Bought: One Husband

by Diana Hamilton

  But the condition Fabian had imposed took it all away from her. He had known, because she had once told him in no uncertain terms, that she would never marry, never entrust her happiness and security to a mere man.

  The condition he had made was nothing but an elderly man’s spite, the vicious sting in the tail.

  Just for one moment she knew what real, gut-twisting hatred was. Then she made herself breathe, expelled the frozen air from her lungs, and told herself that Fabian wouldn’t get the last laugh because she wouldn’t let him. Brazenly, she lied.

  ‘I don’t see a problem there. My fiancé and I didn’t intend to marry until the end of the year. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t bring the date forward to comply with that condition.’

  She gave him a cool, level look down the length of her neat nose, saw his eyes flick down to her ring-less fingers and calmly told another whopper. ‘I don’t wear my ring on a day-to-day basis; it’s far too valuable. I’d be afraid of losing it, or getting mugged.’ She got to her feet, smoothing non-existent creases from her skirt, collecting her bag. ‘We have a month, you say?’

  ‘Actually, rather less.’ He rose when she did, glancing down at the document on his desk. ‘Your uncle died a week ago, as you know. There are three weeks left—a day or two over if we take it as a calendar month. I did try to persuade him against making that condition, but to no avail.’

  ‘Fabian was a stubborn man,’ she agreed. And she left, the stupidity of what she’d done hitting her as soon as she reached the street.

  That lie had been instinctive, she thought now. A need to hold onto the dream of giving Studley back to her mother.

  She, too, had wonderful memories of the years when she and her parents had lived at Studley, but she should have walked out of that office the moment that condition had been mentioned, dismissing it for the evil taunt it was.

  But her mother still wanted to go back, and it would be smooth, poetic justice if she could take the legacy he’d so briefly dangled under her nose, then snatched away with that hateful condition of his.

  But how? How could she hope to turn that lie into the truth?

  She went through to the kitchen and made herself a strong black coffee. She leant against the work surface, sipping it, frowning.

  Many men had tried to date her in the past, but she hadn’t been interested—too wary of so-called commitment to fall into that trap. She wasn’t into casual sex, and she had no intention of getting into a serious relationship, so what was the point?

  She wasn’t vain about the looks she’d inherited from her mother, simply regarding them as an asset—like a good head for business or a talent for interior design—and using them accordingly, working hard to give her mother back some of the happiness she had lost.

  Surely she could use those looks to get herself a husband?

  She put her mug down and began to pace the shoe-box-sized room her eyes half closed in concentration. There had to be a way. She could put on her glad rags and go out partying, pick out an unattached male and—

  Allie stopped herself right there. She wasn’t a complete idiot, so why was she thinking like one?

  No sane man would agree to marry in an almighty hurry—and in name only; that went without saying—just so she could claim her inheritance, then disappear as soon as the deeds were safely lodged with her, and file for divorce a couple of years later!

  No sex, no strings. Nothing in it for him. No man would go for that. She had very little time and nothing to offer in the way of inducement, except— She stopped pacing, her eyes going wide as the answer hit her.

  Except money!

  She could buy herself a short-term husband!

  There was the more than healthy sum she’d hoarded with the intention of settling her mother and Fran in a country cottage. If Studley was hers, she wouldn’t need it.

  And she knew just the man who might accept her proposition.

  He’d be more than presentable once he was tidied up—with the type of looks that would send most women dreamy-eyed. So people wouldn’t be totally amazed if she married him, and that solicitor wouldn’t suspect there was something fishy going on.

  She’d have to take a chance on his trustworthiness, but she already knew that he had a kind and caring disposition. And he was poverty-struck, or as good as. Surely he would jump at the opportunity of earning himself a nice little nest-egg.

  True, she’d been introduced to him barely a week ago, and, true again, he’d made his interest in her more than plain. But she’d fended him off, coolly and politely, with the ease of long practice. So she’d have to make it perfectly clear that there would be no hanky-panky.

  She could handle that. Of course she could. No worries there.

  Crossing the room, she picked up the phone and cancelled dinner with her agent, then walked determinedly to the bedroom and began to pack.

  Jethro Cole, the rookie window-cleaner, was her only hope.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I CAN only suppose,’ said Nanny Briggs as she carried the coffee tray through to the sitting room, ‘that since Harry swallowed that pride of his and accepted you as a partner, your staying on here has something to do with that very pretty young woman who stopped by last week to thank you for picking her mother up off the pavement.’

  Jethro folded the FT with an impatient crackle. He didn’t know why the hell he was still here, making a damn fool of himself. And he most certainly didn’t want to discuss it.

  He glared moodily back over the last eight days: to his first day here, on what had been supposedly a flying visit, to find Harry—judging by the sound of his moans and groans—lying on his deathbed, in a fret because he was letting his customers down and his van was in to get the clutch fixed, so how could he get it, the state he was in, and how could he climb ladders when he could barely stand?

  Nanny Briggs had never learned to drive, so Jethro had collected the pile of rust from a garage a few streets away. Driving back, a slender, neatly dressed woman had collapsed on the pavement. Alissa’s mother, as he’d discovered later.

  When she’d recovered sufficiently to tell him she’d never fainted in her life before he’d driven her home, insisted on making her some tea, and stayed with her until her sister returned from work.

  The woman, Laura Brannan—and even then he hadn’t made the connection—had once been very lovely, but her frailty, her pallor, the sadness in her eyes, had worried him. On his way out he’d taken her sister aside. ‘I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I think you should persuade her to get a check-up.’

  ‘I can try. But she won’t take time off. If she’d trained for a proper career, instead of relying on some useless man, then she wouldn’t have to go out cleaning other people’s houses all day and offices half the night. And she wouldn’t get herself worn ragged.’

  Sister Fran was a man-hater, obviously. He’d said goodbye and put the incident out of his mind. But the next day, up a ladder, washing Nanny Briggs’ windows because Harry, though grateful for his offer to hold the fort had refused to let him loose on his customers until he’d seen what kind of a pig’s ear he made of the job, the woman who’d lingered in his mind for twelve months had stopped to thank him for coming to her mother’s aid.

  Seeing her again had sent him into a tailspin, made him speechless, but as soon as he’d got his head together he’d made up his mind. This time she wouldn’t get away. This time he wouldn’t be too busy to make the follow-up.

  That evening, for some reason he hadn’t worked out at the time, he’d put on old but clean jeans, topped by a faded T-shirt—the sort of rough and ready gear he wore around his country home while knocking in fenceposts or helping the full-time gardener—and walked the short distance to where he now knew she was staying with her mother, carrying a bunch of flowers. For Laura.

  And he had earned himself an hour of tea and chat.

  Laura’s pleasure in the flowers, her touching gratitude that he had remembered where she lived
, had stung his conscience—particularly when it had become obvious that she thought he was a window-cleaner, struggling to make a living.

  During that hour he had learned a couple of things: Alissa—or Allie, as she preferred to be called—would be staying in the area for a few weeks. And she didn’t want him to know how she earned her living because she had killed the conversation stone-dead when Laura had begun to say something about a fashion shoot.

  It was as if she didn’t want him to imagine the glamorous side of her life, to look at her with male speculation. But, if she had but known it, he’d found her even more loin-stirringly desirable in the inexpensive cotton skirt and sleeveless top she’d been wearing.

  The soft fabric had swayed against her lissom body as she’d walked, hinting at the tender curve of her breasts, the long and elegant line of her thighs. The feminine grace of her had brought a lump to his throat; he didn’t think he’d seen anything as beautiful as the way she moved.

  And he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from the delicacy of her bone structure in repose: the long, heavily lashed and fascinating deep blue eyes, the sensual curve of her unpainted mouth. Just looking at her had given him problems with certain parts of his anatomy, but he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away.

  He had also earned himself an invitation to supper the following evening. Though he’d seen the quick frown Allie had given her mother, her bored smile when he’d accepted. It hadn’t squashed him. He loved nothing better than a challenge. A challenge of any kind made the adrenalin flow. And he had walked back to 182 vowing complacently that before she knew what had hit her he’d be kissing the boredom from those sultry lips.

  ‘Do I take it, from your grumpy expression, that you haven’t got any further than taking tea with her mother?’ Nanny Briggs handed him his coffee, black and strong, just the way he liked it. He shook his head at the plate of biscuits she pushed over the low table towards him and wished she’d drop the subject.

  He ground his teeth when she didn’t. ‘Most evenings last week you popped out “to see how Mrs Brannan’s getting on” and came back with that grim, determined look on your face. You can’t argue with that!’

  He wasn’t. He’d taken up Laura’s invitation to supper with alacrity, sure he’d make progress in his pursuit of Allie. He’d done no such thing. On subsequent evenings when he’d ‘just dropped by’ his hopefully casual-seeming suggestions that Allie might join him in a walk by the river, a stroll downtown to pick up a Chinese takeaway, had been politely but firmly turned down.

  Her rejection had only fuelled his determination to change her mind, make her as hot for him as he was for her. Until last night.

  Last night Laura had informed him that Allie was back in London, and in her gentle, roundabout way had told him that she was sorry, really sorry, but he was wasting his time. Her daughter wasn’t interested in men.

  The implication had been plain.

  Alissa Brannan was gay.

  He had stumped back through the twilit streets blisteringly angry—more with himself for being such a twit than with Allie herself—and railroaded Harry into accepting him as a sleeping partner and a fat injection of cash.

  ‘Expansion’s the name of the game. Buy a respectable, reliable van, get your name and phone number on the sides, take on a school-leaver and train him up—a mere half of the enquiries I had to turn down last week because there simply wasn’t the time to fit them in would pay a lad’s wages. You’ll never do more than just scrape by if you don’t.’

  His accountant would swing things so that the in-flow of capital into Harry’s business didn’t dry up, and ensure that the elderly man never discovered that the money came out of Jethro’s own personal account. Nanny Briggs’ future would be more secure.

  That taken care of, and today Harry out inspecting the good-as-new van he’d seen on the forecourt when he’d taken his old one in for a clutch job, he was trying to rake up the energy and enthusiasm to take that deferred break, pack his bags and clear out.

  And forget Alissa Brannan.

  But Nanny Briggs had other ideas. She told him tartly, ‘You should tidy yourself up, Master Jethro. Wear something decent when you go calling. Take her some flowers and a nice box of chocolates.’

  Nanny telling him how to woo a lady was beyond bearing, and short of telling her to put a sock in it, that up until now he’d had no trouble getting women into his bed, and more than a little keeping them out of it, there seemed to be no stopping her.

  He’d have bought Allie a chocolate factory and a field full of flowers. He would have given her the moon! But, misguided sucker that he was, he’d stuck to the fiction of struggling to make a living. His self-admittedly cynical view of women had told him that his millions would make his pursuit, and her capitulation, a damn sight easier. But, blind fool that he was, he hadn’t wanted that. He’d wanted her to want him for himself, not for his wealth.

  That had been before he’d learned that she was gay. He felt like the world’s biggest fool.

  He swallowed the last of his coffee and snapped to his feet. He was out of here! Nanny, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, was fussing around the room, tweaking the net window drapes back into place, doubtlessly thinking up another snippet of advice on how to arrange his love life.

  He was about to announce his intention to collect his Jag, head for the hills, when Nanny’s voice rooted him to the spot. ‘Your pursuit doesn’t appear to be as one-sided as we thought it was. The young lady you’re interested in is about to ring the doorbell.’

  Allie had never felt this strung up before in her entire life. Ever since she’d turned the corner and seen Jethro’s old van parked outside 182 she’d been pacing up and down, trying to find the courage to face him.

  She’d meant to make it easy on herself, leave a message with his grandmother, ask him to call round after he’d finished work because she had a favour to ask him.

  Some favour!

  She knew he lived with his grandmother because she remembered asking him, over supper that night, if he lived locally. He’d said, ‘At the moment I’m staying with Nan—’ biting off the word, as if he were ashamed of having to live with a relative at his age, not being able to afford a place of his own.

  And she knew where his gran lived because that day when Allie had been driving her mother to the local supermarket in Fran’s car, Laura had put a hand on her arm and urged, ‘Do stop, Allie. There’s that nice young man who took me home after I fainted in the street. I know I didn’t thank him properly, and I’d like to do it now.’

  The little white-haired old lady who’d been standing at the foot of the ladder, issuing instructions, telling him to get right into the corners, had glowed with pride when Laura had explained what had happened and called her thanks up the ladder. Allie had added hers, because anyone who was kind to her mother got her vote, and the man on the receiving end had looked as if he’d gone into shock. It had been left to the old lady to agree that her Jethro had his heart in the right place, had been brought up to know what was what. They must excuse him for not coming down the ladder, she’d said, because he was new to the window-cleaning business, but a very quick learner.

  Allie had switched off at that point. Jethro had appeared unable to say a word for himself. He was obviously painfully shy, and probably not very bright. She had felt deeply sorry for him.

  There he’d been—in his early thirties, she guessed…up a ladder trying to learn how to be a window-cleaner when with his looks, that soft near-black hair, that deeply attractive, very masculine face, that perfect physique, he could earn himself a fortune as a male model.

  Gently she’d urged her mother away, to spare him any further embarrassment.

  Her opinions had done an abrupt turnaround when he’d called by with a huge bunch of flowers for her mother, relaxed and extremely self-assured. Every time he’d looked at her he’d eaten her with his eyes, and each time he’d tried to date her she’d turned him down,
and hoped he’d got the message that she wasn’t interested in what he had in mind.

  And now she was going to have to ask him to marry her!

  Her stomach lurched and began to ache. She wrapped her arms about her middle for comfort and tried to stand confidently at his front door.

  It would have been so much easier to leave a message. That would have given her loads more time to get herself together, work out what to say and how to say it. So why wasn’t he out on his rounds?

  Too lazy to get out of bed? Lost all his customers through incompetence? Or perhaps that awful old van had finally died.

  Whatever, he’d leap at the opportunity of earning himself a lump of cash. Wouldn’t he?

  She really had no option but to ask. She’d arrived back in Shrewsbury late last night, but not late enough, because Laura had still been up, watching an old movie on TV, so she’d had to explain what had been said when she’d visited Fabian’s solicitor. ‘Word for word,’ her mother had demanded.

  She hadn’t wanted to mention it until she’d got it sorted, or given up on the project. But she couldn’t lie to her mother; she could only lie to solicitors!

  The look of stunned happiness on the older woman’s face when she’d heard that her late brother-in-law had left Studley Manor to her daughter had pained Allie even more than the resigned defeat in the blue eyes when she’d explained about the condition.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ Laura had sighed. ‘He always had a cruel streak.’

  Allie had hugged her, more determined than ever to get her mother what she wanted: the lovely home she’d been pining for all these years. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone, and don’t be surprised by anything that happens. I think I know a way to get Studley back.’

  Easy enough to say when in the grip of powerful emotions, but a different thing entirely in the cold light of day.

  She had no option but to try. He could only say no. Straightening her body, she tucked a tendril of hair that had escaped from her no-nonsense ponytail behind her ear.