Joan Johnston - Invincible

Because of their separate tennis schedules, the opportunity to finish what she’d started didn’t come for almost a year. When he’d finally convinced her to sleep with him, he’d been so impatient to be inside her—and so ignorant of the true state of her innocence—that he’d hurt her. And disappointed her. Despite only wanting to love her, he’d somehow made her hate him.

K had kept him at arm’s length forever after. Or at least until he’d been forced by his uncle to approach her and ask her to work with him.

It had been an awful lesson to learn about human nature. You couldn’t make a person love you, no matter how much you loved them. What had happened with K was exactly what had happened with his mother. Once he’d let her in, she’d shut him out. The pain the second time was terrible enough to cure him of the disease.

Love was for fools and idiots.

“Max, would you rather we didn’t do this?”

Max was startled to discover he’d been neglecting his date again. He’d spent a great deal of time talking Veronica Granville, a reporter for the Times of London, into spending the weekend with him at Blackthorne Abbey, his family’s hereditary castle—complete with moat—in Kent. He’d arranged her seduction carefully, and it was proceeding according to plan. Or had been, until that knock had interrupted them.

And thoughts of that infuriating female from my past.

Max made himself focus on pressing kisses against the throat of the woman in his arms, but as he brushed aside Veronica’s long, straight blond hair, memories of Kristin intruded. He remembered ribbing K about her corkscrew curls, which she hated. And shoving K’s lush blond curls out of the way to kiss her nape as he lay beside her. He remembered how she’d shivered with pleasure in his arms. And how good it had felt to finally press his naked flesh against hers.

He supposed it was K’s lack of sexual experience that had made kissing her and caressing her so memorable. He couldn’t help smiling as he recalled how amazed she’d looked when he’d kissed the tip of her small breast.

“I’m glad to see you’re enjoying yourself,” Veronica said as she turned in his embrace.

The smile disappeared as he acknowledged how totally Kristin Lassiter had been dominating his thoughts.

The knock came again.

The statuesque blonde in his arms stared at the thick, wooden-planked door, with its enormous black wrought-iron hinges and said, “I thought you said we were the only guests at the Abbey.”

“We are.” He’d told the reporter he was a distant cousin of the Duchess of Blackthorne’s estranged husband, and that the duchess had offered to let him stay as a guest at the Abbey. He’d learned from bitter experience that he couldn’t trust a woman’s feelings when she knew from the outset that he was the youngest son of the infamous Bella and Bull.

Max blessed his mother for the diligence she’d used in keeping photos of her children out of the papers and off the internet. With some fancy footwork during his brief junior tennis career that included refusing to pose for photos or turning his head when the cameras flashed during the trophy presentation, he’d remained virtually invisible both in print and online. There were pictures, but not good ones.

“I heard you tell the butler we didn’t want to be disturbed,” Veronica said. “Who could it be?”

“Ignore it,” he murmured, brushing aside her silky blond hair and teasing her ear with his teeth, determined, this time, to banish K from his thoughts.

The knock came again, cracking like thunder.

And he bit Veronica’s ear.

“Ouch!” Veronica grabbed her ear as she pulled away and shrugged her blouse back onto her shoulders. “Answer the damned door, Max,” she snapped, turning her back as she rebuttoned her blouse.

Since she was dressed again, he sighed and headed for the door. When he opened it, he found the Blackthorne butler, whose forebears had worked at the Abbey since medieval times, wearing formal clothes and holding a silver platter containing a blue-tinged white envelope. The word TELEGRAM, framed by four red stripes, was written in blue on the upper left hand corner.

“I presume that’s for me, Smythe,” Max said quietly.

“Yes, your lordship,” the butler replied, just as quietly. “It was delivered by personal messenger.”

It was impossible to get Smythe to call him Max. He’d been trying since he was a boy of six. It was Lord Maxwell, or your lordship, as though they were living a century or two in the past. Considering the English laws of succession, there was no way he should be a lord.

It was Smythe who’d explained to him how, thanks to his courageous ancestors—and an act of Parliament—he remained fourth in line to inherit the Blackthorne dukedom.

It was a pretty good story, actually. One of K’s favorites, back in the days when they were speaking to each other.

When all the male Blackthorne heirs had died heroically during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Parliament had amended the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Blackthorne so the title would pass “to all and every other issue male and female, lineally descending of or from the said Duke of Blackthorne, to be held by them severally and successively, the elder and the descendants of every elder issue to be preferred before the younger of such issue.”

Which meant that either males or females could inherit the dukedom. This prevented the title from being extinguished by the death of the last male Blackthorne during the war. It was the first time such a thing had been done since the Dukedom of Marlborough was preserved in the same way for similar reasons in 1706.

As the elder of twin sisters, his mother was the current holder of the title. Max’s eldest brother, Oliver, would succeed her as the next Duke of Blackthorne. As the eldest son, Oliver currently held one of the Duke of Blackthorne’s lesser titles, Earl of Courtland, and was often referred to simply as Courtland.

Max stared at the note on the silver platter and said, “This couldn’t wait, Smythe?”

“It is a missive from Her Grace.”

Max knew that as far as anyone at the Abbey was concerned, communication from the duchess was like word from on high. He thought back to the last time his mother had gotten in touch with him. It was six months ago, when she’d emailed to ask if he was coming home to Blackthorne Abbey for Christmas. He wasn’t.

He was only here now because his mother was not. And because he’d hoped the exotic locale would help him seduce Veronica—and forget K.

He’d failed miserably on both counts.

“Thank you, Smythe,” he said, taking the note from the tray.

The butler bowed, then took an arthritic step back, before turning and limping away. As he retreated, his uneven cadence echoed off the high stone ceilings in the hall.

The instant the door was closed, Max crushed the missive, dropped it onto an ivory-inlaid chess table and said, “Where were we?”

But Veronica the Reporter was curious. She crossed the Aubusson carpet to the table, picked up the crushed paper and pressed it flat across the front of her skirt. “It’s a telegram. From America.” She turned to Max and asked, “Why would anyone send a telegram in this day and age? I mean, why not phone or fax, or text or email?”

It wasn’t until she pointed it out that Max realized just how odd his mother’s missive was. He took the telegram from Veronica and tore it open. He crossed to the windows edged with ivy on the outside and hung with gold brocade curtains on the inside and held the note up where it could catch the last rays of daylight.

Veronica followed him. “What is it, Max? Who’s it from?”

Max let out a sigh of relief, crushed the note once more and tossed it onto an ancient oak chest that ran below the mullioned windows. “It’s nothing.”