment she couldn’t see herself tolerating five minutes of his company, far less a year.

‘How did you know where I was?’

‘Your friend from the café gave me the general location.’

‘Rick’s no one’s friend. How much did you give him in return?’

‘Twenty pounds.’

‘You were robbed,’ she scoffed. ‘Rick would sell his own mother for a fiver.’

He shook his head at her cynicism. ‘You underrate his loyalty. It took me a while to convince him I meant you no harm.’

‘I know—you told him of our engagement!’ Dee concluded archly.

‘Not quite.’ His brief smile acknowledged the absurdity of such a relationship. ‘I said you were my runaway niece.’

‘How original—the niece story again,’ she scorned. ‘I hope you didn’t tell him my real name was Morag!’

‘I had to. I don’t know your real name.’ He lifted a questioning brow.

‘Deborah DeCourcy,’ she told him.

He laughed in disbelief. ‘Okay, don’t tell me, but I’d aim for something more credible next time.’

‘That is my name,’ she insisted. ‘And you should talk, Mr Baxter Macfarlane Ross.’

‘I suppose it is a mouthful… All right, Deborah,’ he tried out her new name.

She snapped, ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘I thought it was your name,’ he countered.

‘It is. I just don’t like it.’ Deborah belonged to the girl Dee used to be. She was someone else now. ‘You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come looking for me?’

‘To give you these.’ He went into his jacket for his wallet and took out the other halves of the notes from yesterday. ‘I thought you might need it.’

Dee took them and muttered a grudging, ‘Thanks.’

‘I wanted to check you were all right, too,’ he added.

‘Never better.’ Dee grimaced as she struggled to her feet, and started limping back towards the flats.

‘I can see that.’ He caught her elbow and would have given her support, but she shrugged off his hand.

She made it as far as an abandoned oil drum, then perched on it for a rest.

He nodded towards her leg. ‘Want me to take a look at that?’

‘Why? What can you do?’ Dee didn’t want his concern.

‘I’m a doctor, remember?’

Actually she hadn’t. She still thought of him as male model material. Too handsome for words.

‘So you say.’ Dee had her doubts and didn’t want him treating her anyway. ‘You just don’t happen to be my doctor.’

‘No problem. I’ve got a mobile on me. Do you think your doctor will come on a house call?’ He glanced round him at the derelict flats and urban wasteland.

‘Very funny.’ Dee understood the point. She didn’t have a GP anyway.

‘If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you,’ he offered matter-of-factly.

‘I’d rather die,’ Dee muttered, not quite under her breath.

‘Fair enough.’ He began to walk away.

Dee watched in disbelief. ‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’

He turned, hands in pockets, and gave her a mocking look. ‘What happened to “I’d rather die”!’

Dee could have thrown something at him, only she had nothing at hand. She made it to her feet instead, and hobbled a step or two.

He grunted his impatience before he came striding back and literally swept Dee off her feet. It was so unexpected, her heart missed a beat. Then missed another as she was compelled to lock her arms round his neck. Her hands brushed against the warmth of his skin while he moved with an easy strength. Unfamiliar feelings stirred inside her, and she tried to detach herself from this acute physical awareness of him.

‘Stop squirming,’ he instructed briskly as he picked his way past the debris of dumped rubbish and made for the road rather than her maisonette.

‘Where are we going?’ demanded Dee, alerted by the change of direction.

‘There’s a derelict bus shelter,’ he informed her. ‘You can sit there while I fetch the car.’

Car? What car? He’d said his car was in Scotland.

Could it all be a lie? His being a doctor, needing a wife, being willing to pay ten thousand pounds? The more Dee thought about it, the crazier it seemed.

He could be a liar, a thief, a madman, but the curious thing was, she still wasn’t scared of him. In fact, as he dumped her in the graffitied bus shelter and wordlessly walked away, she was more scared that he wouldn’t return.

By the time a car appeared and caught her in its headlights, she was very jumpy.

She was relieved when Baxter Ross emerged from behind the driver’s wheel. He might be a stranger but there was something reassuringly normal about him.

He put an arm to her waist and helped her limp to the car. She leaned on the bonnet and observed a car-hire sticker on the windscreen. So maybe he wasn’t a liar.

He opened the passenger door, saying, ‘I’ll drive you to the nearest Casualty to check the damage.’

Dee already knew what was wrong; she had damaged the tendon again. ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

He made a noise, impatient rather than sympathetic. ‘Don’t be silly. You won’t get there under your own steam.’

‘I have to go back to the maisonette,’ she insisted.

He followed her worried glance to the block of flats. ‘If it’s a boyfriend, then he can’t be up to much,’ he dismissed. ‘Not if he lets you go on midnight rambles in this neighbourhood.’

‘It’s a dog!’ she retorted abruptly. ‘You’ve met him, remember?’

‘Yes, of course, Henry.’ He surprised her by recalling her dog’s name.

‘I can’t leave him,’ she explained in more even tones. ‘He’ll be frightened on his own.’

‘Get in.’ He nodded towards the passenger seat. ‘I’ll go fetch the mutt.’

He was so offhand, it was impossible to imagine him as a threat. He started to walk away.

She called after him, ‘Be careful. Henry might be a bit nervy.’

‘Nervy—right.’ He cast her a look over his shoulder. ‘As in likely to bite first and ask questions later?’

‘Possibly,’ Dee admitted.

‘Well, thanks for the warning, at least.’ He carried on walking.

Dee watched him go, a tall, lean figure with a fluid stride. Nothing seemed to throw him.

It was Dee who felt reaction set in, shivering in the cool night air at her lack of jacket, and she climbed into the passenger seat to wait for him.

She soon heard barking, and rolled down the window a fraction. She worried about the dog initially, but as the barking became louder and fiercer her concern switched to Baxter Ross. She might not like him much, but he was trying to help her when he could easily have walked away.

The barking continued, interspersed with the sound of wood being smashed, then there was silence. Dee sat in the car, holding her breath interminably, before they suddenly appeared.

The dog padded alongside the man. It seemed that Henry had decided Baxter Ross was more friend than foe. He wagged his tail, glad to see Dee but not unduly worried.

Dee watched in the mirror as Baxter Ross removed the parcel shelf at the back of the car and folded down the rear seats to create a large boot, pushing his own luggage nearer the front. He helped a stiff Henry into it and also stowed away her flute case and rucksack. Why had he brought those?

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