Rosalie Ash - Vengeful Bride

She bit her lip, irritated with her own vulnerability.

‘You sound as if you’ve had bitter experience regarding the holy state of matrimony?’ It was a cool probe. This time she didn’t rise to the bait. She thought of her parents, but she shrugged and smiled blandly.

‘I’ve never been married, if that’s what you’re asking.’

She’d arrived here prepared to feel coolly indifferent towards him, been briefly fazed by his devastating appearance, but in fact disliking him was going to be child’s play. She already felt a stirring, fierce resentment towards him. Like father like son, she thought darkly. Womanising, patronising…

The door opened, and the housekeeper, a pleasant-faced grey-haired woman, brought in a tray of tea and biscuits. When they were alone again, he went back to sit behind the desk, leaning lazily back in the leather chair. His gaze was narrowed speculatively on her face.

‘So, tell me more about why you want to come and work here,’ he said calmly. ‘You’ve just qualified in archive administration, and you’re keen to earn more than the usual pittance paid to county archive assistants. Is that it, or is there another motive?’

The trace of cynical mockery seemed deliberately aimed to provoke. Emma kept her eyes on the tea-tray, a guilty sensation growing in the pit of her stomach. Her fears about his probing, dissecting skills were well justified, she realised nervously.

‘As I’ve already said, I love history. I love historic houses. And I love deciphering old papers, uncovering the lives of past generations. What other motive do I need?’

‘There should be enough skeletons in the Fleetwood closets to keep a scandal paper in business for months,’ he commented, his drawl coolly unconcerned.

She felt her face heating slightly. Skeletons in closets? What a dry piece of upper-class understatement that was…

‘Sounds as if I shall enjoy my job, Mr Fleetwood,’ she commented mildly, hoping her casual tone would deter him from further interrogation, ‘Or…should I be addressing you as Sir Dominick?’ The cautious probe was deliberate. Newspaper reports could be wrong, after all…

Dominick Fleetwood’s expression didn’t alter.

‘No. I’m just here on a kind of caretaker basis,’ he said calmly. He seemed to consider for a few moments, before continuing, ‘Until my elder brother Richard can be traced.’

‘Oh, yes…’ It had all been there, in the newspaper stories. The search for the missing baronet, the older brother who’d automatically inherit the title and estate.

Maybe it was her slight hesitation, or just a faintly guilty air she was projecting, but he gave her a piercing look.

‘Emma Stuart…’ He repeated her name slowly. The frown creasing his forehead suddenly deepened. ‘You’re not, by any chance, related to the Stuarts who used to work here years ago? They had a child called Emma.’

Emma stared at him for a few seconds in mute dismay. She felt her stomach clench, then sink alarmingly. There was nothing else for it. She’d have to come clean.

‘Yes. My parents worked here many years ago.’

Dominick’s face remained unreadable. But he was staring at her with a suddenly sharpened curiosity.

‘I remember them,’ he said coolly. ‘Jack Stuart was the gamekeeper, wasn’t he? And a very good one. I remember my father admiring how he used to hatch up to two thousand grey partridge a week in the spring, ready for the autumn shoots.’

‘Yes…’ Colour was seeping into her face, and she felt a wave of annoyance. She had no reason to feel embarrassed about the past. She’d been only five when they’d left.

‘I can hardly remember living here. But my father used to tell me stories about Fleetwood Manor, after we left…’ She hesitated. Her father had made it sound so romantic, steeped in the past, full of ghosts and legends. As a child, she’d fantasised about this place…

‘Stories?’ Dominick persisted, his gaze quizzical.

‘Catching poachers beneath a full moon, that sort of thing…’ She smiled slightly at the melodramatic tinge to her statement. This was how her father had always talked about the manor. In sweeping, melodramatic adventure-story fashion. His passion for the place had been one reason for her own love of history. Now, though, since her father had died, it had a very different significance in her life…

Her brain was racing round in circles as she presented a calm facade. She’d been found out already, but, on the other hand, what had been found out? That she was Jack and Amy Stuart’s daughter? Did that have any particular significance to Dominick Fleetwood?

Impossible to know what Dominick was thinking. How much he’d know. He clearly remembered her parents, but that didn’t mean he knew everything that had gone on between his father and his various and numerous estate employees…She had to be very careful not to get paranoid…

‘I’m intrigued,’ he said at last. He picked up a pen from the blotter and slid it rhythmically through his fingers. His gaze was blandly thoughtful.

‘What about?’

‘Why didn’t you mention living here as a child?’

It was a perfectly acceptable question, she told herself severely. And she didn’t have a very good answer. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave…’ she lectured herself silently. Her throat dry as paper, she ran her tongue over her lips and swallowed abruptly. Shrugging slightly, she managed a laugh.

‘It didn’t occur to me. It was hardly relevant to the job specification!’

‘But interesting, nevertheless.’

‘I didn’t imagine you’d be interested,’ she countered flatly. She crossed her legs again, and reached with a commendably steady hand for her cup of tea. ‘As I said, I can hardly remember living on the estate. My family wasn’t here very long.’

‘So is that why you’ve applied for this job? Out of curiosity? Nostalgia? A wish to revisit your childhood home?’

‘Partly. Perhaps. But as you said just now, the money you’re offering is a lot better than I could get elsewhere.’

‘That’s because I don’t suffer fools gladly, Miss Stuart,’ he informed her silkily. ‘I’m busy in court for the majority of the week. And since I’m only caretaking this place until my brother is found and informed of his inheritance, I don’t want someone who works at a snail’s pace. I’m prepared to pay a good salary for quick, efficient work. For total commitment to the job. If I thought you had some woolly, ulterior motive for wanting to be here, I might be less enthusiastic.’ The gypsy-dark face was deadpan, but he was definitely testing her in some way.

Hateful man, she fumed inwardly.

‘If I’d come here claiming to have spent my early childhood at Fleetwood Manor, you might have thought I was angling for…for preferential treatment or something. The past is…is quite irrelevant. I’m quick, efficient, and my commitment will be total,’ she assured him with as cool a smile as she could muster. ‘But can I ask why you’re so keen on speed? Are you intending opening the manor to the public? Putting interesting records on display?’

‘Who knows?’ His expression was lazily amused. ‘I personally would have no financial need to open the house to visitors, Miss Stuart. But let’s just say that the situation regarding my older brother is…unpredictable. He’s been estranged from my father for many years. Last heard of, he’d dropped out of society in the wilds of Tibet. There are certain eccentric conditions laid down by Sir Robert which my brother will have to be consulted on. Plus I have an impulsive streak in my nature.’ He grinned slightly, arresting her suddenly with the revelation of even white teeth and an attractive deepening of the vertical furrows from nose to chin. ‘I simply want my family records sorted, deciphered, and safely stored for posterity.’