Jessica Hart - Newlyweds of Convenience

© 2008

Dear Reader,

When the sun shines, Scotland can be one of the most beautiful places in the world, and even when it’s raining I think it is one of the most romantic, too. There’s something about the hills and the sea and the smell of the air there that brings up the hairs on the back of my neck. I love it-unlike my heroine, Mallory, who isn’t at all impressed when she first arrives in the Highlands, but who gradually falls under the spell of the place…and of her own husband.

Although Mallory doesn’t share my love of Scotland at the start of the book, we’re at one when it comes to dogs. Mine is a West Highland white terrier called Mungo, now rather elderly, who sleeps under my feet while I’m writing. Mallory’s Charlie is a mutt, but no less lovable. He’s actually named after a cat, my much-loved tabby, Charlie, who, sadly, had to be put to sleep just before I began writing this book. I spent so much time thinking about Mallory and how important her dog was to her that I was nearly as fond of the fictional Charlie as of the real one by the time I’d finished!

Jessica

‘T HISyear has seen record sales of Valentine’s Day cards, while florists report that red roses are still the most popular choice for-’

Mallory reached quickly for the remote control and pointed it at the television to switch off the tail-end of the news. She didn’t want to be reminded about Valentine’s Day. This time last year Steve had surprised her with a trip to Paris. He had given her a diamond pendant and talked about when they would be married. It had been the happiest day of her life.

Instinctively, she lifted a hand to finger the tiny diamond that nestled at the base of her throat. She wore it still, in spite of everything.

At her feet, Charlie lifted his head from his paws, suddenly alert, and the next moment she heard the sound of a key in the front door.

Her husband was home.

Mallory dropped her hand abruptly.

Charlie was already on his feet, tail wagging. He trotted over to the door of the sitting room, whining and sniffing with anticipation, and would have started scratching at it if Mallory hadn’t gone to open it for him. She knew he wouldn’t settle until he had welcomed Torr home. He was a dog with a mind of his own.

Mallory had to acknowledge that Charlie wasn’t the most beautiful dog in the world-he had a Labrador’s soft ears, a collie’s intelligent eyes and the bristly coat of a lurcher, but was otherwise a standard, scruffy mongrel-but from the moment she had taken him home from the animal rescue shelter, seven years ago, he had followed her with a slavish adoration.

Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Charlie had been jealous of Steve. He’d been used to being the centre of Mallory’s life before Steve came along, and the surly relationship between man and dog had been the only tiny cloud on her horizon in that otherwise golden time.

It was harder to understand the instant attachment he had formed for Torridon McIver, who spent little time with him or his mistress. Charlie was always delighted to see him, though, and didn’t seem to mind that he rarely got more than a brusque acknowledgement of his presence in return.

When Mallory opened the door, Torr was standing in the hall, looking through the post she had left on the table for him. He was a tall, forbidding-looking man, with dark hair, stern features and an expression that rarely gave anything away. Raindrops spangled his hair and the shoulders of his overcoat, winking in the overhead light.

When not building a reputation as one of the sharpest and most successful businessmen in the city, Torr went climbing, and it always seemed to Mallory that he carried something of the mountains with him. There was a force about him, something hard and unyielding, that put her in mind of bracing air and desolate peaks. It sat oddly with the expensive suits he wore to the office and with this immaculate Georgian townhouse that he had bought as a sign of his success. They didn’t go with the kind of man she sensed him to be.

Any more than she did.

‘Down!’ Torr ordered Charlie, and when the dog dropped obediently to his belly, tail still wagging ingratiatingly, he bent and gave his head a cursory stroke.

Satisfied, Charlie bounded back to Mallory, and Torr noticed her for the first time as he turned. She was standing in the doorway, and her dark, silky hair fell forward to hide her face as she bent to pat her dog, who pressed his head against her leg, panting gently with excitement. They made an unlikely pair, the dog all bright eyes, scruff and gangly legs, the woman dark and elegantly groomed. In loose silk trousers and a fine-knit top in mushroom colour, she looked stylish and slender to the point of thinness.

‘Good dog,’ she said affectionately, but when she straightened and her eyes met Torr’s, the warmth faded from her face.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello.’

They faced each other as the familiar constraint crept into the atmosphere. No one looking at them would ever guess that they had been married for five months and that this was Valentine’s Day. Torr was hiding no roses behind his back; there was no jewellery secreted in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t sweeping her into his arms or telling her he loved her. He wasn’t even smiling.

Mallory hugged her arms together and forced her mind away from last year, from Steve, laughing, enveloping her in his golden charm.

‘I was just watching the news,’ she said after a moment.

Torr shrugged off his overcoat, shaking raindrops on the tiled floor, and hung it up. ‘Have you got a minute?’

‘Of course,’ said Mallory, echoing his stiff, formal tone. They didn’t talk very often, but when they did they were always polite.

Charlie bustled into the sitting room behind Torr and flopped down on the rug in front of the fire, satisfied that his two favourite people were where he could keep an eye on them. There was something almost embarrassing in his evident pleasure at getting the two of them together.

It happened rarely enough. By unspoken agreement they had divided up the house into their private domains. This was Mallory’s room, in so much as any room felt like hers. The sitting room was beautifully decorated in soft, buttery yellows, the curtains at the large Georgian windows were spectacularly swagged and draped, and the furniture was covered in wonderful fabrics that she had chosen with an unerring eye for patterns that would complement each other without looking as if they had been carefully co-ordinated.

It was a lovely room, and she had been pleased with it when it was done, but it didn’t feel like home. Torr had just been a client when she had designed the scheme. Mallory had never dreamt at the time that she would end up living there herself, and in lots of ways she was as much an intruder here as in Torr’s large, comfortable study.

Since their disastrous wedding night they had had separate bedrooms, too. Mallory didn’t lock her door, but Torr had never set foot inside it. She wondered what he got out of their marriage. She had somewhere to live, and her debts paid in full, but Torr had just ended up sharing his home with a woman he didn’t even seem to like very much.

‘Sit down,’ she suggested, just as she would to a stranger, but Torr stayed looming by the fireplace.

With a mental shrug, Mallory chose an armchair and sat down herself, and then wished that she hadn’t. Torr seemed to tower over her, filling the room with his dark, austere presence. His eyes were the colour of a summer night, a deep, dark blue that should have seemed warm, but they were cool and watchful as they rested on Mallory, and without thinking, she felt for the little diamond at her throat once more. It was impossible to know what he was thinking behind that impenetrable mask.