Mistress For Hire (Harlequin Presents)

by Angela Devine

  ‘Come in and get settled,’ he ordered. ‘My housekeeper usually leaves by three o’clock, but I can phone her at her cottage if there’s anything you need.’

  Gazing around with barely concealed curiosity, Lisa followed him through the French doors into a large room furnished with deep leather couches and imposing mahogany bookcases crammed with books. Her reflection glanced at her easily from the huge, gilt mirror above the carved mantelpiece. She felt like an impostor, a confidence trickster, someone who had lied her way into this place and was now at a loss to know what to do. Matt’s reflection suddenly joined her in the mirror, but he looked completely self-assured. Mocking, arrogant, totally in control of the situation.

  ‘I suppose you’d like me to show you over the house,’ he suggested. ‘After all, it will be your home if you marry Tim.’

  A creepy feeling of unreality made Lisa’s skin rise in goose bumps. This whole ridiculous game was becoming far too much for her to handle. Illusion and reality blurred for an instant as she stared at the silvery glass. For one wild moment she did picture herself living here, not with Tim, but with Matt….

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed in an unnaturally loud voice, turning away from the mirror and breaking the spell. ‘No…thank you. That won’t be necessary. Anyway…I suppose Tim will want to do it when he comes.’

  Matt shrugged. ‘Just as you like. I’ll show you to your room at any rate.’

  Matt had just ushered her into a beautifully decorated bedroom with a half tester bed and flower-sprigged green and white wallpaper when the telephone rang. Suppressing an urge to snatch at it, Lisa stood watching hopefully as Matt picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello? Yes, sure. About an hour?’

  ‘Is it Tim?’ she whispered.

  He shook his head, spoke a few more cryptic sentences and replaced the receiver.

  ‘No. It’s my farm manager, Ron Barwick. I hope you’ll excuse me for an hour or so. There’s some urgent business I must deal with. Just make yourself at home until I come back.’

  Left alone, Lisa sat down on the bed and groaned. This is worse than final exams, she thought. I can’t stand too much more of it. When is Tim going to arrive? A sudden inspiration struck her and she reached for the telephone. If she knew the flight arrival times, at least she could calculate when he should reach the farm. With shaking fingers, she dialled.

  ‘Arriving four-twenty, six-twenty and ten o’clock? Thank you.’ She put down the receiver and frowned thoughtfully as she looked at her watch. Almost four-thirty, but the drive from the airport took an hour and a half. With luck Tim should be here by six o’clock and she could find some way to leave!

  Six o’clock came and went. She and Matt were drinking sherry at the time and he seemed quite unconscious of the way her gaze kept straying to her watch. Or of the eagerness with which she jumped to her feet when the sound of a car engine came up the dirt road…and continued straight past the entrance to the homestead. At eight o’clock, when she began to tense in readiness for the next likely arrival, he was equally calm, offering her a second helping of beef stew or some apple pie with cream. Only at nearly midnight, when they were sitting in the living room gazing into the glowing orange flames at the heart of the fire, did he turn to her with a pitying smile.

  ‘I know this must be a terrible blow to you, Lisa,’ he murmured. ‘But isn’t it time to admit that your fiancé is not coming?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I’D LIKE to hit you,’ snapped Lisa, annoyed by his gloating tone.

  ‘Why?’ he asked mildly. ‘For stating the truth? It seems pretty obvious now that Tim wasn’t nearly so deeply entangled as you hoped if he’s prepared to run off and leave you. So why don’t you just call it quits and break the engagement?’

  Lisa’s eyes flashed. Even though the engagement had never existed, except as a fantasy, she couldn’t bear to let Matt have the satisfaction of feeling he had won. Instead she hit back.

  ‘No,’ she flared. ‘If anybody’s going to persuade me to do that, it will be Tim, not you. Still, if my presence is embarrassing to you, I’ll be happy to leave on the first flight tomorrow.’

  Matt seemed to undergo a disconcertingly swift change of mood. His dark eyebrows drew together in a thoughtful frown and he suddenly shook his head.

  ‘Look,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, Lisa. It’s entirely possible that you and I got off on the wrong foot and, if so, it could be my fault. But I don’t want you to leave because of it.’ He sighed and looked down at his fingernails. ‘You’ve been accusing me of not taking enough interest in Tim, and perhaps you’re right. It could be that this marriage with you will be exactly what he needs. I know you don’t love him, but love isn’t the only basis for a good marriage. Affection can be important, too, and you did say you were fond of him. Well, if you do decide to go ahead with it, I suppose I’ll just have to wish you all the luck in the world.’

  Lisa was taken aback by Matt’s sudden change of attitude. Suddenly he sounded so nice, so decent, so caring that a lump rose in her throat and she surreptitiously reached for her handkerchief and blew her nose. It made her feel so guilty to hear him talk like this that she hovered on the verge of confessing everything. Then Matt continued.

  ‘I think you should stay on here. After all, if you and I are going to be related, we should get to know each other. It’s really our duty to try to be friends.’

  ‘Friends?’ demanded Lisa suspiciously. Suddenly warning bells seemed to be clamouring in her head. Bells that shrieked alarm, danger, red alert. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean that you’re going to…going to—’

  ‘Proposition you again?’ asked Matt in a shocked voice. ‘Lisa, you’re being too hard on me. Besides, if I did a thing like that, you’d know what to say to me, wouldn’t you?’

  He took a few lazy, catlike paces across the floor and stood gazing down at her with an unfathomable expression. Her heart began to race and she felt breathless, on the point of suffocating. His nearness, the spicy, masculine smell of him were making her head swim. For one crazy moment she wanted to fling herself into his arms and feel that powerful, masculine grip tighten around her and let him kiss her, savagely, thrillingly, as he had kissed her at the State Theatre. Nervously she stepped back a pace and then her head jerked up and her eyes flashed fire.

  ‘You can bet your life I’d know what to tell you,’ she hissed.

  ‘Good. Then you’re in no danger,’ he murmured. ‘You can just stay here and enjoy painting the scenery and planning out your married life. Or don’t you have the guts to stay?’

  Earlier in the evening, Lisa had been sure of only one thing. That she wanted to get away from this place and this man at any cost. But now she found the old childhood taunt was as inflammatory as ever. Go on, I dare you! A hot flame of rage surged through her and made her eyes sparkle angrily as she looked at Matt.

  ‘Yes, I have got the guts to do it!’ she retorted. ‘Provided you’ve got the decency not to take advantage of me while I’m under your roof.’

  ‘Take advantage of you? Now there’s an antiquated phrase. But don’t worry, sweetheart. There’s no question of my taking advantage of you. Anything that happens between us will happen with your full consent.’

  Lisa awoke the next morning feeling much as she had felt before her first overseas trip when she was twenty years old. That same simmering mixture of excitement and apprehension was churning her stomach. But why? She wasn’t about to launch herself into the unknown right now. Or was she? All the turbulent emotions of the previous evening came flooding back to her and she caught her breath. Was she crazy to have accepted Matt’s challenge to stay here on the farm? And why had she accepted? Perhaps because she was naturally rash and impulsive? Or perhaps because the landscapes on this peninsula really did cry out to be painted. Or perhaps because Matt Lansdon intrigued her so much that she couldn’t bear to walk out of his life without getting to know just a little more about him….

/>   You’re playing with fire, Lisa! she warned herself, as she flung back the patchwork quilt and climbed out of bed. He’s not the kind of man you can play games with—you’ll wind up getting hurt. Look at what happened with Saul Oakley. Her thoughts went to the producer at the small, experimental theatre in upstate New York where she had spent an unforgettable summer four years ago. The image of Saul’s lean, saturnine face with the long creases in the cheeks and the slow, devastating smile flashed before her. She waited for the stab of pain that always accompanied the memory in the past, but for some reason it didn’t come. Instead she felt a flare of exasperation. Saul really was a manipulative brute, she thought irritably. The way he used to tell me that I was a really special person and that my performances on stage were so amazingly fresh and moving! I can’t believe that I swallowed all his flattery and went to bed with him! How could I have been such a fool? But I really thought he loved me. And all the time he had a wife and two children back in Boston. Well, I’m not a gullible twenty-one-year-old any more, so Matt Lansdon had better not try any of those smooth-talking tricks on me!

  Yet when she came down to breakfast, Matt showed no sign of even looking at her, much less playing tricks on her. He was sitting at the head of the vast mahogany table in the dining room, frowning thoughtfully at the financial pages of a newspaper. His only acknowledgment of her presence was a curt grunt and a vague wave of the hand at the sideboard where several silver chafing dishes stood over blue-flamed spirit lamps.

  ‘Help yourself to some breakfast,’ he ordered. ‘I have to make a phone call.’

  Lisa felt rather piqued as she lifted the covers from the dishes, revealing an array of sausages, bacon, grilled tomatoes, fried bread and scrambled eggs. It wasn’t that she wanted him to notice her new jade green slacks and blouse, she told herself hastily, just that she thought he was very rude to grunt at people. As she took her place at the side of the table, she stole a glance at Matt. He was wearing an open-necked blue checked shirt, rolled up to the elbows, and fawn moleskin trousers. With his stern jaw, narrowed eyes and tanned, muscular body he looked as if he had just come inside after riding hundreds of miles on the range. But his conversation was not about cattle, it was about finance. He scowled at the phone in his left hand and rapped out a set of incomprehensible figures. At last with an approving nod, he set down the receiver and put the phone back on the sideboard.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, looking at Lisa for the first time. ‘I had to catch my money market dealer. Eleven o’clock money, you know.’

  Lisa blinked. ‘Oh,’ she said in a baffled voice.

  Matt grinned suddenly.

  ‘I’ll explain it to you one of these days,’ he promised. ‘In the meantime, take it from me that you can make a lot of money by making the right phone calls before eleven. Now why don’t you eat your breakfast and then we’ll do our little tour of the peninsula.’

  It was a fine day outside, but Lisa was too absorbed in her turbulent responses to take much notice of the new experiences that were assailing her. She was only dimly aware of her surroundings. The clean, aromatic scent of the air as they emerged from the house, the sound of magpies warbling in the trees, the jade green seas crashing on the beaches, the glossy stands of eucalyptus trees with their red-tipped new growth barely penetrated her consciousness. All her senses were focused far too acutely on the powerful stranger who sat beside her, guiding the car over the rough roads with deceptive ease and occasionally casting her sly, sideways glances. What was he thinking? Why was he looking at her with that amused, penetrating scrutiny? As they drove through the tiny village of Nubeena, Lisa was suddenly startled out of her speculation by the sight of a large mailbox near the roadside with the name Spencer written on it in capital letters.

  ‘Is that Andrea’s house?’ she blurted out before she could stop herself.

  ‘Yes.’

  Matt’s face took on a shut, secretive expression, and his clipped tone did not invite any further questions.

  ‘I thought we’d go to Remarkable Cave first,’ he said after a long pause. ‘And after that we can visit the convict ruins at Port Arthur.’

  Lisa’s feelings were in turmoil as she climbed out of the car at the cliff top overlooking Remarkable Cave. Whatever was going on between Matt and Andrea, it was none of her business. So why should it upset her so much? Why did she feel this bewildering surge of resentment, jealousy and compassion? Why did she feel so sorry for Andrea and Justin and at the same time wish that they had never existed? She scowled at Matt as he came around the front of the car to join her.

  ‘Are you wearing flat heels?’ he asked. ‘Good. You don’t suffer from vertigo, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’ll go ahead of you down the stairs just in case. It’s a long fall to the foot of the cliff.’

  Lisa saw what he meant when she followed him across the road to the start of the track. Dense flowering bushes hung over the path and it gave her an eerie feeling of solitude to realize that there were no other human beings in sight. With one of the abrupt changes of weather that seemed so characteristic of this island, the earlier sunshine had given way to scudding, charcoal grey clouds. The hills looked bleak and lonely, and far below the hidden sea moaned and thundered on the rocks. Lizards scuttled beneath their feet as they picked their way down the weathered wooden stairs, twisting and turning in a series of landings. Suddenly the cove came into view beneath them and Lisa saw that there was a small, rock-strewn beach reached by a sea cave through which the water came surging down a long, dark tunnel. Cautiously she followed Matt down the last flight of stairs onto the rocky beach and looked around her. Here the hiss and suck of the waves was almost deafening with the noise echoing back along the tunnel that led to the open sea. As a painter, she was intrigued by the atmosphere of the place. There was something eerie, almost ominous about it, with the low grinding noise of the rocks being rolled back by the pounding waves, the grey fleeting clouds overhead and the lonely cry of a sea bird wheeling above the sheer cliffs. Yet somehow Matt’s presence reassured her. If anything went wrong, she thought, he would take care of me. He’d even carry me up that steep staircase if I was hurt. She gazed at his muscular physique, his narrowed blue eyes and the stern set of his jaw and felt an odd, pleasurable flutter deep inside her. Yes, Matt Lansdon was the kind of man you could rely on. Then the fluttering sensation was followed by a deep ache, as if a cold hand had clutched her heart. Andrea Spencer hadn’t been able to rely on him, had she?

  ‘Seen enough?’ asked Matt.

  She nodded silently and made her way across the smooth silver stones that littered the beach. As she climbed up the endless staircase towards the road, she was very careful not to slip or stumble. She didn’t want to give Matt Lansdon any excuse for carrying her! Her breath was coming in deep burning gulps and her legs were aching when at last they came out on to the cliff top. Lisa paused for a moment, inhaling the mingled scents of aromatic leaves and cool, salt air.

  ‘Whew!’ she gasped. ‘I’d love a cup of tea.’

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ said Matt in amusement. ‘I’ll get you one.’

  He went to the car and returned with a silver Thermos flask and two china mugs.

  ‘Hold these,’ he ordered as he unscrewed the flask.

  Lisa gave an involuntary exclamation of delight as she sipped the sweet, fragrant lemon-scented tea.

  ‘Oh, just the way I like it. How did you know?’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult. I noticed what you ordered on the plane.’

  ‘That was thoughtful of you.’

  She flashed him a troubled look as she took another sip of the hot, sweet tea. Yes, it had been thoughtful of him, but perversely she wished he hadn’t bothered. His attentiveness to her comfort disturbed her. She knew perfectly well that he was hard and tough and ruthless and it only confused her to find that he was considerate, as well. A renewed sense of misgiving overtook her. Why had Matt asked her to stay on her
e? She couldn’t believe his glib explanation that they ought to get to know each other because they were soon going to be relatives! Wasn’t it far more likely that he simply intended to try to seduce her? Hastily she gulped down the last of the tea and handed back the empty cup with a despairing expression as if she had just drained a poison chalice. Matt’s eyes met hers and something sparked between them, something that made her shiver. For a moment she thought he was going to reach out and take her in his arms and she almost wished that he would try to kiss her, so that she could have the satisfaction of hating him, of knowing what he was after. But he didn’t. He simply took the cup from her fingers and gave her an odd, twisted smile.

  ‘I like that green outfit,’ he said in an offhand tone. ‘The colour suits you.’

  Then he turned back to the car. Lisa’s senses were clamouring as they drove towards Port Arthur. If Matt had touched her, what would she have done? Would she have made some sarcastic remark about Andrea? Or would she have let him go ahead and kiss her, despising him as he did so and despising herself for allowing it? Or would she have flung caution to the winds and responded passionately, just as she had done in the lift the night before last? Not caring whether he was reliable or sincere but caring only that he made her burn with desire in a way that she had never experienced before? She glanced across at him and shuddered. I must have been mad to stay on there, she thought despairingly. I’ve never felt like this about a man before. Never. Never! But I don’t trust Matt Lansdon as far as I can throw him. I must get away from him.

  ‘Do you think Tim will arrive today?’ she asked in a high, nervous voice.

  Matt shrugged indifferently.

  ‘Perhaps. We can go home and check once you’ve seen Port Arthur.’

  The sun had come out again by the time they drove down the winding road between the old sandstone ruins, but Lisa found it hard to keep her mind on the vista of blue sea, green rolling lawns and abandoned buildings. And, in spite of her claim that she wanted to draw landscapes, the only sketch she did was not of a landscape at all. When Matt produced a hamper and began unpacking the excellent picnic provided by his housekeeper, Lisa reached into her bag for her sketchpad, and her pencil flew across the paper. Yes, there he was, captured to the life—the tense, thoughtful stance, the brooding eyebrows, the hint of danger in the narrowed eyes, the tough, ironic mouth. Suddenly Matt’s lean, brown fingers plucked the pad out of her hand.