The Marriage Demand

This room had once been part of the house’s original nursery, tucked away in the faux turret that formed such a distinctive part of the house’s architecture. It was an amusing piece of fantasy on the part of its designer, and at fifteen Faith had still been young enough to imagine herself as a fairy tale princess, enjoying the solitude of her private tower.

‘I expect you’re disappointed that the tower isn’t surrounded by a lake,’ Nash had teased her when she had tried to express her pleasure at being given such a special room, but to Faith the tower room Philip Hatton had chosen for her was perfect as it was, and she had struggled to find the words to tell him so.

That night, her first night in the room’s comfortable and generously proportioned bed, she had closed her eyes and thought about her mother, whispering to her in her thoughts, telling her how lucky she felt, describing the room to her and knowing how much pleasure her mother would have had in sharing with her the wonder of everything she was experiencing. She had wished passionately that her mother could be there with her.

But of course she couldn’t. And tears had filled her eyes, Faith remembered, and she had cried silently into her pillow, knowing with the maturity that the last painful and frightening six months had brought her that her mother would never see Hatton.

Restlessly Faith moved away from the window. The room had hardly changed; the bed in it looked exactly the same as the one she remembered, although the curtains at the window and the covers on the bed were different. Even the faded old-fashioned rose-coloured wallpaper was the same. Tenderly she reached out and touched one of the roses.

Her bedroom in the tiny Housing Association flat she and her mother had shared had had pretty wallpaper. They had papered it together just after they moved in. She had known how much her mother had hated leaving the small cottage they had lived in since Faith’s birth, but the garden had become too much for her and the flat had been closer to the hospital, and to Faith’s school, and much easier for her mother, being on the ground floor.

There was something almost frightening about the power one event could have to change a person’s whole life, Faith acknowledged now as her thoughts focused on the past. It had only been by the merest chance that she had ever come to Hatton at all.

Shortly after the move to their flat, her mother’s doctor had announced that she had to have a major operation and that after it she would be sent to recuperate at a special rest home, where she would have to stay for several months.

At first her mother had flatly refused to agree. Faith had only been just fifteen, and there had been no way she could be left to live on her own for the time the doctors had said her recuperation would take. The doctor’s response had been to suggest that the Social Services be approached to find a place for Faith temporarily at a local children’s home, where she could stay until her mother was well enough to look after her.

At first her mother had refused to even consider such an option, but Faith had seen for herself just how rapidly and painfully her mother’s health was deteriorating, and despite her own dread and fear she had set about convincing her mother that she was perfectly happy to do as the doctors were suggesting.

‘It will only be for a while,’ Faith had tried to reassure her mother. ‘And it will be mostly during the summer holidays. It will be fun having some other girls to talk to…’

And so it had been arranged. But right at the last minute, on the very day that Faith’s mother had been due to be admitted to hospital, it had been decided that instead of going to the local children’s home Faith would have to be sent to one almost fifty miles away.

Faith could still remember how apprehensive she had felt, but her fear for her mother had been greater. Even worse had been the discovery that she would not be allowed to visit her mother, either after her operation or whilst she was recuperating.

Although on her arrival at the home the staff there had been kind, Faith had felt overwhelmed by the anonymous busyness of the place, and the hostility of one particular group of girls who had already been living there.

She had been allowed to speak to her mother by telephone after her operation, but Faith had determinedly said nothing about the crude attempts of this group of girls to bully her and demand money from her. The last thing she’d wanted was for her mother to worry about her when Faith knew she needed all her strength to get better.

A week after she had first arrived at the home Faith had been thrilled to discover that they were being taken out for the day to visit a nearby Edwardian mansion and its gardens. Her father had been an architect, and it had been her secret dream to follow in his footsteps—although with her mother’s meagre income she had known it was unlikely that she would ever be able to go to university and get the necessary qualifications.

It had taken a little of her pleasure away to discover that the girls who had taken such an open dislike to her were also going on the trip—as well as surprising her, since they had all been extremely and crudely vocal about their favourite ways of spending their time.

Faith had known that her mother would be horrified if she knew about them. Faith had heard them boasting openly about their criminal activities. She had even heard whispers from some of the other girls about them going into the local town and stealing from the shops there.

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’ Faith had asked the girl who had told her. The other girl had shuddered.

‘They’d kill me if they found out, and anyway, like Charlene says, even if they do get caught they’ll only be sent to a juvenile court.’

‘Only!’ Faith hadn’t been able to conceal her own shock, but the other girl had shrugged dismissively.

‘Charlene’s brother’s already in a remand home. She says he says it’s great…they can do what they like. He got sent there for stealing a car. Charlene hates it here because she says there’s nothing worth thieving—only bits of stuff from shops.’

Faith had been appalled, and even more determined to give the girls in question a wide berth. They’d seemed to take a delight in taunting and tormenting her, but her mother’s illness had given her a maturity that had helped her to ignore them and to treat them with a dignified silence.

The theft from her room, though, of the delicate silver brooch her mother had given to her—a tiny little fairy—which had originally been given to her by Faith’s father—had been very hard to bear. Especially when Faith had been pretty sure of who was responsible for taking it. She had reported her loss to the home’s harassed staff, though she had sensed it was a waste of time.

Hatton was virtually within walking distance of the home, although they had been taken there by coach, and Faith could still remember the wave of delight that had swept her as she’d seen the house for the first time.

Designed by Lutyens, it had a magical, storybook air that had entranced Faith even whilst her quick intelligence had registered the architectural features favoured by the famous designer.

Whilst the other girls had hurried in bored impatience through the house Faith had lingered appreciatively over every room, and it had been when she had sneaked back for a second look at the study that Philip Hatton had found her.

He had been elderly then—in his mid-seventies—thin and ascetic-looking, with kind, wise eyes and a gentle smile, and Faith had been drawn to him immediately.

She had spent the rest of the afternoon with him, listening to him talk about the house and its history, drinking in every word and in return telling him about her own circumstances.

Much to the bemusement of the carer in charge of them, Philip had insisted that Faith was to remain after the others had left, to have tea with him.

‘But how will she get back to the home?’ the poor woman had protested.

‘I shall send her back in my car,’ Philip had responded.

Faith smiled now, remembering the lordly air which had been so much a part of him.

Faith could remember every tiny detail of that shared supper.

After sending her upstairs to ‘wash her hands’, in the kind care of his elderly housekeeper, Faith had returned to the study to find that Philip Hatton was no longer on his own.

‘Ah, Faith.’ Philip had beamed at her. ‘Come in and meet my godson, Nash. He’s spending the summer here with me. Nash, come and say hello to Faith. She’s a fellow Lutyens fan.’

And so it had begun. One look at Nash, tall, impossibly good-looking, with his muscular sexy body and his shock of thick dark hair, his amazing topaz eyes and his stunning aura of male sensuality, and Faith had fallen headfirst in love. How could she not have done so?

They had dined on fresh asparagus, poached salmon and strawberries and cream—Philip’s favourite summer supper, as she had later discovered—and even today the taste of salmon, the smell of strawberries always took her straight back to that meal.

It had seemed to her then that the very air in the room was drenched in some special magical light, some wonderful mystical golden glow, that suddenly she was grown-up, an adult, with both Philip and Nash listening attentively to her participation in their shared conversation.

The misery she had experienced at the home had been forgotten; she had felt somehow like a caterpillar, emerging from its constricting chrysalis to experience the exhilaration and freedom of flight.

It was Nash who had driven her back to the home. Faith could still remember the way her heart had started to race with frantic excitement when he had stopped the car just outside the entrance. It had been dark by then, and in the shadowy privacy of the quiet lane, seated next to Nash in the car, Faith had held her breath. Was he going to touch her…kiss her? Did he feel like she did?

A mirthless smile stretched the soft fullness of her mouth now as she relived her naïve emotions and the sharpness of her disappointment when Nash had simply thanked her for her kindness to his godfather.

‘But I enjoyed talking to him,’ she had insisted truthfully.

Less than a week after that she had been living full time at Hatton—an arrangement that had been made after Philip had written to her mother, inviting Faith to spend the rest of the school holidays at Hatton as his guest.

She had been speechless…ecstatic, unable to believe her good fortune when the news had been broken to her. If only she had known then what the outcome of her stay was to be…

Automatically Faith walked back to the window, pushing her memories away. From up here she had a wonderfully panoramic view of the Gertrude Jekyll-designed gardens that were at their very best at this time of the year. She could well remember the long sunny hours she had spent alongside Philip, weeding out the magnificent long borders either side of the path that led to the pretty summerhouse.

Faith froze as a large car pulled up outside the house and Nash got out. Where had he been? Had she known he was out she would have gone downstairs and got herself something to eat. She didn’t want to eat with Nash.

Prior to her arrival Robert had told her that arrangements had been made for her to live in the house, but that she would have to fend for herself so far as meals were concerned.

‘The kitchen is fully equipped, and you’ll be able to make use of its facilities, but we shall also give you an allowance in order that you can eat out if you wish—and I hope you will wish.’ Robert had smiled at her. ‘Especially on those occasions when I come down to the house for our progress meetings.’

Faith had smiled, but Robert’s interest in her was a complication she hadn’t allowed for when she had initially applied for her job.

Faith believed she had every right not to inform her prospective employers about the events leading up to Philip’s death. But to conceal them from someone with whom she might form a close personal relationship was something she would never consider doing.

To Faith, loving someone meant being honest with them, trusting them, and had she and Robert met in different circumstances she knew there would have come a stage in their relationship when she would have wanted to open up to him about her past.

She liked Robert. Of course she did. And, yes, one day she hoped to marry and have children. But…A troubled frown furrowed her forehead.

Why had Nash had to reappear in her life? She shivered as she remembered the way he had looked at her when he had told her that he was determined to seek justice for Philip’s death.

Inadvertently her gaze was drawn downward, to where Nash was striding towards the house, and as though some mysterious force linked them together he stopped and lifted his head, his gaze unerringly focusing on the tower and her window.

Immediately Faith stepped back, but she knew that Nash had seen her.

The summer she had stayed here she had spent more time than she wanted to remember waiting…watching for Nash to arrive. From here there was an excellent view of the drive, and in those days Nash had driven a racy little scarlet sports car.

Although officially he had been spending the summer helping his godfather, he had also, even then, been working on the business venture upon which he had eventually built his current empire.

In those days whenever he’d seen her watching for him he would stand underneath her window and smile up at her, teasingly telling her that if she wasn’t careful one day he might scale the wall to reach her.

Faith had prayed that he might, so deeply in love with him by then that there had scarcely been any room in her thoughts or her emotions for anyone else but him. He had been her ideal, her hero, and as the girl in her had given way to the growing woman her longing for him had increased and intensified.

From hardly daring to look at his mouth, for fear of blushing because of her desire to feel its hard male strength against her own, she had found herself focusing boldly on it, the words she had known she must never speak pleading in silent longing inside her head.

Kiss me.

Well, today, ten years too late, he had kissed her, but not as she had longed for him, dreamed of him doing then, with love and tenderness, a look of bemused adoration in his eyes as he begged her for her love. Oh, no. The kiss he had given her today had been hard, angry, pulsing with the violence of his emotions and his antagonism towards her.

So why, then, had she responded to it with a passion that she had never given to any of the other men she had dated?

The sharp irritation of her inner voice unnerved her. She had responded to him because her memories had tricked her, that was all. She had thought…forgotten…She had believed that it was Nash as she had once imagined him to be that she was kissing. And as for those other men—well, they had just been casual dates, nothing serious, and she had kissed them more out of a sense of fair play than anything else. Kisses were all that she had wanted to share with them.

Only with Robert had she sensed that maybe…just maybe something deeper and stronger might eventually grow to life between them. But these days Faith was very protective of her emotions, very cautious about who she allowed into her life. These days a man like Nash Connaught would have no chance whatsoever of bedazzling her into making the same dangerous mistakes she had made at fifteen.

So far as Faith was concerned now, the most important cornerstone for a relationship was mutual trust. Without that…Without that there could be nothing—or nothing that she would want, that she would ever consider worth having, as she had good and bitter cause to know.

In her bleakest moments after the death of Philip and her mother the only thing that had kept her going had been the knowledge that Philip had trusted her—enough to make that wonderfully unexpected provision in his will for her.

When she had first learned that Philip had left money specially to finance her studies and her passage through university Faith had hardly been able to believe it. Prior to that she had told herself that the only way she had any hope whatsoever of qualifying as an architect would be to find herself a job and then study in her spare time, which she had known meant that her goal would be virtually impossible for her to reach.

But it hadn’t just been the discovery that Philip had left her the money that had meant so much to her. What had mattered even more was knowing that despite everything that had happened he had, after all, believed in her. There was, in Faith’s opinion, no price that could be put on that. It was a gift beyond price; a gift so precious that even now just to think about it filled her eyes with tears and an emotion she knew someone like Nash would never in a million lifetimes be able to understand.

Nash, to whom everything was black or white…Nash, who could condemn a person without allowing them to defend themselves…Nash, in whose eyes she was a thief and a murderer…

Angrily Nash headed towards the house. Just for a heartbeat then, seeing Faith standing at the window, the sunlight dancing on her hair, lingering on its stunning and unique mixture of differing shades of blonde, from purest silver to warmest gold, he had been inexorably swept back in time.

He had known right from the moment his godfather had announced that he intended to invite her to spend the summer at Hatton that she spelled trouble, but he hadn’t imagined then just how fatally accurate his prediction was going to be. The kind of trouble he had anticipated had had nothing to do with theft and…and murder.

His mouth hardened, the expression in his eyes bleak. Like his godfather, he had been totally taken in by Faith, believing her to be a naïve young girl, never imagining…Bitterness joined the bleakness in his eyes. Hell, he had even wanted to protect her, believing then that her advances to him were totally innocent and that she’d had no idea of what she was really inviting when she’d looked at him, her face burning hot with the thoughts he could see so plainly in those limpid dark blue eyes.

He had even derived a certain amount of painful amusement from the way she’d looked at his mouth, semi-boldly, semi-shyly, but wholly provocatively, wondering just what she would do if he actually responded to her invitation and gave in to the fierce heat of desire she was creating inside him.

But she had been fifteen, a child, as he had sternly and furiously reminded himself more times than he cared to count during that brief summer, and no matter how much his body might have reacted, telling him in increasingly urgent and physical terms just how it viewed her, his mind had known that to give in to what he was feeling would have been dishonourable and wrong.

She would not always be fifteen, he had told himself. One day she would be adult, and then…Then he would make her pay over and over again for every one of those naïvely tormenting looks she had given him, pay in kiss after kiss for all those kisses he had ached to steal from her but had known he must not.

How many nights had he lain awake, tormented by the heat of his own need, virtually unable to stop himself from groaning out aloud at the thought of how she would feel lying against him? Her skin silken soft, her mouth as perfect and perfumed as Gertrude Jekyll’s warmly scented roses, her eyes as blue as the campanula that grew amongst them. God, but he had wanted her, ached for her, longed for her. Hell, he had even been stupid enough to make plans for his future that had included her…for their future…

Initially not even to himself had he dared to acknowledge just how much he’d looked forward to seeing her waiting for him, standing at her turret window, a modern-day Rapunzel imprisoned away from him, not by her father but by her age and his own moral convictions.

It had left a residue of bitterness to be forced to recognise that the innocence he had striven so hard to protect from his own desire had been little more than a fiction created to conceal the real Faith. But his personal bitterness was nothing to the anguish and the anger he felt on behalf of his godfather. The anguish, the anger and the guilt. If he had not been so bemused by Faith, nor so wrapped up in the excitement of beginning the property empire that had now made him such a wealthy man, he might have seen more clearly what was happening and what Faith really was.

But there was no way he was going to fall into that same trap a second time.

The shock of discovering that she was working for the very foundation he had chosen to benefit from his godfather’s bequest had caused him to take the first flight from New York to London, despite the fact that he had been in the middle of lengthy discussions involving the sale of leases on some of his most expensive properties. His initial intention had been to warn Robert Ferndown of just what Faith was, but then he had heard Robert eulogising about her abilities, and Faith herself, and he had been caught up in a flood of savage anger against her.

It had been then that he had decided to punish her for the crime she had committed, to punish her not swiftly and immediately, with a clean, sharp cut, but to give her a taste of what his godfather had suffered…to keep her on a knife-edge of fear and dread, never knowing when the final blow was going to fall.

He let himself into the house and paused as he walked past the open study door. He could still taste Faith’s kiss on his lips, still almost feel her against his body, feel his own unwanted reaction to her. Angrily he turned on his heel. What the hell was he trying to do to himself?

CHAPTER THREE

FAITH flexed her fingers and moved tiredly away from her laptop. It was still far too early for her to begin her preliminary report on the house, but looking down into the garden had reminded her not just of the pretty little summer house but of the many statues in the garden as well, some of which she knew were extremely valuable.

She would have to check with Robert to see whether or not they were to remain in the garden, and if they were how best they could be protected from damage and theft. Tomorrow she would list them all properly and contact Robert to get his advice.

She tensed as she heard a knock on her door, knowing who it would be and hesitating warily before going to answer it.

‘Yes?’ she questioned Nash hardly as she saw him standing outside the door.

He had changed his clothes since she had seen him getting out of his car and was now wearing a white tee shirt that clung to his torso in a way that suddenly made her feel far too hot. She could almost feel her face burning as her senses reacted to the maleness of him. As a girl she had adored him, longed for him, worshipped him almost, but now, as a woman, she was aware of the air of raw sexuality that clung to him—aware of it and resentful of it too.

‘The supper Mrs Jenson left is still in the fridge. She’ll be offended if we don’t eat it,’ Nash told her abruptly.

The words ‘I’m not hungry’ were burning on the tip of Faith’s tongue, but before she could say them her traitorous tummy gave a very audible and very hungry gurgle.

Unable to meet Nash’s eyes, Faith told him tersely, ‘I’ll be down shortly. I’m just finishing something.’

Faith waited until she was sure he had gone before racing to close her bedroom door. Her hands were trembling violently. Was she imagining it or could she really scent danger in the air? Danger and something else—something that was wholly and hormone-activatingly Nash.

She quickly sluiced her hot face in the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom, brushed her hair and reapplied the minimal amount of make-up she favoured. After what he had said to her she could scarcely believe that Nash had actually bothered to concern himself about the fact that she had not had any supper. Or perhaps he wanted to make sure she ate it where he could ensure that she didn’t make off with the cutlery and crockery, she told herself cynically.