Ally Blake - Taming the Rebel Tycoon

She was still marvelling at the peace and beauty of it when sleep crept up and wrapped her in a soft, dark blanket.

Next morning she awoke to full remembrance and a singing happiness. A smile on her lips, she turned her head to look at Richard, but she was alone in the big four-poster.

Sunshine was streaming in through the leaded glass of the windows and a glance at her watch showed it was almost a quarter to nine.

Some time during the night he had wakened her with a kiss and made long, delectable love to her once more and, though a little tender in parts, her body felt as sleek and well-satisfied as a pampered pedigree cat.

She stretched luxuriously, while her mind drifted on a cloud of euphoria. She had found her one and only love. He filled her heart and banished her loneliness, satisfied a gnawing hunger that had never been fed.

He was so right for her. He had strength and humour, warmth and understanding, a willingness to reach out, to meet her on her own ground.

Yet, like herself, he had a certain reserve, so there would always be thoughts and dreams to surprise. An element of spice to keep their relationship fresh.

Their relationship…

Like a train hitting the buffers, her rhapsodizing came to an abrupt halt. Could she call what they had a relationship ?

Why not? she thought boldly. Though it was still in its early stages, it was a relationship. Hadn’t he made it clear that his feelings and his intentions weren’t merely casual?

It was a start and if, in spite of their vastly different backgrounds and lifestyles, he could come to care for her, she could ask no more of life.

And if he couldn’t?

She pushed the intrusive thought away.

At least she knew what it was like to really be in love, and it was a marvellous feeling! No wonder people said that love made the world go round.

All at once she wanted to say it out loud, to shout it from the rooftops.

Bubbling over with excitement, she decided that as soon as she had showered and dressed she would ring her flatmate.

Normally, she wouldn’t have made contact until Jules had gone back to Paris, but her news was so exciting she just couldn’t wait to tell somebody.

Ruth, who knew nothing of the weekend’s events and still thought Tina was staying in London with one of their friends, would be surprised, to say the least. But when she had heard everything, she would understand and be pleased…

Climbing out of the high bed, Tina cautiously tested her ankle. Finding it supported her without pain, she gathered up her discarded nightdress and, her bare feet squeaking a little on the polished oak floorboards, made her way back to the guest room.

Fresh and glowing from the shower, she brushed her blonde hair and, leaving it loose around her shoulders, pulled on clean underwear, a pair of cream trousers and a silky shirt the colour of burnt toffee.

Her ankle had returned to virtually normal, so she left the strapping off and donned flat slip-ons, all the time anticipating Ruth’s reaction to her wonderful news.

She had located her bag and started to fish around for her phone before she recalled that Richard had borrowed it the previous evening and must have absent-mindedly pocketed it.

Well, she would have to find him and ask him for it. Unless…On an impulse she returned to the master bedroom, where the suit he had worn had been hung over a chair. Locating his jacket, after a momentary hesitation, she felt in the nearest pocket.

There was no sign of her phone, but her fingers closed around his pencil torch which lit as she inadvertently pressed the button.

So the bulb hadn’t gone after all. If Richard had paused long enough to double-check, it would have saved that long, slow, nightmare journey through the Stygian passageway.

The second pocket yielded nothing more than the handkerchief he had wiped her cheek with, and only then did she recall that she had been sitting on his jacket. Which meant he must have slipped the phone into his trousers pocket.

Feeling uncomfortable, but committed now, she gritted her teeth and searched both pockets, but once again she drew a blank.

Oh, well, she would just have to go down and ask him what he’d done with it.

Her step light, a smile on her lips as she imagined how he’d lift her face to his and kiss her, she left the suite and descended the elegant oak staircase.

As she paused to stroke the lion’s head on the newel post, Hannah appeared in the hall, neat and Sundayish in a sober black hat, a prayer book in her gloved hand.

‘Good morning, Miss Dunbar. I hope you slept well?’

Feeling her cheeks grow warm at the innocent enquiry, Tina answered, ‘Very well, thank you, Hannah. You’re off to church?’

Her manner prim, Hannah said, ‘It’s customary for all the staff to attend the Sunday morning service at our own chapel.’

Flustered by her previous lack of thought, Tina hastened to say, ‘Of course. It must be a great blessing to have a resident priest.’

‘Indeed it is,’ Hannah told her. Adding proudly, ‘The Reverend Peter has been in the family’s service and lived in the rooms adjoining the chapel ever since he was ordained nearly fifty years ago.’

‘What a wonderful record.’

‘Apart from the mistress’s second marriage, which took place in a register office, he’s officiated at every wedding, christening and funeral of both the family and the staff.

‘It’s his dearest wish, before he’s called to his maker, to officiate at the master’s wedding.

‘When Miss O’Connell’s family first moved into Farrington Hall and the young couple became friendly, we began to wonder if she might be the one. But after the mistress’s death, Mr Richard no longer came home and Miss O’Connell stopped calling…’

Beaming, as if Tina should be pleased too, she went on, ‘But now—though Mr Richard has made it clear that it’s still un official—we’re delighted by the news that at long last the Reverend Peter is going to have his wish…’

So Richard was going to be married.

‘Well, I must get along. The master was in the study earlier, if you’re looking for him…’ Her back ramrod straight, Hannah hurried away.

COLD and sick and shattered, Tina stood stricken, unable to move, knowing how Mag must have felt.

In her ears was his voice saying, ‘Who said anything about a one-night stand or casual sex? Neither the way I feel about you, nor my intentions are in any way casual’…And, fool that she was, she had believed his lies.

Unless he was planning on having an ongoing affair after he was married?

Well, if he was, she thought bitterly, he could count her out.

When she had recovered enough to move, her first impulse was to run and hide. To leave his home and never see him again. But she had no way of leaving unless she could find a phone and call for a taxi.

There must be phones at the castle but, apart from the one in the library-cum-study that Richard had used the previous night, she hadn’t noticed any. Perhaps, like the television, they were hidden away.

But all that was beside the point; she needed her own mobile. So somehow she had to face him, to tell him she was leaving. But if she wanted to go with some shred of pride intact, she had, somehow, to hide just how shattered she felt.

On legs that trembled so much they would scarcely carry her, she made her way across the hall to the study. As she was passing the living-room door, which was a little ajar, she heard Richard’s voice and, pausing, once again found herself eavesdropping on a phone conversation.

‘As the time factor is of overriding importance,’ he was saying, ‘there isn’t a moment to lose—’

Only it wasn’t a phone conversation, she realised a second later, as a woman’s voice broke in, ‘But surely it’s already too late. It just can’t be done in the time.’