He clamped his jaw together and nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I meant.’
They’d be fools not to keep things strictly platonic between them; it would only complicate things if they didn’t.
Sex hadn’t even been on his mind when he’d made the suggestion. He’d been more concerned with protecting her from the press and keeping his own family out of the limelight.
He was thinking about sex now though.
That dress she was wearing was doing something unnerving to his senses. It accentuated her body in all the right places, making his blood race and his skin prickle as an urge to run his hands down it and trace her soft curves with his fingertips tugged at him.
Giving a small cough to clear the sudden tension in his throat, he gripped the handle of the door more tightly.
‘I’m sure we can outwardly project the image that we’re madly in love if we try hard enough,’ she said quietly.
He twisted to look at her again, but she was staring out of the window again, her face turned away from him.
Sighing, he sat back in his seat and watched the countryside whizzing past, wondering exactly what they were letting themselves in for here.
* * *
The Westwood ducal estate was one of the most impressive in the country. Emma had heard that whenever the family opened their doors to the public, which wasn’t often, they were so inundated with eager visitors there was gridlock in the roads around the estate for miles.
She would have been excited to have been invited to visit here under less stressful conditions, but as it was her stomach rolled with nerves as Jack’s driver drove the car up the oak-tree-lined road to the front of the formidable-looking gothic stately home, with its geometric towers interspersed with harsh spires of grey stone, and came to halt in front of the grand entrance.
Jack’s suggestion that they live together for the next couple of months had both terrified and electrified her.
The tense standoff at the bottom of the stairs earlier when he’d discovered that she wore her wedding ring around her neck seemed to have changed something between them. In that moment when he’d lifted it from around her neck she’d thought for a second he was going to kiss her. Her whole body had responded on a primitive level, her blood rushing through her veins and heating her skin in anticipation of the feel of his mouth on hers again after all this time.
The scary thing was, she’d wanted him to. So much.
Because then she’d know once and for all whether there was any way they could rekindle what they’d once had.
But he’d pulled away from her and the moment had disintegrated around them, taking any hope she might have had with it.
Until he’d just made the suggestion that they stay married, at least for a little while longer.
She could see that he was coming at it from a practical point of view, but, even so, she didn’t think he would have suggested it if he didn’t still care about her, at least a little bit.
Jack got out of the car and walked round to her side, opening her door and holding out his hand to her.
‘Shall we?’ Jack asked, his voice tinged with tension. Hearing that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with being here either gave her that little bit of determination she needed to swing her legs out of the car, put her hand into his and stand up with a grace and dignity that she summoned from the depths of her soul.
They were in this together now.
He squeezed her fingers gently, as if hearing her thoughts, sending goose bumps rushing up her arm from where his warm skin made contact with hers.
‘Okay. Are you ready?’ he asked.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she said, dredging up a tense smile for him.
‘Good. Remember, we’re the ones in control here, not them.’
She let out a nervous laugh. ‘If you say so.’
He nodded, his mouth twisting into a grim smile, and tugged gently on her hand, asking her to walk with him.
They’d barely made it halfway up the wide stone steps when the door was flung open and Jack’s mother appeared on the doorstep, her perfectly coiffed chignon wobbling a little in her haste to get to them.
‘Jack! Darling!’ She tripped nimbly down the steps to meet them, the pearls around her neck swinging merrily from side to side. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Taking his face in her hands, she drew him towards her for a kiss on each cheek, then turned to Emma, giving her an assessing glance. ‘It’s good to see you again, Emma, dear.’ The wary expression in the marchioness’s eyes made Emma think she wasn’t being entirely truthful about the ‘good’ part.
‘Come on in, we’re all in the drawing room.’
All? Emma mouthed at Jack with a worried frown as his mother walked regally back up the steps, leaving them to follow in her wake.
Jack just shrugged, looking as confused as she felt.
Emma had never been in this house before. It had belonged to Jack and Clare’s grandfather when she’d known them and she’d never been invited here. It was a breathtakingly impressive seat, with wide corridors filled with ancient paintings and artwork, leaning heavily on gold and marble to propagate the ridiculous wealth of the family.
‘We’re just through here,’ the marchioness called over her shoulder, her voice sounding a little more strained now they were about to walk into what was bound to be the close equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.
The room they walked into, with their hands still tightly entwined and their postures stiff, was positively cavernous, with a soaring ceiling painted with gaudy frescos of angels frolicking in the clouds. Emma held her breath, her eyes scanning the room quickly to take it all in before she was forced to concentrate solely on the people that sat stiffly on the sofas positioned around the grand gothic fireplace in the centre of the room.
Which was why it took her a good few seconds to realise that there was at least one other friendly face in the room.
‘Clare!’ she gasped, dropping Jack’s hand in her shock at seeing the woman she’d considered to be her best friend for most of the formative years of her life.
Clare stood up and walked towards them, her face breaking into a huge smile, a smile that flipped Emma’s stomach with the warm familiarity of it.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I happened to be visiting the olds and thought I’d stick around to greet my new sister-in-law. Or apparently not so new,’ her friend said, her lips twisting into a wry, quizzical smile.
‘It’s so good to see you,’ Emma said, burying her face in her friend’s curly auburn hair and breathing in the comfortingly floral scent of her. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered fiercely into Clare’s ear, pulling back to look into her face so her friend could see just how sincerely she meant that.
‘I’ve missed you too, Em,’ Clare said, her eyes glinting with tears.
‘Well, Jack,’ Clare said, turning to give her brother the same perplexed smile, ‘you’ve pulled some crazy stunts in your life, but I never thought getting secretly married to my best friend would be one of them.’
Jack smiled at her with a pinch in his brow as if trying to figure out how best to frame his answer.
‘How—? I mean, when—?’ Clare shook her head and took a breath. ‘I mean how did I not know about this? I’m beginning to worry I’ve been abducted by aliens and had six years’ worth of memories erased or something.’
A lead weight of guilt dropped into Emma’s stomach.
Jack advanced towards his sister and pulled her into a tight hug before releasing her to look her in the eye.
‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, Clare. I feel terrible about keeping you in the dark all this time.’
Emma put her hand on Clare’s other shoulder. ‘I’m sorry too, sweetie. I should have told you when it happened, but I—’ She looked down at the floor and s
hook her head. ‘I guess I got a bit carried away with the romance of it all and I had no idea how to explain my feelings for Jack to you. To be honest, I was terrified you’d hate me for falling for your brother. The last thing I meant to do was hurt you.’
‘Yes, yes, this is all very touching, but I’d like to hear how this all came about,’ said a deep, penetrating voice from the corner of the room.
Emma turned to see Jack’s father, Charles Westwood, Marquess of Harmiston, advancing towards her.
‘Emma,’ he said, giving her a curt nod.
She wondered for a second whether he expected her to drop into a curtsey.
Well, he could expect all he wanted, there was no way she was going to pander to him.
‘My Lord,’ she said, keeping her chin up and her back straight. ‘Thank you for welcoming me here today. I can imagine how upsetting it must have been for you to hear about Jack and I being married the way you did, and I apologise for that.’
Something flickered in the man’s eyes, but his expression remained impassive.
‘Are you going to tell us why it’s been kept such a secret for all this time?’ he asked, his tone strident now.
Before she could speak, Jack stepped up next to her to address his father.
‘As I mentioned on the phone, we started a relationship when Emma was seventeen and I was twenty, but we decided to keep it quiet at the time because we wanted time to explore it without our families sticking their noses into our business.’
Jack let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing.
‘Then when I got the offer from the States to go and work out there I decided I wanted Emma to go with me and the easiest way to make that happen was for us to get married.’
His father raised a censorious eyebrow and looked as though he was about to say something, but Jack ignored him and carried on speaking.
‘Unfortunately Emma’s father passed away right after the wedding ceremony so it became impossible for her to follow me out there and I’m sad to say our relationship drifted after that. In retrospect we realise we weren’t emotionally mature enough at the time to make it work then.’
She felt his arm slide around her shoulders and forced herself to relax into his hold, as a woman who felt loved would, despite the awareness that Jack must be struggling not to add that he actually believed she’d abandoned him.
‘We’ve stayed in contact over the years and since I’ve been back in England we’ve decided to reconcile our marriage,’ Jack continued, still not looking at her. Even though he looked outwardly relaxed she would swear she could feel the underlying tension in his hold on her.
To her surprise, Clare moved quickly towards them and wrapped her arms around her and Jack, dragging them all into an awkward group hug.
‘Well, I couldn’t be happier for you both. Honestly. I always thought you’d make a great couple. You were always so sparky together. And now there’s definitive proof that I’m always right,’ Clare said, grinning at them both.
Emma forced herself to grin back, her scalp feeling hot and tight as her friend’s misplaced enthusiasm caused a stream of discomfort to trickle through her.
She pushed the feeling away. Now wasn’t the time to feel guilty about what they were doing.
‘Well, now that’s all straightened out I suppose we can relax a little,’ the marchioness said in a rather brusque voice.
Clearly she didn’t share Clare’s joy at the news that she now had a waitress with a tarnished reputation for a daughter-in-law for the foreseeable future.
Jack’s father didn’t say anything, just looked at them with a disconcerting smile playing about his lips, as if he suspected there was more to it than they were telling him.
Shrewd man.
And a dangerous one. Emma could see now why Jack had wanted them to show a united front. Judging by the look of cold distrust in the marquess’s eyes, Emma imagined the man would happily feed her to the wolves, given half a chance.
Well, at least it was over with now and they could go back to London without the fear of Jack’s parents interfering in their relationship.
A loud ring of the doorbell made them all start in surprise.
‘Ah, that will be Perdita,’ the marchioness said, rising from her chair.
A moment later a deathly pale woman with a shock of white-blonde hair and the palest eyes Emma had ever seen was shown into the room by a butler, followed by a man with a camera slung around his neck.
‘Perdita is our good friend and a journalist from Babbler magazine,’ Jack’s mother announced to them all with a cool smile. ‘She’s going to do a lovely feature for us showing how invested we all are in your marriage and how excited we are about welcoming you into your place in our family, Emma.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHAT THE HELL is this?’ Emma heard Jack growl under his breath to his father as his mother tripped over to greet her friend with an exaggerated air kiss.
Emma knew exactly why he was so angry. The more fuss they made about being a happily married couple, the harder it would be to let the relationship dissolve without a lot more press attention.
‘Surely you don’t mind having people know how happy you are to be married to each other?’ his father said loudly with a glint of devilry in his eyes.
He had them trapped. There was no way they could refuse to do this without it looking suspect. Clearly Jack knew that too because he gave her an extra hard squeeze as if asking her to play along.
She turned to smile at him. ‘Of course we don’t mind, do we, darling?’ she said, hoping her expression relayed her understanding of the situation to him and her acceptance of it.
A whole conversation passed between them in that look and Jack finally nodded curtly and turned to the new additions to their group and said, ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’
‘We only have time for a couple of photos today if we’re going to squeeze you into the next issue, but I’ll come over to your house in a week or so and do a more in-depth interview for an “At home with the Earl and Countess of Redminster” feature,’ Perdita said in a gush of fawning enthusiasm. ‘For starters I’d like to get some lovely shots of the happy family together.’
Reluctantly, they allowed themselves to be herded into a tight group in front of the looming marble fireplace in the centre of the room and Emma found herself standing between the marquess and marchioness, pressed up tightly to Jack, with her back flat against his broad chest and his arms wrapped around her waist.
‘Love’s young dream!’ Perdita gushed, giving them an insipid smile that made Emma squirm inside.
Heat rushed through her as she felt Jack shift behind her, his arms tightening infinitesimally to press a little harder into her pelvis, only increasing the heavy pounding of her heart. The fresh, exotic scent of his aftershave mixed with his own unique scent enveloped her, making her head swim.
He’d always smelled good. More than good. In fact in her younger days after being with him she used to hold the clothes she’d been wearing up to her nose and breathe in his lingering scent. She’d not been able to get enough of it.
She still had one of his old sweaters at home that he’d loaned to her one day when they’d gone on a cold walk together, just days before they were married, which she’d deliberately not given back so she could sniff it at home like some kind of Jack junkie.
She remembered with a twang of nostalgia how full of hope she’d been that day, how excited about their future together. The intensity of her love for him had taken her breath away, robbed her of all common sense, made her dopey with happiness.
The day she’d married him had been the best day of her life—and the worst.
She could still remember the feeling of absolute horror and helplessness when she’d arrived home after their clandestine ma
rriage—her one and only rebellion in a life of respectful rule-following—ready to tell her parents that she was going to move to America to build a life with Jack there, only to find her mother prostrate on the sofa, her face a sickly white and her eyes wild with grief. She’d rushed to her, panicked by the look on her face, and her mother had told her in a broken voice filled with tears that her father was dead.
She’d spent the next few hours desperately trying to hold herself together for the sake of her mother, who had totally fallen apart by then, as if Emma’s appearance had released her from the responsibilities of dealing with her husband’s death.
In her state of shock she’d ignored the calls on her mobile from Jack, who had been waiting impatiently for her to meet him in the hotel room they’d booked, where they had been going to celebrate their wedding night together.
Eventually she’d called him, finding him in a state of frantic worry, and explained what had happened, feeling as though she was looking down at herself from above. Jack had wanted to come over and be with her, to help in some way, but she’d told him no, that it would only distress her mother more to have him in the house and that she didn’t want to have to explain his presence there. She wasn’t going to tell her they were married, it wasn’t the right time.
That moment was the point at which their relationship had begun to unravel. She recognised it now, in a flash of clarity. She’d pushed him away, rejecting his love and support, and it had hurt him more deeply than she’d realised at the time.
So it was absolute torture, standing there enfolded in his arms once again, but this time having to fake their love for the camera so that strangers could gawp at their lives as if it was entertainment.
If only her father hadn’t died, maybe they would have still been blissfully happy together today.
If only...
But there was no point in wishing she could change the past. It was futile and a waste of energy. Instead she needed to look to the future with positivity and have faith that she’d find happiness again there.
‘Ooh, that’s a lovely one,’ Perdita purred from the other side of the room as her photographer snapped another shot and it appeared on the screen of a laptop Emma had seen him toying with earlier.
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