The Forbidden Innocent

by Sharon Kendrick

  No. Ashley’s lips tightened. She didn’t believe that—not for a minute. He wasn’t the kind of man to do something like that—some bone-deep instinct told her that, though she couldn’t have said why. People talked because they loved to create a scandal. And if they wanted to gossip because they suspected that a lowly secretary was having an affair with the rich and aristocratic Jack Marchant—then let them. Perhaps it might even do them both a favour. Mightn’t it be better if it all came out into the open—so that they wouldn’t have to keep behaving in this furtive way?

  When he came back from London, she would talk to him about it. Tell him that she loved him but was uneasy about all this secrecy—and hope that he agreed with her.

  He was due in at six and she prepared for his return in a high state of excitement. She spent ages drying her hair and she left it loose—so that it fell in a shining caramel curtain over her shoulders. Then she put on a simple cream woollen dress, which hugged at hip and breast. Her only adornment was her diamond ring—and its icy brilliance sparkled on her finger.

  She heard his key in the door and rushed to meet him. Flakes of snow clung to his raven hair and his rugged face looked taut and strained, she thought. ‘Jack,’ she said softly.

  ‘Did you miss me?’ he growled.

  ‘Desperately.’

  He gave a low and unsteady laugh. When he’d been away he had half wondered if he had been imagining the solace and the passion he had found in her arms. But one moment in her company made him realise that it was all true. ‘Then come here and kiss me.’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  The kiss became protracted.

  ‘I’ve missed you, too,’ he groaned.

  ‘Show me how much,’ she whispered.

  He took her upstairs and made love to her on the bed where she’d slept alone during his absence. But he seemed pent-up, she thought as he pulled the clothes from her body with fingers which were unsteady. And Ashley clung to him with a fierce fervour as he lowered his head and began to kiss her.

  ‘Was it a good trip?’ she questioned much later, when they had dressed again and were sitting on the rug in front of the library fire, drinking red wine and feeding each other peanuts.

  For a moment Jack said nothing as he looked down into her wide-spaced green eyes. Was now the moment to tell her about the long and uncomfortable meeting he’d had with his lawyer—and all the obstacles which lay ahead of them? But at least he had discovered that there was a way out. A way forward. He pulled her into his arms. ‘It was a useful trip.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He was going to have to tell her, Jack realised as he recognised that she had already proved her worth. Hadn’t her reluctance to pry into his life shown him that he could trust her—and that maybe now was the time to show her just how much? He smoothed the soft and newly washed hair away from her face as he came up against a cold wall of reluctance. Couldn’t it wait until morning—when he had spent one last and carefree night in her arms? Or was that just putting off the inevitable?

  ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about, Ashley—’

  The heaviness of his tone made her feel a sudden quickening beat of misgiving but just as Ashley began to frame her question the doorbell rang and so she replaced it with another one.

  ‘Who on earth’s that at this time of night?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he growled. ‘Let’s just ignore it.’

  They sat in silence for a moment while they waited for the caller to go away, but after a short pause the ringing began again.

  Uncomfortably, Ashley shifted on the mat. ‘It might be important.’

  ‘In that case, then why didn’t they telephone first?’

  With echoing persistence, the doorbell sounded through the house and Ashley bit her lip. ‘We’ll have to answer it, Jack. They can see the lights on and must know we’re in. Look, I’ll go and take a message and get rid of them.’

  He let her go and afterwards he thought that was the stupidest thing he had ever done. In bare feet, her journey through the house was quiet but he heard the heavy door creaking open and then the sound of low voices.

  Now he heard footsteps—heavy and deliberate. And then the sight of Ashley, white-faced with confusion as she led in a man with tanned skin, a too-light suit and an expression of simmering fury.

  Jack rose to his feet and his body tensed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘So here you are, Marchant—long time no see,’ interrupted the man, in a low American accent. ‘Seems like I’m interrupting something. Seems like the rumours I heard were all true. You should be careful if you start leading a double life, Jack—because word gets around. The internet’s made that kind of easy. Surely you know that?’ His mouth curved into an odd smile as he looked around. ‘Cosy little love nest you’ve got,’ he observed. ‘I knew you were rich, of course, but it’s always interesting to get confirmation.’

  By the shafts of his thighs, Jack’s hands curled into tight fists. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You know damned well what I want.’ The man’s eyes flicked to Ashley. ‘Though maybe the little lady doesn’t. Are you going to tell her, or am I?’

  ‘T-tell me what?’ demanded Ashley, her voice shaking as some sixth sense seemed to tell her that her happy new world was about to come crashing down around her.

  The man’s gaze alighted on the diamond ring she wore. ‘Has Jack asked you to marry him?’ he drawled. ‘Because if he has—you might be advised to see a lawyer before you give him your answer.’

  ‘I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ashley, her heart racing so fast that the sound of the man’s voice sounded distorted.

  ‘Then maybe I should enlighten you. You see, your lover is already married, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘To my sister. And there’s no way you can become Mrs Marchant when she still has that title. Bigamy might be rare these days but it’s still a pretty big no-no where society is concerned.’

  For the first time, Ashley looked at Jack properly, her heart crashing against her ribcage, not wanting to believe a word this intruder had said. And then her hopes died as she realised it was. For the truth was written on every pore of his face—from the pain which clouded the brilliant black eyes to the tight, hard line of his mouth.

  And suddenly everything clicked into place. The gossip in the village. Christine’s awkwardness—did Christine know? But most of all. Jack’s own inexplicable desire for secrecy. Tell a woman you loved her and that you wanted to marry her and then tell her that it was a big secret. She hadn’t known why and she’d been too scared to dig deep and now she knew exactly why he had made that demand.

  Jack Marchant was already married!

  Somehow she began to move on legs which were threatening to buckle beneath her. She made her way towards the door—aware of nothing other than the terrible pain in her heart and an overpowering sense of shock and betrayal.

  He had lied and cheated his way into her arms! Coldbloodedly mounted a slow seduction which couldn’t fail to be anything other than successful. He had taken her virginity and she had given it to him, gladly—because she had loved him. But more than that, she had dared to trust him—she who found it hard to trust anyone. She had given Jack her heart, and he had crushed it in his fist as if it was of no consequence!

  Without another look, she passed the man with the American accent and her teeth were chattering as she made her way upstairs, her feet stumbling over the stairs which led up to her room. Once inside, she locked the door, resting her head against its surface, her shock and her distress so great that she slid to her knees on the floor.

  And, burying her face in her trembling hands, she began to sob as if her heart were breaking.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘ASHLEY? Will you please open this door?’

  From behind its protective wooden sanctuary, Ashley heard the sound of Jack’s voice. That was the voice she had once loved—which could veer between sa
rcasm and tenderness and which made her senses come to life. And wasn’t the pitiful truth that, despite what he had told her, nothing had changed. She loved him still and she suspected she always would. Even his unbelievable betrayal was not, it seemed, enough to extinguish the feelings she had for him. Once before he had stood behind her door and made the very same request that she open it. But that time she had not locked it—and that time she had not been in deep enough to have her heart broken into a million pieces. Now she was—and she had only her own stupid self to blame.

  ‘Ashley—for God’s sake, will you at least answer me—just to let me know that you’re okay?’ ‘What do you want me to say, Jack?’ ‘I don’t care what you say, just say something. Call me every name under the sun if it will make you feel better.’

  She gave a bitter laugh. He thought that would make her feel better? ‘What good would that do?’ she questioned tiredly.

  ‘Look, I don’t want to have this conversation with a door between us, Ashley. So will you open it… please? I’m not going to go away until you do—and if you persist in locking me out then I just may be tempted to kick the damned thing open.’

  Would he have done that? Ashley didn’t know—or, rather, she didn’t feel in any fit position to judge what he would or wouldn’t do. Not any more. Had she known him at all, she wondered—or had the Jack she had fallen in love with been nothing but a figment of her own imagination? Had she seen only what she’d wanted to see—while blinding herself to the truth? He was a married man, she reminded herself bitterly. He already had a wife and yet he had blithely been proposing that he share his future with her. He had spun her a load of romantic fantasies—and she had fallen under his spell and accepted them as reality.

  But he was right. She was going to have to face him some time—and either she endured a long and sleepless night or she had it out with him now. And besides, Christine would be here in the morning—and how could they possibly discuss it then? No wonder he had been so adamant he wanted to keep the whole affair a secret, she thought. Had Christine known of his marital state—and if she had, then why had she never mentioned it to her before?

  Because she wouldn’t have dared. Christine would have known as a housekeeper that it would be overstepping the mark to question her employer’s morality with his lover. Jack held all the power, Ashley realised. He could do what the hell he wanted—simply because of who he was. He held it even now. open the door or he would be tempted to kick it down. Wasn’t that just another example of the arrogant aristocrat wanting his own way?

  Slowly, she opened the door and saw him standing there, taken aback by the haunted look which had turned his face to a tortured mask—but she tried to harden her heart against it. She saw him glance over her shoulder to the bed behind her and a muscle tightened at his jaw.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ he said abruptly.

  Once she might have teased him about the bed and the temptation it offered—but those days were gone.

  ‘No, we can’t,’ she agreed flatly.

  ‘Put on something warm and come downstairs. You look half frozen.’

  She glanced down at her goose-bumped arms. She was cold—freezing cold, come to think of it—and she hadn’t even noticed. ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she said.

  For a moment he seemed to hesitate, and that was so unlike the Jack she knew—because when did he ever hesitate about anything?

  ‘Okay—but don’t be long,’ he said tersely.

  Pulling a thick sweater on over the cream dress she had worn for his homecoming, she went downstairs to where Jack had lit the fire. He looked up as she walked in.

  ‘Please sit down, Ashley.’

  Obediently, she sank down onto one of the velvet chairs, watching like a mute observer as he walked over to the drinks trolley, splashed some brandy into a glass and came back and handed it to her.

  ‘I don’t like brandy.’

  ‘Drink it, Ashley,’ he said fiercely. ‘Your face is so white I’m wondering whether there’s any blood left in your veins.’

  She felt bloodless, too—as if all the vibrant life of earlier had left her, never to return again. But she sipped the brandy and felt some of the warmth return.

  He stared at her as she drank and she was aware of that burning gaze—as if he was committing her to memory. And maybe she was doing the same as she studied him back—filing away the image of that beloved face so that in some distant future she might be able to take it out and look at it without her heart breaking into tiny pieces.

  His face was still dark and his voice distorted with some kind of painful emotion as he spoke. ‘So? No questions, Ashley? No accusations? No rightful fury hurled at me for my deception?’

  Fury? Didn’t he realise that fury would be a preferable alternative to this terrible tearing pain which was tearing at her heart? ‘What would be the point? It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Don’t you want to hear my story?’

  ‘Why, will it change the facts, Jack? That you had a wife? Have a wife,’ she corrected painfully. ‘It’s usually something a man mentions to a woman—especially when he tells her he loves her and wants to marry her.’

  ‘Shall I tell you about my wife, Ashley? Shall I?’ he demanded. He was fired up now, a muscle working furiously in his cheek as he stood in front of the fire—so that the flare of the orange flames flickered behind him. ‘You know those bad dreams I sometimes have.’

  ‘The ones which used to make you pace the corridors?’ she questioned shakily. ‘The ones you never wanted to discuss?’ That had been something else he had kept locked away from her, she thought, realising that maybe she’d never known him at all. Just thought she had.

  ‘I didn’t want to discuss them because the past was something I wanted to forget—just as you prefer to forget yours. When I was with you, all I was concerned about was the present.’

  But the past affected the present, Ashley realised as she stared at him. ‘When did the dreams start?’

  ‘Soon after I was discharged from the army, when I first returned to civilian life. At first, I barely slept a wink. I couldn’t get used to being in a bed. I felt caged by four walls. I thought I would never know peace again. I was shell-shocked. Literally.’

  His voice tailed off and Ashley couldn’t help her heart’s automatic leap of sympathy as she saw the tortured expression on his face. But his war record is not the thing in question here, she told herself fiercely. His marriage is.

  ‘The dreams started to come nightly,’ he continued. ‘With cruel clarity they replayed scenes straight from hell—which took me straight back to the war zone. They spilled over into my days and I couldn’t seem to settle to anything. Apparently, it’s not an uncommon scenario for military personnel who’ve been engaged in active combat. I had a manager running the estates here and no pressing money worries which tied me to any one place. I’d bought some real estate in America before I’d taken up my commission and so I decided to combine a post-service holiday to Santa Barbara with a look at some of my properties there—before I decided what I wanted to do with my future.’

  So far so good, Ashley thought as she put her empty brandy glass down, but she didn’t risk herself to speak. How could she when she knew what he was about to tell her?

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen pictures of Santa Barbara?’ he questioned. ‘It’s an idyllic little place—as if somebody from Central Casting had gone there and slapped down a perfect beach town on the west coast of the United States. The ocean is amazing and the vegetation was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Blossom trees grow side by side with lush and exotic plants. Every blade on every lawn is clipped and every street is clean. It was warm and it was beautiful and I rented a house on a place called Hope Ranch—and the name seemed somehow symbolic after everything I’d been through. I could see ocean and mountains from my windows and there was a pool where I could swim every morning before breakfast.’

 
; He sounded as if he were quoting from a travel brochure, thought Ashley—but still she said nothing.

  ‘To some extent, it worked. The rest and the beauty helped heal me but I guess deep down I was lonely and my experiences had left me craving company, and comfort. There was a realty agent who was showing me some of my properties and she happened to be blonde, and fun. For a while she was able to make me forget the horrors I’d seen, and, well, we became… close.’ He sighed. ‘It should never have been anything more than an affair—but somehow it didn’t quite work out that way. Because one day Kelly announced she was pregnant.’

  Ashley bit back a gasp of horror. Did the story of his past have even greater ramifications than she’d thought? Did Jack also have a child?

  ‘So we married,’ he continued, ignoring the blanched expression on her face—unwilling to halt the painful telling of his story in case he couldn’t bring himself to start again. ‘Only it turned out that the pregnancy wasn’t real. It was a classic case of entrapment, only I was still too blitzed to have seen through it—and too much of a gentleman to ask to see the test results. But we were married and I was at an age to start thinking about settling down and so I thought… maybe this can work. And then, I have to make it work. Pride made me want my marriage to be a success. I gave it my best shot—I really did—but we were completely unsuited. We wanted different things out of life. Kelly liked spending my money, going to glitzy parties and flying from city to city. The life she craved was just one big adult playground, and that wasn’t me at all. I began to miss my home—the emptiness of the moors and the low English skies. I couldn’t see myself settling in the States and she took one look at a photo of Blackwood and refused to ever set foot in the place.’

  ‘So what happened?’ breathed Ashley.

  ‘I broached the subject of a separation and that’s when she started making astronomical alimony demands. Crazy stuff.’ He gave a hollow kind of laugh. ‘She wanted millions of dollars for a marriage which had lasted less than six months. I told her that while I would be fair, I had no intention of being stitched up. We were driving back towards Hope Ranch one day when she lost her temper and suddenly started hitting at me, and when that had no effect—she tried to grab the steering wheel.’