by Miranda Lee
It was obvious Henry feared as much. And he would know the nature of the beast better than herself.
Marina’s emotions swung from a breathtakingly intoxicating excitement over such a prospect to an acute disappointment in the man she’d thought perfect. Perhaps she should not have put him on such a pedestal. After all, he was a human being, not a saint. A man, not a machine.
‘But surely Lady Tiffany would like to meet Miss Marina,’ Henry persisted.
With this reminder of James’s intended, Marina decided with more reluctance than she would have liked to admit that she could not possibly be a party to any potentially sordid sexual games, if that was what His Lordship had in mind.
‘Yes, and I’d like to meet her,’ she tripped out brightly. ‘Henry tells me you and this Lady Tiffany are getting engaged shortly, James.’
There was no doubting that His Lordship glared at his valet at this piece of news. But only for a second. Just as swiftly he laughed, but when he looked back at Marina, his expression was wry.
‘You did say people liked to tell you things, didn’t you? Believe me when I say it’s not like Henry to gossip so. What will you tell her next, I wonder?’ This with another caustic glance the valet’s way.
‘Possibly that you’re the best Earl of Winterborne in a hundred years,’ Henry volunteered, with a po-faced expression. ‘That you’re a good man, with a great sense of responsibility, loyalty and tradition. And that you love your niece’s child, Rebecca, as if she were your own daughter and would do anything to make her future a lot happier than her past.’
‘My, my, Henry. Do you think any mortal man could live up to such a glowing testimonial?’
‘I think you’ll try, My Lord.’
James nodded slowly up and down, a rueful smile pulling at his mouth. ‘You are a sneaky old man, Henry. What alternative do I have in front of our guest but to agree with you?’
‘I know that, My Lord.’
‘You know too much, Henry.’
‘I have lived a long time, My Lord. Your brother would have said too long.’
‘My brother may have been right,’ James muttered, before throwing Marina a parting smile. ‘See how he browbeats me into behaving myself? Have a good sleep, Marina. I’ll be back with the car to pick you up at two-thirty. Henry, make sure Marina eats some lunch before that. We don’t want her relying solely on hospital food, do we?’
‘Certainly not, My Lord.’
And then he was gone.
Marina stared at the empty doorway and wished her heart was not beating so, despite feeling intolerably heavy.
‘You haven’t eaten much of your breakfast, Miss Marina,’ Henry said as he gathered James’s coffee cup and pot onto a tray.
‘I…no, Henry. I’m sorry,’ she said dully. ‘I seem to have lost my appetite for some reason.’
‘Perhaps you are nervous about what lies ahead of you in hospital, miss,’ he said, with a gentleness in his voice she hadn’t heard before.
‘Perhaps, Henry.’
‘Maybe you’ll feel more like eating after a nap.’
‘Maybe.’ Her chin began to quiver and tears filled her eyes anew. Panic that she was about to disgrace herself had her rising abruptly from her chair and, in doing so, bumping the valet’s arm. The silver tray he was holding slipped from his grasp and crashed to the polished floor, smashing the coffee cup and spilling the remains of the coffee from the pot.
‘Oh, dear heaven!’ she exclaimed, her face stricken. ‘I’m so sorry, Henry. I’m such an idiot!’ She squatted down immediately to help clear up the mess, but the incident seemed to have opened the floodgates of her very mixed-up feelings and tears started to stream down her face.
‘Oh, God,’ she choked out, when Henry’s expression showed he was aghast at this display of emotion. ‘I…I’m just tired,’ she tried to explain through sobs. ‘I’ll be all right…in a…in a little while.’
Henry took the broken crockery from her shaking hands and placed it back on the floor, then he helped her back upright. The arms he curved around her heaving shoulders were incredibly gentle. ‘You just need a good sleep, Miss Marina. Come. Let me help you upstairs.’
‘Th-thank you. You’re…you’re very sweet,’ she said as he did so.
‘It’s no trouble. And you’re the one who’s sweet, Miss Marina. I can see why His Lordship is so taken with you.’
She blinked up at him through blurred eyes, halting to dash away the remains of her tears and withdraw from the valet’s steadying arms. They were halfway up the staircase and Marina leant against the mahogany balustrade, gripping it tightly with one hand.
‘Why do you say that, Henry?’ she demanded to know, if a little shakily. ‘There’s nothing between His Lordship and myself. Goodness, we only met this morning. He’s getting engaged next month, and, as I said, I’m going to be married myself around the same time. If you think for one moment I would entertain the thought of some kind of illicit liaison with His Lordship while I’m over here, then you’re very much mistaken!’
Henry seemed unfazed by her indignant outburst.
‘That’s as may be, Miss Marina, but I know what I know and I see what I see. His Lordship is taken with you. Make no mistake about that. Experience has shown me that there are not many ladies who remain indifferent to him once he turns on the Winterborne charm.’
Marina didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure if she was flattered by Henry’s conviction or afraid of it. As for herself…it was pointless to deny the obvious: she was more than charmed by the Earl of Winterborne. It seemed crazy that such a thing could happen in such a short space of time. But it had. Her feelings for Shane seemed positively lukewarm in comparison to the feelings James could engender in her with just a look.
But that still didn’t mean she was prepared to hop into bed with him.
‘I have met plenty of Australians in my time,’ Henry went on. ‘I know they don’t like people to…er…beat around the bush? So I hope you won’t take offence over what I am about to say.’
Marina had a feeling she would. Henry might have met a good few Australians in his time, but he didn’t seem to have much regard for the moral fibre of their women!
‘His Lordship is going through a difficult time at the moment. He is under stress with what is happening to Rebecca. As I said earlier, he adores that little girl. On top of that, his relationship with Lady Tiffany is not the sort of relationship he is used to with his lady-friends. As such, he may be extra vulnerable at the moment to an undoubtedly real but ultimately passing attraction. Do you know what I am saying?’
Marina wasn’t sure she did—till she recalled Henry telling her earlier that Lady Tiffany always slept in the rose room when she stayed overnight. Since this modern young woman was on the verge of engagement to James, wouldn’t it be more natural if she spent the night in his bed?
The realisation that James was not sleeping with his soon-to-be fiancée should not have thrilled Marina.
But it did.
‘I see you do understand what I’m saying,’ the valet stated stiffly, his eyes not perfectly at peace with the pleased expression on her face. ‘Maybe I have said too much,’ he muttered.
Marina swiftly wiped the hint of satisfaction from her lips. ‘No, no, Henry, you did the right thing,’ she hastily assured the well-meaning valet. ‘And I will give you the benefit of an equally straight-talking reply to your concerns. I promise you I have no intention of doing anything to compromise His Lordship or his coming marriage while I am over here. I like James very much. Okay. I more than like him. I think he’s bloody fantastic. How’s that for a good old Aussie expression? But I’m no fool. Neither am I a woman of easy virtue.’
‘Miss Marina! I never meant to imply that—’
She waved him to silence. ‘No, I realise that. But you do seem to think I have no will of my own in this matter. You seem to think James would only have to proposition me and I would forget my own fiancé back home and jump into bed
with him. Not so, I assure you,’ she insisted, and hoped valiantly that it was so.
‘I also think you have overestimated James’s feelings for me. Why should he be so taken with me? I’m not all that good-looking, for one thing. There must be plenty of ladies in James’s social circle much more beautiful and glamorous. And willing, Henry,’ she added pointedly. ‘Do you honestly think a man as attractive as James could not indulge himself sexually any time he liked, if that was what he wanted?’
‘I never said that was what he wanted,’ Henry argued back.
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘Just that sometimes people get caught up in a combination of situations which work against their natural decency. I have not overestimated His Lordship’s feelings for you, I assure you. I do think, however, that you under estimate your own attractions, Miss Marina. Aside from your delightfully feminine shape, you have a luminescent kind of beauty which shines from your face and your eyes. As for your hair…it has a touch-me colour and quality which any man would find hard to ignore.’
Marina coloured as her hand fluttered up to touch her hair. ‘You exaggerate. Surely?’
‘Not at all. About anything. I know, Miss Marina, what my Jamie-boy likes.’
She stared at the valet, aware he had deliberately used this old nickname to show her how well he did know his one-time boyish charge.
‘You’re frightening me, Henry.’
‘I hope so, miss. For I would not like to see you go home with a broken heart. At the moment it is only beating as any woman’s heart might beat faster when a man such as His Lordship flatters her with his attention. Take care not to let it beat faster for any other reason. Go down to Winterborne Hall with His Lordship by all means. But be on your guard against the temptation to forget where you are and who you are not.’
Marina drew herself up straight, her pride and self-esteem sending a gleam of righteous anger into her green eyes. ‘I am as good as the next person, Henry.’
‘I agree with you, Miss Marina. But you are not the lady whom His Lordship is going to marry. Even if you were madly in love with him—which seems unlikely at this stage—would it be in his best interests to ever acquaint him with that fact? Would you not show your love better by leaving him in peace to make a marriage he is not only committed to but which he will go through with regardless of his own feelings?’
‘Are you saying he doesn’t love this Lady Tiffany?’
‘I am saying no such thing. Of course he loves her—just as he loved her brother. He also gave his word to that brother, Miss Marina. He promised his best friend as he went off to war that if anything happened to him he would look after his little sister. This marriage is a sacred duty, in His Lordship’s eyes, and one which he was quite happy to carry out…till this morning…’
Marina felt very disturbed by what Henry was implying. ‘But I haven’t done anything!’
‘Only been your lovely natural self, Miss Marina. I am not imparting any blame. I agree, things haven’t progressed too far as yet, but I see the warning signs. Don’t forget I have been His Lordship’s valet for the past seven years, and I know his ways well. I can practically read his mind in matters of the opposite sex.
‘He is not used to leading a celibate life, and his hormones may get the better of his conscience—especially if a lady whom he finds attractive is to be constantly alone in his company and will keep looking at him as though she thinks he’s…what was the term? Bloody fantastic?’
Marina’s sigh was as heavy as her heart. ‘I get the picture, Henry.’
‘Then you will stay out of the picture?’
Her chin lifted. ‘I will do what is right.’
Whatever that was. She had no idea at that moment. She didn’t think like these people. She didn’t live her life by rules of stiff tradition and sacred duty. She went with her heart. And her heart at that moment told her she just might be madly in love with the Earl of Winterborne.
Stranger things had happened. If love at first sight did not exist then why had it been written about for centuries? Whatever her feelings for James turned out to be, she certainly knew that she could not marry Shane now. What she felt for him definitely wasn’t love. He’d filled a need in her life when she’d been wretched and lonely, then confused her with his expert lovemaking.
Marina resolved to do the right thing and break her engagement when she returned home. She would soften the blow for Shane by giving him both the horses and the business name of the riding school he’d helped build up with her mother. Somehow she didn’t think he’d be too upset with the arrangement.
As for doing the right thing at this end of things…
That was up to James, wasn’t it?
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU’RE looking much better,’ James said as he handed her into the back seat of the green Bentley for the ride to the hospital, supposedly only a ten-minute trip—fifteen if the traffic was bad.
Marina had earlier secured Henry’s approval for her choice of a plain black suit for the occasion, as well as the way she’d done her hair, its bright mass of red-gold curls held back at the nape of her neck with a plain black clip.
The valet hadn’t actually said anything, but she was beginning to read his facial expressions, as subtle as they were. Approval rated the barest nod of his head on first sighting, plus the minutest gleam in his steely grey eyes.
Henry would not have approved if he’d been able to read her mind. Or her heart. She’d been breathless with anticipation for James’s return from the moment she’d woken, hardly able to wait to see him again, to be with him again. Lunch had been stuffed down, not because she’d felt hungry but because James had ordered her to eat. Marina suspected she would do anything Lord Winterborne ordered her to do.
‘You obviously had a good sleep,’ he added when he climbed in beside her.
She tried not to stare, but she’d forgotten, even in that short space of time, just how handsome he was. Mindful of Henry’s warnings, and her own infernal conscience, she hoped nothing of her innermost feelings showed in her face, or her eyes.
But how wonderful it would be—just once—to feel free to lean over and press her mouth to his, to look deep into his eyes and tell him how her heart raced whenever he was near, how heaven, for her, would be to spend just one night with him.
Her mind drifted to such a scenario, but this time, strangely, her fantasy was no longer of an explicitly erotic nature. She saw them as just lying together, naked, yes, but simply looking at each other and touching each other tenderly, long, stroking caresses, without tension, without the distraction of the flesh aching for release.
And then she realised she was thinking about how it would be with him…afterwards. Shane always rolled over and went straight to sleep. Marina knew, instinctively, that James would not do this. Not with her…
‘That’s a most attractive perfume you’re wearing,’ he muttered, the softly spoken compliment snapping her back to the present. ‘I don’t recognise it.’
She simply could not look at him. Not at that moment. If she did, she would surely undress him with her eyes and blush awfully. ‘It’s called True Love,’ she said, and turned her head to stare through the passenger window.
‘Ahh. A gift from your fiancé?’
Her head whipped back to deny she had a fiancé any more, not in her heart, and very soon not in reality. But she could not bring herself to say the words. Marina found this distressing, because deception was not in her nature. She wondered if she was deceiving James for his sake, or hers. Henry’s warning about going home with a broken heart had been a fair one. Men like James didn’t break their engagements for girls like her. They took them as mistresses, not wives.
For all Marina’s saying she was as good as the next person, in the circles James moved in relationships had different rules. Hadn’t her own upper-crust mother had to run away to Australia to be with the man she’d chosen to marry, just because he was of common descent?
&n
bsp; ‘No, it belonged to my mother,’ she said curtly, her lips pressing together in annoyance at her thoughts.
He stared at her primly held mouth for a long moment, then turned his own head away. It was a slow and rather arrogant gesture, his nose and chin lifting. ‘I must buy Tiffany a bottle,’ he said, the words a dagger to her heart.
Idiot, came that sneering voice she hated so much—mostly because it did not let her pretend.
He couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly, came a second, equally frank opinion.
Well, at least you know the score now, was the third, and least scathing comment.
Marina tried to blank her mind, but it was impossible. The voices railed on, calling her all sorts of insulting names and adjectives. Although emotionally harrowing, Marina’s mental warrings usually left her strengthened in will-power. Such was the case this time.
‘I think, perhaps,’ she said straight away, before she could change her silly mind, ‘it would be better if I took that return flight Henry booked for me next weekend.’
That handsome head jerked round and their eyes clashed. His were furious, hers widening with shock at his instant and very fierce anger. ‘What, in God’s name, has Henry been saying to you?’ he bit out.
Her guilty blush betrayed both herself and Henry. But the obscenity James muttered under his breath was even more betraying. For it outlined that James was, under his lordly manner, just a man, a mortal man with feelings and failings like any other.
‘Interfering old fool,’ he muttered. ‘He thinks he knows it all when in fact he knows nothing. Nothing! What has he told you? Tell me! I must know.’
She didn’t know what to say, for she was walking a minefield here. As she’d told Henry, there had been nothing between herself and James. At least, nothing spoken, and from what he’d just said about Lady Tiffany, and buying her a bottle of True Love, the valet might very well have jumped to all the wrong conclusions.
‘He…Henry that is,’ she began carefully, ‘only has your best interests at heart…’
