by Margaret Way
'Did he know?' Morgan said wearily.
'Unlike you, I told him nothing. E.J. was a visionary. He saw things in the future. He never had any time for women, but he recognised the spunk in you. He saw the bond between you and Ty. I believe he started to plan then. His empire had to remain intact. The man who ran it had to have the right woman. She had to be specially trained for the job just as royalty train their own. The responsibilities, the demands of a certain way of life, are understood and accepted. I believe E.J. reared you to inherit the Hartland chain, but as Ty's wife. I never expected anything else. That was his plan. Understand, all that really mattered to him was the survival of his empire, not people. As his heirs, you and Ty excelled. That's all there is to it.'
'So you believe I'm entitled to my inheritance, even though I'm not a Hartland?' Morgan asked ironically.
Marcia's lovely face hardened. 'Understand me, Morgan. You are a Hartland. What did Ty and Cecilia have to say?'
'Would you believe it, they're with you?'
'Because they're worldly wise.'
'Did you love him, Mother?' Morgan asked finally.
'Of course I loved him,' Marcia said in a strangled voice. 'I was crazy for him. You could say possessed. He belonged to another world, an exciting, glamorous world. He had his music. I had nothing. No family to speak of. No money. All I had was my looks. I had to use them. Grasp life where I found it. 'I've never forgotten.'
'How could you?' Morgan retorted. 'I'm the image of him.'
'That you are.' Tears suddenly rolled from Marcia's beautiful eyes, 'I was so young. So lonely. You've no idea what it was like. You have to fall passionately in love to realise how obsessed one becomes. I was helpless to resist. So was he.'
'And he was killed?'
Marcia bent her head. 'We had such a short time together. I wanted to die, too. It took a lot of courage to keep going. He was going to send for me.'
'Perhaps.' Morgan said quietly, her gaze fixed. 'Could you not have told me? Could you not have found that special time to tell me about my father?'
'Morgan, I've just explained. You're a Hartland. E.J.'s heiress,' Marcia insisted, dominated by a powerful self-interest which included her daughter.
'I'm going to give it all back, Mother.' Morgan looked back at her in rebuke.
'You don't know what you're talking about,' Marcia cried, weeping now.
'Oh, yes, I do. Unlike you, Mother, I cannot continue to live a lie.'
It took an extra day for Ty to track her down. When Morgan returned to her hotel room in the late afternoon, Ty rose from an armchair to greet her. Although the grimness of his attitude threatened her, she met him, as usual, head on. 'What I like about you, Ty, is you bypass all the rules.'
His brief laugh was anything but apologetic. 'Wouldn't it have been easier for everybody if you'd simply told me what you intended to do?'
'Not as I see it,' Morgan said briskly, setting down her parcels. 'Tell me, what's the difference between you and everybody else?'
'Hotel managers usually recognise me.' He gazed at her, arrogance all over his handsome face.
'I'm sure that doesn't give them the authority to allow you into my room.'
'I certainly wasn't going to wait in the foyer,' Ty replied abruptly. 'After all these years, can't you turn to me when you're in trouble? It took us hours to realise you'd fled.'
Morgan scooped up a silk cushion from an armchair and threw it on to the bed. 'I had to talk to my mother alone.'
'So tell me,' Ty demanded, getting a firm hold on her hand and dragging her down into the chair.
'Why not? I grew up with orders. At first she denied she had the answer to the great question.'
'Well, she would,' Ty nodded curtly. 'So far nothing had induced her to speak.'
'Right. Then she got angry. The point is, she made a bargain. Marcia is a lot tougher that I thought. The fact I'm not a Hartland has nothing to do with my inheritance, it seems.'
'E.J. certainly saw it that way.' His blue eyes skimmed her brittle elegance.
'Do you really think he knew?' Morgan's voice was muffled.
'Probably not at the beginning,' Ty considered. 'But then it no longer mattered. It's all true?'
'Yes. Aren't you happy? My mother and E.J. between them made me live a lie.'
'It's not going to be helpful if you overplay the dramatics. You don't have to look on it that way. E.J. accepted you as his grandchild. If he hadn't wanted you, you would have left with your mother. Surely you realise that? To all intents and purposes he adopted you.'
'And my mother allowed him to.' Her green eyes flashed.
'Marcia obviously believed she was doing something positive for you.'
'How terrifying. As though the promise of wealth is a substitute for mother love.'
'Wasn't that how she explained it? Life hadn't been easy for her. She lost the man she loved. She lost the man she pressed into marriage. She wasn't going to lose out a third time, and she determined in her own way it wasn't going to happen to you.'
'Let's say she's an opportunist, and let it go at that.'
'So what are you going to do now? You'd better tell me.'
She lifted her head and tilted her chin. 'Bow out with your blessing.'
Ty's firm mouth hardened. 'I think you had better start looking at this from everyone else's position. To the rest of the world you're a Hartland. I understand at this time you're all for the grand gesture. You just want to pitch the money at me and get it all over with.'
'I certainly do,' she said fiercely.
'My foolish little firebrand! Don't you think you should check again with E.J.'s will? Whatever his private thoughts, and he was no fool, he regarded you as his granddaughter. Someone special. He couldn't tell you, He didn't know how to. But by his lights he loved you. You may not feel this, but you were the only person on earth he praised. He didn't do it to your face. He didn't intend to spoil you, but he was proud of expanding your spirit. What matters is you were the granddaughter he wanted. Would you agree with that?'
'No, I wouldn't,' Morgan said obstinately, eyes brilliant. 'E.J. didn't want a granddaughter. He wanted a male heir.'
'You're wrong,' Ty pointed out laconically. 'He wanted a pair. Two people he had specially trained. He recognised in you his own great love of the land. It speaks to you as it spoke to him. E.J. was more terrified of the wrong woman than you can ever imagine. He had the experience with his stepmother and his own wife. Marcia might have been plucked from a hothouse, so badly did she fit in. All the time he must have been thinking what would happen to his empire after he was gone. Its very survival depended upon being administered by the right people.'
'Well, naturally you were the right person,' Morgan mocked him, in a turmoil of love and the old hostility. Yet his positive, forceful presence strengthened her.
'There was no one else,' Ty explained. 'He was haunted by the old feud, but in the end he chose to ignore it. Maybe I was descended from the stepbrother who had caused him so much pain, but I understood power. He knew I could handle it when it was given to me!'
'So who's arguing?' Morgan swept up. 'it's all waiting for you, Ty the Great.'
'I'd hoped it was waiting for us.' he said shortly.
'You know that's impossible now.' She looked out of the huge picture window at the blue, glowing harbour.
'In my mind I have no legal or moral right to the Hartland fortune.'
'Of course not. You're so high-minded, it hurts. But do you have a moral commitment to unmask your mother? To cause a scandal?'
Angrily she turned on him. 'Are you asking me to continue living a lie?'
'For twenty-one years you believed yourself to be a Hartland,' was his cool response.
'So?' She shook back her heavy, silken hair. 'E.J. adopted you without signing a few papers.' She laughed. 'Obviously he had to have someone.'
'That's it, then! He had you.' Ty stood up, towering over her. 'You were a beautiful child and very, very bright.
He reared you for a purpose.'
'For you?' She stared up into his wonderful eyes. 'That's the primitive part. He was a power-broker. We have to recognise that. It seems obvious now that E.J, intended us to marry. He deliberately encouraged our rivalry. Both of us would rather die than be cut off from our heritage.'
'Except it's not my heritage at all. No, stay away.' She threw up her hands. 'I don't want you to touch me.'
'That's your wounded heart talking,' Ty said quietly, standing very still, 'not your head. Jahandra has been your home all your life. There's no reason why you should ever leave it. There were strings attached to your inheritance, you know. You have to marry me.'
Colour flooded her cheeks. He could see how volatile she was. 'How arrogant, how high-handed you men are! We're almost at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and little has changed.'
'Marriages of convenience will always be acceptable.' Ty pointed out, almost casually.
'Except I couldn't tolerate such a situation. My life has been miserable enough. I have the brains and the ability to go it alone.'
His eyebrows rose. 'Would I want you if you didn't? And make no mistake, Morgan, I do want you. You'll make a good partner. I'm not in the market for a hostess.'
She felt so angry, she was frightened of losing control. 'You're saying this could be a b-b-business arrangement?' She was almost stuttering.
'Shameless of me, I know. I shouldn't be at all surprised, however, if the sexual urge takes us. 'I've only made love to you a few times, and I don't think you could call your response tentative.'
'So I curse myself!' she shouted. 'You don't love me.'
'You're woven into the fabric of my life,' he admitted.
'I don't love you, either,' she flashed, feeling the terrible sense of loss right through her bones.
'That's a plain lie,' he said curtly.
'Don't call me a liar.'
'No, but I will call your bluff.' His arm whipped out and he gathered her in, a small fury.
'You want a scandal? Do you really?' She was trembling with rage and frustrated longing.
'There's too much of that in the world,' he responded grimly. 'I'm taking you back, Morgan, so damned well hush. You talk about living a lie? You're living a lie now. You say you don't love me. Let's decide that now.'
A moment later she felt his mouth close over hers and her frenzy increased. She was burning hot, panting and turning her head in a delirium as he covered her face and throat with kisses, returning still more masterfully to her mouth. How terrible was this deep yearning! Soon his hands were caressing her and she could not stay him.
He moved them to the bed, her senses so excited she was moaning from the force.
'This is strange for a girl who doesn't love me,' he muttered. The nipples of her breasts were tight buds pressing against the silk crepe de Chine of her top, and he lowered his mouth over the soft, thin material.
'Please, Ty.' Her mood was violent and erotic.
There was a flush on his sun-coppered skin. 'You can't trust me, eh? You poor, misguided child. I've been looking after you for years!'
Sensation was dizzying. 'I can't bear to be worsted,' she gasped.
'You're going to be worsted now.' He pulled the simple, elegant white top over her head, his speed and efficiency stunning her. She was still wearing the matching narrow skirt, but it was rucked up so that her beautiful slender legs were on full display. 'What I feel for you, Morgan, is a rare thing. I'm not going to allow your habitual stubbornness to keep us apart.'
She made a sound between rejection and surrender, but then her body was going into spasms as he bent his head to her naked breast. His caresses advanced to the point when her slender legs were thrashing, and only then did he break off his downward conquest, staring into her passion-drugged face. Her every struggle had subsided, her whole being was aflame. Given over to him.
'You seem to have nothing to say,' he taunted her. Not even "stop". If so, please tell me why. You're a virgin, yet you're mine for the taking. Think about it. Am I the enemy, or am I the man you desperately want to marry?'
Truth pushed through her terrible constraints. 'My only concern is you!' she cried. 'Can't you look at it from my side?' Tears filled her huge green eyes.
'But of course I can.' He lowered his head with great tenderness and took a single crystal tear into his mouth, 'I know your feeling of terrible disillusionment goes back a long way. I can't condone what your mother did, but we have to believe she did if for you. Generally, people will do anything for money.'
'I can't take what is not mine.' She stared up at him, appealing for understanding.
'And I cannot take what I believe you have earned. More, my mother is in entire agreement.'
'But only if I marry you?' She flushed. 'Shall we say my mother has always known my feelings for you, Morgan. There's an indestructible bond between us. Yet I still haven't made you say you love me.'
'Nor have you said that to me.' A shadow moved across her lustrous eyes.
'How can you be so bright and so dense?' he demanded. 'I could have told you I loved you when you were about fourteen, but common decency prevented it. I've had to wait for you to reach womanhood. It taught me a lot. Plenty of patience and forbearance. A quirky sense of humour with you weaving and ducking like a little prize fighter. Some of the time I enjoyed it hugely. Other times I came disastrously close to just scooping you up and riding into the bush. Don't tell me you didn't know, deep down in your heart.'
She sighed and briefly closed her eyes, 'I suppose I did. The hostility excited me, too. It was my only defence.'
His hands moved sensuously over the delicate slope of her shoulder, his intention quiet unmistakable. 'So your very considerable "hatred" for me was only a powerfully hidden love?'
'You have your victory.' She arched her body to gain the satisfaction she craved.
'Victory?' He laughed, but not from pure joy. He cupped her face between strong, urgent hands. 'What is this victory you speak of? I won't have you thinking of your admission of love in that way. It's demeaning to you and to me.'
She sighed ruefully. 'It was no great advantage having E.J. rear me. To a very great extent I'm frightened of love.'
'So I'll have to show you,' he said with rich persuasion. 'There's nothing in this world I want more.'
'And I want it too, Ty,' she cried emotionally. 'God, how I want it! But what happens if my story gets out? What happens if the person who hates me sends the follow-up photographs to the newspapers? Can't you just see it? "Hartland Heiress a Fraud."'
'Hush, be still for a moment,' he soothed her. 'You were reared a Hartland. A Hartland you remain. I've already moved to ensure Camilla—who else?—never falls into that error again. Please believe me when I tell you you don't have to worry on that score. The curious thing is that what was only a vague suspicion and a whole lot of spite on her part was so readily apparent to us. She acted mainly out of a desire to shock and upset. She won't try that one again. Not ever. Our marriage will deflect all speculation.'
'Because you love me?'
'In this world and the next.' He bent and kissed her velvety eyelids. 'Let me show you, my darling, so you can understand.'
The engagement between Ty and Morgan was formally announced at Morgan's gala ball. Family, friends, the two hundred guests, burst into spontaneous applause. It was obvious from Morgan's radiance that she was very much in love and feeling deeply cherished. Ty, for his part, projected his happiness and male pride in his bride-to-be.
'So E.J. gets to finish what he started,' Henry murmured to Cecilia. 'In my view, that gives real meaning to his life.'
Love is the most valuable possession of all.
Copyright
ISBN: 9780263118957
Copyright © 1988 Margaret Way
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book. No part of this text may be reprodu
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Mills & Boon.
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About author
Margaret Way was born on 7th August in Brisbane, Australia. Before her marriage she was a well-known pianist, teacher, vocal coach and accompanist.
She began writing when her son was born, a friend took a pile of Mills & Boon books to her, and she read all and decided that she also could write these types of novels. She began to write and to promote her country with her stories set in Australia. She sold her first novels in 1970.
Margaret Way lives with her family in her native Brisbane.
