Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

Regan backed into a swivel chair and nearly fell over.

‘I’m sorry if I offended your sense of etiquette.’

‘I don’t think so. I think it was some kind of planned strategy on your part.’ He steadied the swinging chair with his hands as she retreated behind it. ‘After all, you didn’t conjure those cufflinks out of thin air.’

‘Will you stop stalking me?’ she shrilled, almost at the end of her tether.

He was relentless. ‘If you’ll tell me exactly what’s going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on, ’ she denied hectically. ‘This is all just an unfortunate coincidence.’ She glanced towards the door.

‘Don’t bother. You wouldn’t make it,’ he warned her.

Her hip bumped the corner of the desk and she winced, rubbing at her bruised thigh. ‘How dare you harass me like this? If you don’t open that door people are going to wonder what we’re doing in here—’

‘No one saw us come in, and given the crowd out there I doubt if we’ll be missed.’

‘Even by Carolyn?’ She drew herself up to her full height, deciding the only remaining defence was attack. ‘It’s not as if you’re in any position to criticise my motives. What about your behaviour? You wouldn’t have any reason to fear blackmail if you didn’t know you’d done something utterly reprehensible.’ A mist of red covered her vision as she got to the crux of her inner anger. ‘You virtually bounced out of bed with me to rush up here and propose to her! ’

His grey eyes went dark. ‘I owed Carolyn no sexual fidelity on the night that you and I slept together,’ he said grimly.

‘Don’t play with semantics!’ she cried. ‘What about emotional fidelity? You must have been intending to ask her—’

His mouth twisted. ‘Actually, no. I had not in the least thought of getting married again when I drove up here that day…’

Her feet suddenly felt nailed to the spot. ‘Again? You’ve been married before?’

‘I’m thirty-six. It would be more surprising if I hadn’t had a previous serious relationship, wouldn’t it?’ he queried, taking advantage of her stunned expression to move closer.

This new facet of him threw all her previous assumptions into disarray. ‘What did you do? Dump her when you discovered she’d married you purely for your money?’ she said, using deliberate cruelty to distance herself from the odd feeling of melancholy that invaded her bones.

The twist of his mouth turned into a cold smile. ‘Actually, yes. And it was worth every cent it took to pay her off!’

She swallowed. On top of all the other blows Chris had mentioned, Joshua had taken a king-hit to his pride—if not his heart.

‘That must have been difficult for you?’

‘She was the loser, not I. I was a rich man then, but I’ve become a lot richer in the last fifteen years.’

‘But money doesn’t necessarily buy you happiness,’ protested Regan.

He looked at her, his eyes full of silvery satisfaction. ‘What makes you think I was talking about money?’

‘I—well, you’re wealthy, and—I just assumed…’

Her voice tailed off and he said silkily, ‘It’s dangerous to make assumptions when you don’t have all the facts. You seem to make a habit of it.

‘The fact is that I do have some experience of courtship,’ he said, when she failed to respond. ‘And I assure you I wasn’t even close to courting Carolyn when I took you to bed.’ His tone became even silkier as he echoed her earlier thoughts. ‘Or rather, when we took each other in all those assorted places…’

‘Are you saying you proposed on the spur of the moment? I don’t believe you!’ she said coldly, trying to freeze out the hot flood of excitement his words had provoked. ‘You don’t strike me as a man who ever does anything on impulse.’

‘I’m not—that’s what makes the impulse I’m having right now all the more disturbing,’ he mused darkly, making her suddenly aware that all the time they had been talking he had been drifting inexorably closer.

His brooding expression looked faintly murderous, and Regan clutched her hands to her vulnerable throat as he loomed over her. ‘What impulse?’

He lifted a hand and she flinched, but all he did was stroke his finger down one dark wing of glossy hair where it swept behind her delicate ear.

‘You don’t really want to know.’ His finger lingered in the crease just behind her naked earlobe. He seemed to have a perfect genius for homing in on the most sensitive points on her body, thought Regan shakily—ones that even she hadn’t known were sensitive until he roused them to glorious life.

‘Most women deck themselves in jewellery when they dress up—you don’t seem to wear any…’

‘I’m allergic to gold,’ she said flippantly, thinking that lying was beginning to become second nature.

His eyebrows lifted over disbelieving eyes. ‘As well as diamonds?’ he mocked. ‘You don’t even wear a watch.’

‘It broke—I haven’t got round to replacing it yet.’ Even a cheap time-piece took second place to digging herself out of a mountain of debt.

The door to the library suddenly swung open and Regan jerked guiltily away from Joshua’s touch.

‘Hello, what are you two doing in here?’ Hazel Harriman’s head ducked around the door, her innocent brown eyes travelling from one face to the other.

‘Checking on the silver, Hazel?’ grinned Joshua easily.

‘Well, you know what Frank’s like about his blessed first editions! He should have locked the door if he didn’t want anyone coming in here, but he thinks that would be implying he can’t trust his neighbours.’ She opened the door wider and came further into the room, a picture of grace and dignity in her powder-blue chiffon and pearls, in spite of the wooden crutch propped under her right arm.

‘Are you talking about the wedding? I hope you’re not going to interfere as well, Joshua. I already have enough on my plate with Frank poking his nose in!’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m very happy to leave it all in your gracious hands,’ he replied. ‘Would you like to sit down and rest that leg?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve been sitting down all night. A little exercise is good for me—whatever Frank has to say!’

Joshua smiled. ‘He suggested that Regan and I get to know each other, but it turns out that we’ve met before…’

Hazel’s eyes brightened with enquiry. ‘Oh, really? Where?’

Joshua opened his mouth, and Regan didn’t trust the bland look on his face. Was he about to conduct some advance damage control?

‘It was only just the once—and not at all memorable,’ she cut in quickly. ‘Which is why Joshua’s name didn’t ring a bell when Sir Frank mentioned who Carolyn was going to marry.’

‘Oh, well, at least you’re not total strangers, so that makes everything much more cosy for all of us,’ Hazel approved complacently.

‘Indeed.’ Joshua’s blandness was even more pronounced.

‘Frank is very keen for Regan to feel at home. I know he feels guilty that he didn’t do more for you when Michael was killed—’

Regan was agonisingly conscious of Joshua’s sharpened interest. ‘Oh, really—he did more than enough for us when Michael was alive.’

But Hazel was unstoppable. ‘It’s such a tragic waste when people die with so much of life ahead of them,’ she sighed.

‘How long were you married?’

In front of Hazel, Regan couldn’t flatly refuse to satisfy Joshua’s curiosity, as he very well knew! ‘Just over four years.’

‘You must have married young?’

‘I was twenty,’ she admitted, with the thin end of her patience.