Liz Fielding: The Billionaire's Convenient Bride

‘How long are you staying, Kam?’

‘As long as it takes.’

What?

Not her business. Her only interest was that he would be spending several days in their most expensive room. Whatever he might want from her, they would have extra money coming in.

Double hooray...

‘Right... Well, if you need anything, Suzanna is here and will be happy to help.’

‘What I want, Suzanna cannot give me, Agnès, but that will keep until lunch.’

Kam Faulkner is back, staying in the Captain’s Suite ‘for as long as it takes’. It? What can he possibly want? It had better be an apology because that’s all I can afford.

Agnès Prideaux’s Journal

AGNÈS SLUMPED AGAINST the door, hugging Dora to her as she shut it against anyone else who felt like wandering in and shaking up her world.

Kam Faulkner. She could hardly believe it.

Dora whined and wriggled and she set her down and sat at her desk to give her wobbly knees a moment to recover.

How many times had she dreamed of his return to Castle Creek? In her imagination it had always been a magical moment. He’d look, then do a double take as he saw that the skinny girl who’d once made a nuisance of herself trailing after him had become a desirable woman.

Okay, that was a fairy-tale fantasy straight out of a romance novel and she’d had those romantic fantasies drummed out of her long ago. Her grandfather would probably have beaten them out of her, but you didn’t damage your only asset, the prize heifer.

Marriage was for duty, to bring wealth to the family, to provide heirs.

And forget desirable.

Her hair, caught up in an elastic band, was way off the shampoo-ad standard, she was wearing overalls and she hadn’t stopped to put on make-up before her confrontation with the boiler.

She’d felt more like kicking it than sweet-talking the wretched thing but had been afraid it would give up altogether and die on her.

With all their guests hard at work in the barn, she’d felt safe enough coming straight to her office to call Jimmy.

Her heart might have leapt at the sight of Kam Faulkner as she’d realised who he was, but his summons to lunch hadn’t sounded as if he was here for a friendly catch-up-with-the-family get-together.

The idea was ridiculous. Why would he give a tuppenny damn what had happened to her or her grandmother? Why would he want to set foot in Priddy Castle ever again, unless, heaven forbid, he was looking for some sort of compensation for his mother from her grandfather’s estate?

Her mouth dried on the thought.

The fact that he’d chosen the Captain’s Suite, her grandfather’s old room, seemed somehow ominous—a statement of intent. She checked the computer for his booking and saw it was for single occupancy.

She squashed the stupid heart-lifting response, knowing full well that a romantic weekend to show a partner where he’d grown up would be much better news, because she suspected that whatever the purpose of Kam’s visit, it did not bode well for what remained of the Prideaux family.

His mother was entitled, no doubt, but she should have claimed for unfair dismissal when she was turned out of her home, lost her job, because of Agnès’s grandfather’s bigotry. Agnès’s stupidity.

Now she would have to line up behind Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, whose claim for inheritance tax was outranked only by the account for her grandfather’s funeral and the legal expenses for probate.

Dora, clearly sensing her mood, gave her a sympathetic lick.

Agnès stroked a silky ear. There was no point going to meet trouble, it would come fast enough. ‘Come on, you little monster. Let’s get you cleaned up.’ And then she would give the boiler another jiggle.

* * *

Kam Faulkner looked around at the room that had once been Sir Hugo Prideaux’s bedroom, a room his mother had cleaned every day of her working life at Priddy Castle.

A room strictly out of bounds to the likes of him. Not that he’d ever obeyed rules, never let one keep him out of somewhere he wanted to go. He’d been in here before, when Sir Hugo Prideaux had been away up to his own kind of mischief. He knew that Lady Jane hadn’t slept in here with her husband.

This part of the castle had been built in the sixteenth century and had diamond-pane windows, linen-fold panelling and an ancient four-poster bed with heavily embroidered drapes. He hoped the mattress was a little more recent.

He dropped his bag, tossed the old-fashioned room key on the dressing table and walked across to the window.

The sun, finally breaking through the mist, lit the froth of fresh, bright spring leaves of the trees in the castle woods, sparkled along the creek and off the hulls of the yachts moored in centre of the creek. His playground as a boy.

He’d known every nest, where to watch for badger cubs, wait quietly to hear a nightingale sing. He’d seen ospreys swoop for sea trout and dodged the warden to catch them himself without any fancy gear. There would have been a hefty fine if he’d been caught.

These days he could afford the rods and the licence to fish legally but doubted there would be the same fun in it.

He turned back to the room, but it wasn’t the impressive four-poster he was seeing. It was Agnès Prideaux’s face as she’d recognised him. Something in those grey eyes before the shutters had come down and she’d been back in control and asking, oh, so politely after his mother.

That moment when she had seemed to lose her balance and he’d reached out and caught her arm. For a fraction of a second he’d had the feeling that all he had to do was draw her close, complete the circle, and his world would come right.

Imagination, he knew. If there had been anything it had been uncertainty, embarrassment, fear, because she knew his return could mean nothing good. Nothing good for her, anyway.

And there was absolutely nothing wrong with his world.

His phone pinged, a text from his PA demanding his attention, and he left the past to give his full attention to the present.

The future would wait until his lunch date with Agnès Prideaux.

* * *

Agnès washed and dried Dora, but when she took the dog back to her grandmother’s room she was asleep in her armchair.

Agnès gently rubbed behind Dora’s ear. ‘It looks like it’s just you, me and the boiler, sweetie.’

Dora gave a happy little yap as if she couldn’t think of anything she’d like better, and the boiler, having had time to think about it, finally juddered into life.

She sagged with relief as the tension left her. The chances were that it would behave for a few days, but she urgently needed a heating system that didn’t lurch from one crisis to another.

She needed a long-term solution and there was only one option left.

Showered, changed into the silk shirt and dark trouser suit she wore as her work uniform, Agnès stopped at Reception to let Suzanna know that they had hot water, at least for today.

‘That’s a relief,’ she said, and meant it. Suzanna lived in and it wasn’t only her job but her home that depended on the viability of the castle. She wasn’t alone in that.

There were other staff who might not find work easily if she lost the castle, herself among them. And there was her grandmother. She had become increasingly frail and there was no money for care-home fees.

‘Jamie is on top of your lunch. You won’t be embarrassed in front of your friend,’ Suzanna said, a question mark in the word ‘friend’.

‘He’s... Kam’s mother used to work at the castle.’

‘Oh, right. So he’s back to take a look at his old home...? Are you okay, Agnès?’

No, she was not okay. She was far from okay, but she said, ‘I need some air after being stuck down in the boiler room.’ Space to come to terms with what she had to do.