Emma Darcy: Australia: In Bed with Her Groom: Mischief and Marriage / A Marriage Betrayed / Bride of His Choice

It suddenly struck her that she should have asked Cliffton for some credentials instead of accepting his story at face value. The man was a stranger, for heaven’s sake! His sheer panache had bamboozled her into being totally unbusinesslike. She had better correct that as soon as he reappeared. Or maybe she should be checking on him right now instead of letting him have the run of the house. What if…

The front door banged open and William came pelting inside, pulling himself to a halt as he caught sight of Ashley through the doorway into the lounge. He looked flushed and excited.

‘Hey, Mum! Where’s…’ He stopped as he took in the cushion at her back and her feet on the footstool. ‘Have you twisted your ankle or something?’

‘I’m just relaxing,’ she said, feeling a flush sweeping up her neck as though she’d been caught in a compromising position.

‘Oh! Okay!’ William dismissed the incomprehensible in favour of imparting the exciting news that had brought him in. ‘You should see the great car Mr. Cliffton came in. It’s a smashing Rolls Royce. The chauffeur said it’s a 1987 Silver Spirit. How about that?’

Ashley’s mind boggled again. The wayward thought came to her that it would have put Gordon Payne’s nose further out of joint at seeing a Rolls Royce outshining his Daimler. Not to mention a chauffeur!

Fortunately William didn’t require a reply. Cliffton arrived on the scene bearing the silver tray and tea service that Roger’s mother had given to them as a wedding gift.

‘What are you doing with that?’ William asked bluntly, as astonished as Ashley was. Cliffton must have dug it out of the bottom of the dresser where it had resided untouched, apart from cleaning, for many years.

‘Your mother is feeling poorly. I am serving her tea,’ Cliffton replied with unruffled decorum.

William looked wide-eyed at Ashley. ‘Are you sick?’

Her cheeks blossomed with hot colour. ‘I’m recovering fast,’ she answered.

‘You don’t need me then?’ William asked.

‘No. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘Right!’ William looked relieved and turned quickly to the butler. ‘You’ll be staying for a bit, Mr. Cliffton?’

‘Yes. I’ll be staying as long as—’

‘Great!’ William cut him off and offered his most appealing face. ‘Would you mind if my friends had a turn at sitting in your car? They wouldn’t hurt anything. The chauffeur could let them in and out. I promise they’ll be good.’

Cliffton set the tray down on the occasional table and eyed William consideringly. ‘How much do you intend to charge?’

William grinned at the quick understanding. ‘Only ten cents each. Ten dollars with a photo. Can I borrow your Polaroid camera, Mum?’

‘Ten dollars!’ Ashley gasped in shock.

‘Think, Mum,’ her son advocated earnestly. ‘This will be a once-in-a-lifetime photograph, a memory they’ll be able to pull out of a photo album in years to come to show they really did drive a Rolls Royce. A photo of that value can’t go cheaply.’

William always seemed to have a line of inarguable logic for what he wanted to do. ‘You said sit in it!’ Ashley sharply reminded him.

‘If they sit behind the driving wheel it’ll look as though they’re driving it. I won’t actually let them,’ he assured Cliffton.

‘I am very impressed with the sales pitch,’ Cliffton said admiringly.

‘So you see, Mum?’ William pressed. ‘I have to have the camera.’

‘William, you haven’t received permission about the car, and I don’t think…’

‘Permission granted,’ Cliffton chimed in, his blue eyes twinkling approval.

‘The camera, Mum?’

Two against one defeated her. ‘Yes.’ She sighed, her need to settle various matters with Cliffton more urgent and important than arguing with William over his schemes for augmenting his pocket money.

‘Thanks, Mum. Thanks a lot, Mr. Cliffton. I think I’m going to like you.’

He was off like a flash to fleece his friends’ pockets.

‘Weak or strong, madam?’

Cliffton had the silver teapot poised, ready to pour.

‘However it comes,’ Ashley answered distractedly. ‘You came here in a chauffeured Rolls Royce?’

‘It is the customary mode of transport at Springfield Manor, madam. The master wants you to know you’ll be given every comfort. Milk, madam?’

‘Yes. But surely you didn’t bring a Rolls Royce with you from England. Did you?’ she added, struck with the feeling that anything was possible with this man.

‘I acquired it when I arrived in Sydney, madam. Sugar?’

‘No, thank you. I don’t think…’ Ashley floundered, appalled at the cost of a mission that would certainly—well, almost certainly—be futile. ‘You really shouldn’t be spending so much on a campaign that might come to nothing,’ she burst out. ‘A Rolls Royce, for heaven’s sake! This seems to be getting quite out of hand.’

‘How else can you be shown what to expect, madam?’ Cliffton enquired reasonably. ‘You haven’t tried it yet,’ he pointed out. ‘I think you’ll get to like it. It’s quite pleasant and tends to get addictive.’

She was not going to be seduced by a Rolls Royce into becoming a dependant at Springfield Manor. ‘I do not need a Rolls Royce,’ she stated emphatically. ‘And what’s more, Cliffton, this smacks of trying to buy my acquiescence to what you want.’

‘It is always interesting to test resistance to its limits, madam,’ he said with an air of taking up an irresistible challenge.

‘Why on earth should you do such a thing?’ she demanded. Surely he was taking this mission too far.

‘It’s in the spirit of my more adventurous forebears who would never take no for an answer.’

Irrepressible, Ashley thought, beginning to appreciate Gordon Payne’s perspicacity in retreating from Cliffton rather than taking him on. What could one do in the face of such an unsquashable spirit? And really, did she want to say no to Cliffton? It was only the ultimate no to the Harcourt family that she would have to impress upon him.

‘Well, I won’t be held responsible for what you spend,’ Ashley stated unequivocally.

‘The responsibility is entirely mine,’ Cliffton agreed. ‘Your tea, madam.’

‘Oh! Thank you.’ In a Royal Crown Derby fine bone china teacup, no less, inherited from her mother-in-law. How much fossicking had Cliffton done in her kitchen? Ashley’s whirling mind spun to other concerns, like the possible undermining of her authority with William. ‘I don’t think you should have let William use the car as a…as a—’

‘Money-making venture?’ Cliffton supplied.

‘Yes.’

‘If I may say so, madam, one should never stifle enterprise. In my youth I used to organise frog races. With his entrepreneurial talents, Master William will undoubtedly—’

‘Stop!’

‘I beg your pardon, madam?’

‘You can’t call him master. I won’t have it.’ The last thing she wanted was for William to start thinking he was of a superior breed to anyone else. ‘There are no masters in Australia. There are only people, Cliffton,’ she added earnestly. ‘You must understand that or you won’t do any good here.’

‘Thank you for your advice, madam,’ he said gravely. ‘Is there anything else I should know so as not to give offence?’

‘I’m not a madam. Madams are people who run brothels.’

‘Oh!’ The quirky little smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. ‘Then that’s clearly inappropriate. I shall call you milady.’

‘I’m not your lady.’ Ashley managed not to say, ‘Yet.’

‘Mrs. Harcourt?’

She didn’t want to be reminded of her marriage to Roger, either, but perhaps it wasn’t appropriate to ask Cliffton to call her Ashley at this point. It could wait until she knew him better. She nodded her assent to the name and sipped her tea, trying desperately to collect her thoughts into a properly ordered pattern.