The Marriage Demand

by Penny Jordan

  NASH looked irritably at his watch. Hadn’t Faith realised when she had left the house with Robert that, since she didn’t possess a set of keys to Hatton, he would have to wait for her return before he could lock the house up for the night?

  His irritation increased as he recalled the look of male expectancy and desire in Robert’s eyes when he had told him during their meeting that he was taking Faith out to dinner.

  ‘There are several things I need to discuss with her, and since we both have to eat we might as well do so together.’

  But Nash knew his own sex well enough to know that Robert’s real reasons for taking Faith out for a meal were a thousand miles away from practicality—and Faith had obviously had more than business on her mind, as well, to judge from the way she had been dressed when she’d left the house.

  The black dress she had been wearing had looked expensive, and the wrap she had draped around her shoulders had had a silky sheen—but not as silky as Faith’s softly tanned skin; diamonds had sparkled in her ears…

  A bitter, almost tormented look darkened Nash’s eyes as he thought about Faith’s earrings, but Faith herself would have been stunned if she had known just what was putting that look there.

  From the study, where he had been purporting to be ‘working’ for the last hour, Nash had an excellent view of the darkening driveway that led away from the house to the main road—the driveway down which Faith would have to return.

  He had been caught off guard when Robert had brought up the subject of the garden statuary, claiming that Faith was concerned for their security—her concern not just that they could be stolen but also that they could be inadvertently damaged by the children and their parents.

  ‘I have to confess I hadn’t realised how valuable and irreplaceable some of the pieces are,’ Robert had admitted ruefully. ‘And Faith is right. If they are to remain we shall have to find some way of protecting them. We’ll need to catalogue them, and then—’

  ‘I already have a list of them,’ Nash had informed him brusquely. ‘The insurers insist on it.’

  Had he misjudged Faith? A stark look darkened Nash’s eyes. Here he went again, looking for excuses for her…looking for…

  He closed his eyes. Only he knew and only he would ever know just what he had gone through when he had returned home early following a business meeting in London, acting on a hunch…an instinct…something that had felt too urgent to analyse, to discover his godfather lying on the study floor with Faith crouching over him, his wallet in her hands and a look of mixed fury and guilt in her eyes as he’d broken through the circle of girls standing protectively around her to confront her.

  Later, as he had waited at the police station whilst Faith and her fellow thieves were being charged—after a two-hour delay since apparently as they were all under age and juveniles they could only be questioned and charged in the presence of a parent or guardian—the police sergeant had commiserated with him and told him not to blame himself.

  ‘These girl thieves—sometimes you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth,’ he had offered comfortingly. ‘But we see the other side of them, and, believe you me, they can be just as violent and abusive as the lads, if not more so.’

  ‘But my godfather loves Faith,’ Nash had protested, still unable to fully take on board what had happened. ‘I just can’t believe she would do something like this to him.’

  What he had really been saying was that he too loved her, and that he couldn’t believe she would do something so damaging to him, to what he had believed they would one day share—when she was old enough.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ had been the sergeant’s dark response. ‘Seems from what the others have said that the one who you found holding your godfather’s wallet was the ring-leader. She’d put the others up to it. You say she was staying at the house during the summer?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nash had agreed numbly. ‘She came on a visit from…from the home, and my godfather invited her to stay. He felt sorry for her. Her mother…’

  The sergeant had sucked in his breath and shaken his head.

  ‘Got a bad reputation, has that home. There’ve been complaints about girls from there stealing from local shops. They go in a gang—’ He’d broken off as the head of the children’s home and the WPC accompanying her came back into the waiting area.

  Unable to stop himself, Nash had hurried towards them, demanding, almost begging, ‘Faith…? Has she…? Is she…?’

  ‘She still refuses to admit that she was involved,’ the home’s head had told him tiredly. ‘And I have to admit I would never have thought…But she is a very intelligent girl, and sometimes they’re the very ones…They’re so much more aware than the others, you see,’ she had added simply. ‘They have so much spare mental energy with nowhere to go.

  ‘She would have seen the opportunities, of course, when she visited and stayed with your godfather, and I imagine that the temptation must just have been too much for her, especially in her circumstances. Her mother has been ill for a very long time and they have been living in considerable financial hardship…that often breeds a dangerous form of resentment.’

  She had looked down at the floor and then told Nash uncomfortably, ‘She has asked to see you. She says…’ She’d stopped. ‘She claims that she is the victim of the other girls’ malice and that she was trying to protect your godfather, not steal from him. But the other girls are adamant that she was the one who planned the whole thing, and I have to admit that does make sense.’

  ‘I don’t want to see her,’ Nash had refused immediately, knowing that he would carry with him for ever, engraved on his mind and his emotions, the scene which had met his eyes when he had walked into Philip’s study.

  The telephone cord had been cut, but thankfully Nash had had his mobile telephone with him—they had been relatively rare in those days, and he had only decided to buy one himself because, as yet, he hadn’t any proper office facilities.

  He had rung the emergency services, having first locked the girls and himself in Philip’s study. One of them had produced a knife, but he had very quickly removed it from her.

  Whilst they had screamed and hurled threats and abuse at him Faith had remained completely silent, and it had only been after the crew had started to carry Philip out to the ambulance and the police had taken charge of the girls that she had finally said anything.

  White-faced with terror as she had stared from the police to him, she had begged him to listen, begged him to understand, begged him to believe that she had had nothing to do with what had happened.

  ‘You were holding Philip’s wallet,’ he had reminded her grimly.

  ‘I was trying to help him,’ she had protested.

  ‘Don’t believe her,’ one of the other girls had screamed. ‘She’s the one that made us come here…told us it would be easy pickings. She was the one who said the old man was going to be on his own.’

  Silently Nash had looked at Faith. Despite all the evidence against her he had desperately wanted to believe that she was innocent, but the look of guilt in her eyes had given her away.

  Ignoring her pleading cries to him as the police ushered all of the girls out of the house, he had turned to follow the ambulance crew.

  At the hospital they had told him that Philip had suffered a stroke—brought on, they suspected, by shock. He would live, they had assured Nash, but as to how serious the after-effects of his stroke would be they had no way at that stage of saying.

  Had Faith shown the slightest degree of remorse, offered him any kind of explanation instead of lying so blatantly to him, he might have given in and agreed to see her. As it was…

  ‘What will happen to her?’ he had asked the police sergeant.

  ‘She’ll be put in a remand home until they can go before a juvenile court, then it’s up to the court to decide what their sentence will be and whether or not it will be custodial.’

  Nash had closed his eyes, torn in two by his conflicting e
motions. He should have been there, with his godfather, to protect him. If he had been…

  Bleakly he had turned to leave. He still hadn’t been able to believe what Faith had done, and he’d known if he hadn’t seen the damning evidence with his own eyes he would never have believed it. His godfather had trusted her, loved her…and he himself…

  A bitter look had darkened his eyes as he’d made his way to where he had parked his car.

  She was fifteen—he had believed her to be naïve and innocent, in need of protection from the desire she had made so obvious she felt for him, from his own increasingly hungry need to respond to it.

  How could he have been such a fool? She had probably deliberately set out to delude and deceive him right from the start. Physically she was mature for her age; mentally she was as intelligent and knowledgeable, if not more so, as a good many of his own peers.

  He had enjoyed their dinner-table debates, enjoyed the passion she brought to every aspect of her life, and he had enjoyed looking forward to the day when the barriers between them could be properly lifted and he could show her just how he wanted and intended to respond to all those sexy, innocent little messages of longing and provocation she had been sending him all summer.

  He hadn’t just wanted her physically. He had loved her, Nash acknowledged grimly now, and her deceit had hurt him, come close to destroying him on just about every level there was.

  His godfather’s stroke had badly affected Philip’s powers of speech, which he had never fully recovered, and whenever anyone had tried to question him about the incident he had become distressed, saying only, ‘Faith…Faith…’

  Rather than risk him having a second and even more serious stroke, Nash had insisted that he was not to be questioned any further.

  Faith had been lucky to escape a custodial sentence, the authorities had told Nash. That escape had been in the main because it had been her first offence, and because of the plea for clemency that Nash himself had made for her.

  Even now he loathed acknowledging that he had been guilty of such a weakness, but the thought of her being sentenced had eaten into him like acid and, despite his anger and contempt, and the bitterness he had felt towards her, he had still interceded on her behalf.

  It was what Philip would want, he had told himself, knowing as his godfather slowly struggled to make himself understood that he refused to accept that Faith was in any way to blame, insisting that the other girls had used her…forced her…

  Nash had longed to be able to share Philip’s belief, but he had known better. He had, after all, seen the guilty expression in Faith’s eyes as she’d crouched over his godfather, as well as heard the condemnatory accusations of her co-conspirators.

  It hadn’t really come as any surprise to Nash when a second and more serious stroke had indeed followed Philip’s first one, quickly followed by his death. He still believed that it was the original attack that had caused it—and for what? A paltry few pounds? Because, despite what other people might have believed, Philip had not been a wealthy man. He had owned Hatton and its grounds, yes, but a series of bad investments after his retirement had eaten into his capital, and in the latter years of his life it had been Nash who had financed him…who had financed…

  He froze as he saw Robert’s car heading down the drive.

  As Robert brought his car to a halt on Hatton’s drive Faith prepared to get out. They had spent longer than she had expected and it was almost midnight.

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ Robert told her, opening his own door.

  What Robert had told her had given her a good deal to think about, and her eyes were as shadowed as the garden as she walked towards the house.

  ‘Not so fast,’ Robert protested as he hurried to catch up with her and then reached for her hand before Faith realised what he was intending to do.

  ‘I know we haven’t known one another very long, Faith, but something tells me that you’re a very special person,’ Robert murmured, his voice becoming even softer and lower as he repeated huskily, ‘A very special person.’

  Faith knew instinctively that he was going to kiss her, and as his lips brushed hers with tender warmth, his hands holding her gently, she closed her eyes.

  This was how a kiss should be—giving, tender, caring—so why wasn’t she feeling anything other than the warmth of Robert’s lips against her own? Why wasn’t she experiencing the heart-racing, nerve-tightening, stomach-churning intensity of emotion and sensation she had experienced when Nash had kissed her?

  Guilty at her own lack of response, she allowed Robert’s lips to remain on hers for a few more seconds before gently pulling away.

  ‘Too soon?’ Robert asked ruefully, and Faith was glad that the darkness hid the guilt in her eyes as she nodded her head before turning towards the house.

  ‘Don’t worry over what I told you tonight,’ Robert urged her as he opened the door for her and then stood to one side to allow her to walk past him and go through it.

  How could she not worry, though? Faith asked herself after she had closed the door behind him. She had once read a book which suggested that an individual was confronted with the same problem over and over again in life, until they found a way of dealing with it.

  At fifteen she hadn’t been mature enough or strong enough to deal with the harsh realities of the problems Nash had caused her, and now…What was life trying to tell her, to do to her, by making her go to Nash and ask for his clemency?

  Faith knew that professionally she was more than capable of doing the job Robert had entrusted her with for the Foundation. In her mind’s eye she could already see the faces of the children and their parents when they arrived at Hatton.

  Philip had had a very privileged but a very lonely childhood, and she knew how much it would have meant to him to know that this house, his house, would be filled with children and giving them so much pleasure. That was what must have priority, Faith told herself fervently—the fulfilment of Philip’s wishes.

  ‘Fantasising about your lover?’

  The unexpected sound of Nash’s voice reaching her from the darkness of the moonlit hallway made Faith give an audible gasp.

  ‘Robert isn’t my lover,’ Faith denied unguardedly.

  Nash looked away from her as he went to lock the door. He had unwittingly witnessed the kiss Robert and Faith had shared as he’d walked past the study window. There was no doubt in Nash’s mind about the role Robert wanted to play in Faith’s life—and in her bed—and Faith certainly hadn’t been objecting.

  As she heard Nash locking the door Faith took a deep breath. There was no point in putting off what she had to do, nor in lying awake half the night worrying about it when Nash was here now.

  Before she could lose her courage, she told him quickly, ‘Nash, if you’ve got the time there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’

  The slightly nervous, almost conciliatory tone of her voice, so different from the anger and hostility she had shown him so far, alerted Nash’s suspicions.

  ‘It’s late,’ he told her. ‘And I’ve spent the last hour waiting for you to come back so that I can lock up. Can’t whatever it is wait until tomorrow?’

  Faith knew that normally such a reaction from anyone, never mind Nash, would have immediately crushed her. But tonight she was so on edge, so uptight and anxious, that she dared not allow herself to hesitate.

  ‘No. I really do need to speak to you now,’ she told him.

  As she watched him Nash hesitated, and then frowned before striding over to Philip’s study and pushing open the door.

  ‘No. Not in there,’ Faith refused quickly.

  ‘Where, then?’ Nash asked her. ‘Your bedroom?’

  Faith was too overwrought to recognise the sarcasm and bitter cynicism underlying his words, and she certainly had no idea what was going through his mind or what he was feeling. Her one desire was to get her unwanted appeal to him over and done with as quickly as possible.

  ‘Yes, yes�
��my bedroom is fine,’ she agreed almost eagerly, hurrying towards the stairs.

  Now what the hell was she up to? Nash wondered cynically as he followed her.

  It was Nash’s turn to hesitate as Faith pushed open her bedroom door and hurried inside, switching on the light and then turning to confront him as he followed her in and closed the door.

  Just for a minute she was tempted to ask him to leave the door open, then mentally reprimanded herself for her foolishness.

  At twenty-five she might, for reasons best known to herself, still be a virgin, but there was certainly no need for her to act like one.

  ‘Well?’ Nash demanded sharply. ‘I’m waiting. What is it that’s so important it can’t wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘Robert told me tonight that it isn’t definite yet that the trustees—that you,’ she forced herself to amend, ‘will definitely gift Hatton to the Foundation.’

  Nash stared at her, perplexed.

  ‘You brought me up here to tell me that?’ he asked grimly.

  ‘No,’ Faith admitted, bowing her head, unable to bring herself to look at him as she told him in a low voice, ‘I hadn’t realised it until tonight, but Robert has put himself in a very vulnerable position with the rest of the board by employing me. Apparently I wasn’t their choice.’

  She stopped and nibbled nervously on her bottom lip.

  ‘I would hate to feel responsible for anything that might jeopardise Robert’s position or the Foundation’s acquisition of this house.’

  For a moment her passionate belief in the work of the Foundation overcame her own anxiety and dread.

  ‘Hatton would be so perfect as one of the Foundation’s homes. I know how much it would have meant to Philip to see it put to such a use, and I know too how much it meant to me to be allowed to stay here. I shall always be grateful to Philip.’

  ‘Grateful? You can say that and expect me to believe it after what you did?’ Nash demanded gratingly.

  Faith’s face burned. She itched to defend herself, to throw caution recklessly to the four winds and tell Nash just how wrong he was about her without caring how much such a claim on her part might antagonise him. But of course she could not afford to do that—not now.