Knight's Possession

The management of the hotel had made a nice job of decorating the room, and a lovely iced cake stood in the middle of the buffet table, ‘Happy Engagement’ written on it stop. She even had the ring in her handbag, having picked it up from the jewellers on her way to work this morning, it having needed to be made smaller. It was Giles’ grandmother’s ring, a ruby surrounded by large diamonds, and although Laurel found the setting a little old-fashioned she had been honoured when Giles told her it had belonged to his grandmother.

But where was he? It was getting dangerously close to eight o’clock, and he still hadn’t arrived.

‘You look lovely, darling.’

She turned in time to be enveloped in the heady perfume her mother wore, receiving a brief hug. If she looked lovely, then her mother looked radiantly beautiful! Amanda was as petite as she, her golden hair slightly longer and softer in style, the make-up perfect on her beautiful face, the black dress she wore clinging to her slightly fuller curves. They could have been mistaken for sisters, with Amanda only the slightly older, much more glamorously beautiful one.

‘You do look lovely, Laurel.’ A hint of spicy cologne pervaded her nostrils as Reece, his black evening suit tailored to him perfectly, bent to lightly brush her lips with his. ‘Where is your elusive fiancé?’ he drawled, brows arched.

Her mouth still tingled from the contact with his, her cheeks flushed, a feverish glitter to her eyes. ‘I hope you enjoy the party,’ she murmured politely. ‘Please go and get yourself a drink.’ She vaguely pointed in the direction of the bar behind them.

Broodingly dark eyes studied her for long timeless minutes before Reece calmly interrupted Amanda’s light chatter. ‘Martini?’ He took her arm and led her over to the bar, both quickly swallowed up in the crowd, although Reece stood slightly taller than most of the men in the room.

Laurel was getting irritated now. Where was Giles? Surely he didn’t have to work this late, tonight, of all nights? The announcement of their engagement was due to be made at eight-fifteen; if Giles didn’t arrive soon she was going to have to delay it.

‘Miss Matthews?’

She turned sharply to the waiter that hovered at her elbow. ‘Yes?’ she invited worriedly.

‘This note has just been delivered for you.’ He thrust the small envelope into her hand before hastily making his exit.

Laurel frowned as she slit open the envelope. She and Giles had received many cards of congratulations since she had told people of their forthcoming engagement; but this didn’t look like one of them.

All colour drained from her cheeks as she read the short message written inside, her hands shaking so badly that she didn’t have the strength to protest when the note was taken out of her hands, Reece reading it quickly.

‘The bastard!’ He looked up at her anxiously, his arm going about her waist as she would have swayed.

‘He gave no indication,’ she mumbled into Reece’s chest. ‘Said nothing when I saw him two days ago. Oh God!’ She looked up at him with pained eyes. ‘What am I going to do with all these people? And then there’s the presents and cards that will have to be returned,’ she groaned. ‘I——’

‘Laurel, do you trust me?’ he prompted intently.

She looked up into the golden-brown eyes, unable to look away. ‘Yes,’ she answered dazedly, knowing she did trust him.

‘Then let me handle this,’ he told her.

‘But——’

‘Laurel, let me,’ he insisted tersely.

She searched the harshness of his face, the determination of his mouth and chin. ‘Yes,’ she accepted dully. ‘You do what you think best.’

He squeezed her arm reassuringly before turning and making his way to the microphone, silencing the music as he stepped forward to speak. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he greeted warmly. ‘I’m glad you could all make it tonight. I hope none of you will be too disappointed when I tell you there has been one little change in the proceedings.’ The silence in the room was deathly now as everyone waited expectantly.

Laurel groaned with humiliation, dropping down into a chair as her guests remained mesmerised by what Reece was saying. A ‘little change’, he called it; she would have described Giles defection completely differently! He had changed his mind, he had written. Couldn’t go through with it, he had added. And just as an afterthought, Could he have his grandmother’s ring back!

As soon as Reece had told everyone the engagement was off she was going to hide herself in her flat for the next twelve hours until necessity meant she had to come out to open the shop in the morning!

‘With the fascinating enchantment of all women, Laurel has changed her mind,’ Reece continued amiably.

She appreciated his help, but as she was the one at the party it was obvious she wasn’t the one to have changed her mind!

‘Much as she likes and respects Giles she has decided, for the sake of their happiness, that she can’t marry him,’ Reece went on.

She could sense the pitying looks directed at her even as she bent her head so that she shouldn’t actually see them, knew everyone must have guessed at the truth by now.

‘I hope you’ll all understand when I tell you that Laurel has realised she can’t marry Giles because it’s me she loves, and that she has accepted my request that she become my wife,’ Reece announced proudly.

Laurel’s head shot back disbelievingly. He couldn’t really have said that!

CHAPTER TWO

SHE knew he had as people surged forward to offer their congratulations.

‘He’s beautiful, darling.’ Heather, one of her more outrageously outspoken friends, eyed Reece covetously as he left the microphone to cross the room to Laurel’s side. ‘I’d change my mind, too, if he asked me.’ She gave the man who had accompanied her to the party a disparaging look before walking off.

‘Gorgeous,’ Polly agreed as she bent to kiss her cheek. ‘And I fell for the “brother” routine this afternoon,’ she grimaced.

‘He’s a lucky man.’ David, Polly’s husband, hugged her warmly.

‘Behave yourself,’ Polly glared at him. ‘If I don’t hit you Reece might, and he looks a powerful man to me.’

‘Darling!’ her mother kissed her, smiling happily. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

It was a surprise, but she doubted she would ever think of it as lovely! Why on earth had Reece told these people such a lie and landed them in this mess?

He was in front of her now, his arm about her waist as he pulled her to her feet and held her at his side, the heat of his hand seeming to burn through the silky material. Laurel stood by him numbly as he charmingly accepted the congratulations still coming their way.

She felt devastated by Giles’s betrayal, knew he had to realise what an embarrassing position he would put her in by not turning up at the party they had been arranging for months. She felt alternately like sitting down and crying like a hurt child or punching him in the face! If she ever saw him again. Oh yes, she would see him again; he had said he would call around tomorrow once the shop had closed to collect the ring. If he thought she was handing that over to him as well he was in for a shock!

‘Darling?’

She looked up at Reece with blank eyes, too lost in thoughts of what a fool she had been to have kept up with the conversation.

He frowned as he saw the bewilderment in her eyes, his mouth firming before he bent his head to quickly claim her lips with his. Laurel gasped as she realised what he was about to do, her parted lips seeming like an invitation to the people watching them. It wasn’t an exploratory kiss like the one he had given her earlier at the shop; this time he demanded, and took when she didn’t freely give. His arrogant demand made her even more angry than she already was, kissing him back as roughly, her mouth swollen and bruised when he finally drew back, her eyes bright and feverish.

‘When two combustible substances meet…’ David murmured admiringly.

The indulgently amused laughter of their onlookers broke the tension, Laurel turning hastily away from the humour Reece tried to share with her. ‘Please, everyone, there’s plenty of food and drink,’ she invited. ‘We’re here to have a good time.’

‘We’ll start the dancing off.’ Reece pulled her back into his arms as the band began to play a slow haunting melody, moving gracefully to the music as he moulded Laurel to him from breast to thigh. His face nuzzled in her hair as he bent down to her. ‘Are you all right now?’ he finally asked softly.

‘You said you would handle it,’ she choked.

‘And you told me to do what I thought best,’ he reminded huskily, giving every impression of a newly engaged man, slowly caressing her as they danced. ‘If I had told them the truth you would now know the pity and embarrassment of having to return their gifts to them.’

‘And instead I’m now the envy of several of my friends,’ she said disgustedly, knowing that as far as Heather was concerned her boyfriend of the last few months came a very poor second to Reece.

He looked down at her with amused eyes. ‘Which ones?’ he teased.

Her nails dug into his neck where he had put her arms about him. ‘Behave yourself!’ she frowned.

‘I’d rather have you fighting me than see that defeated look in your eyes when you read Gilbraith’s letter,’ he said seriously.

‘I wasn’t defeated,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I was angry. I still am.’

‘Good,’ Reece nodded admiringly.

‘At you, too.’ She glared at him. ‘You——’ Reece stopped her tirade by once again putting his mouth on hers.

‘Will you stop doing that!’ She wrenched away from him.

‘Careful.’ The warmth of his smile didn’t waver for an instant. ‘We have an audience,’ he added pleasantly, once again holding her lightly against him.

Laurel turned sharply to look about them, feeling the colour darken her cheeks as she realised they were the only two people dancing, her friends standing around the dance floor watching them indulgently. She quickly turned back to Reece. ‘Oh God,’ she groaned. ‘This is awful!’

‘Smile when you say that.’ His lips moved lightly across her cheek to the edge of her mouth.

‘Reece, I feel as if I’m caught in a nightmare and can’t wake up!’ She trembled.

He laughed softly as he straightened. ‘That’s the first time any woman has described kissing me as a nightmare! I’m obviously not finding the experience of being your fiancé as unsettling as you are.’

‘Why did you do it?’ she groaned.

‘Cheer up,’ he told her lightly. ‘It will only be for a few weeks.’

‘A few weeks!’ she repeated aghast. ‘Reece, we can’t possibly——’

‘Of course we can,’ he dismissed her objections. ‘I’m quite enjoying myself, actually,’ he grinned.

Anger darkened her eyes, making them look bigger than ever. ‘I’m not!’ she snapped.

‘I can see that,’ he said amiably. ‘I don’t have to be the consolation prize, you know.’

She frowned. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Well, we are engaged. It seems a pity to waste the opportunity——’

‘The opportunity doesn’t arise,’ she told him firmly, abruptly ending the dance. ‘Ask my mother to dance, Polly is getting a little frantic,’ she added scornfully, several other couples dancing with them now, David and Amanda one of them, David obviously enthralled by her mother.

Reece frowned down at her. ‘Amanda can’t help her beauty and warmth.’

‘Can’t she?’ Laurel said brittlely. ‘Don’t tell me you are another one, Reece?’ she derided the fallibility of men falling for a beautiful face and sexy body, oblivious of the woman inside the body.

‘I like your mother very much,’ he told her firmly. ‘In fact, sometimes I wonder how she could be your mother!’ he reproved.

She drew in an angry breath. ‘Believe me, there’s no doubt about that, I checked it out myself years ago!’

‘Laurel——’

‘I have to go and powder my nose!’ She walked away from him, her head held high, looking at no one, although she knew people were watching her. My God, no one believed for a minute that this engagement to Reece was a real one!

That wasn’t so surprising. She had made no secret of the fact that she was marrying Giles for anything but love. She was fond of him, he was charming and pleasant to be around, made no demands on her that she wasn’t prepared to give.

None of the people that really knew her would ever believe she had chosen arrogant, sensually attractive Reece Harrington in his place!

Then she would just have to make them believe it, make them think she had been so overwhelmed with love for Reece that for once she had thrown caution to the wind and given in to an impulse, that of marrying Reece. When the engagement was broken that would only reaffirm the claim she had always made that a relationship should be founded on liking and respect rather than the painful emotion of love.

But that would never be with Giles now. Even if he should get over his attack of nerves and change his mind and ask to come back she would never let him. He had forfeited any right to her affection by the humiliating blow he had dealt her tonight. If it hadn’t been for Reece…

Reece. She had known from the moment he helped her from her wrecked car that he was a dangerous man to be around, that any woman that became involved with him would have to give her soul as well as her heart and body.

But she had no intention of becoming involved with him, merely of letting him continue to pretend to be her fiancé. And she was about to start pretending to be his fiancée.

He was standing near the bar talking to Amanda, Polly and David when she entered the room, setting her shoulders determinedly as she walked over to his side. ‘I hope I wasn’t gone too long, darling.’ She stretched up to kiss him, even the high heels on her shoes meaning she still had to go a long way to reach his lips. ‘I missed you,’ she told him throatily.

Humour glinted in his eyes as he quickly masked his surprise at this sudden change in her. ‘I missed you too, darling.’ He teased her lips with his own as he curved her body up into his. ‘Five minutes is too long to be apart,’ he murmured mockingly.

‘Wait until you’ve been married almost five years,’ David derided. ‘Then you would be glad of five minutes to yourself!’

‘That’s all the thanks I get after becoming his child-bride at only nineteen, giving him all of my youth!’ Polly gave him a playful punch on the arm, the couple more in love now than they had ever been, and looking it.

‘What about my youth?’ he teasingly complained. ‘Have you seen how many grey hairs I have on my chest now?’

‘Six,’ his wife taunted. ‘I counted them last night. Afterwards.’

David gave Laurel and Reece an abashed smile. ‘She only treats me this way because she knows I lust after her body!’

Reece laughed softly. ‘I know the feeling!’ He looked warmly down at Laurel.

And she had thought her acting was good! If only a ‘slightly slimmer’ version of the woman he had looked at in the book illustration earlier this evening was his taste for a bed-partner then she fell far short of the required inches. What she had was all in proportion, but those proportions were minimum. Nevertheless, Reece managed to look as if he really couldn’t wait to get her into bed with him later this evening.

And secure in the knowledge that it wasn’t going to happen Laurel played the part of besotted fiancée for the rest of the evening. She was so convincing that as she and Reece languorously danced the night away she could feel the hard desire of his taut thighs against her stomach!

But none of her friends looked at her curiously any more, and even Giles’s work-mates looked convinced by her act, Laurel having assured them they had no need to leave, most of them convinced that Giles had been working this evening as a way of compensation for his broken engagement. They had assured Laurel he didn’t look too broken-hearted, and that they were sure he would quickly recover from his disappointment. Somehow that didn’t make Laurel feel better at all!

But her friends seemed to accept that, like the rest of them, she had fallen into the love-trap, that all her avowals in the past that it would never happen to her had fallen by the wayside when confronted with Reece Harrington. She was content to let them think that, knew it would only make her opinion more right when her engagement to Reece floundered.

‘I can’t tell you how happy I am for you both,’ her mother told them warmly, Reece insisting on driving them both home after the party had broken up after one o’clock in the morning, driving Amanda home first, even though Laurel had argued that he would only have to drive back again after taking her home. Reece had been adamant. ‘Robert is going to be so surprised when he gets home tomorrow,’ she added lightly. ‘You could have let me in on the secret before the party, Reece,’ she chided her stepson indulgently.

‘Amanda——’

‘Laurel had to talk to Giles first.’ Reece’s warning look in the driving mirror as Laurel sat in the back of the car effectively silenced her, her mother sitting beside Reece in the sleek silver sports model Jaguar. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair for us to tell anyone else until she had had a chance to explain to him.’

‘No,’ her mother conceded, turning to smile at Laurel. ‘When is the wedding to be, darling?’

‘Give us time to catch our breaths, Amanda,’ Reece derided lightly. ‘We only realised this evening that we’re in love.’

Amanda’s eyes widened in the semi-light of the streetlamped streets. ‘When you went to the shop to see Laurel about my invitation?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded.

‘Goodness, Reece, you’re an even faster worker than your father,’ Amanda chuckled. ‘At least he waited a week after we met before proposing.’

‘But I’ve already known Laurel for a year,’ Reece reminded.

‘And suddenly realised you were in love with her when you knew she was going to marry another man! That’s so romantic,’ Amanda sighed happily. ‘Do you realise that once you and Reece are married, Laurel, that our last names will once again be the same?’

This time she ignored the warning look in the mirror, her mouth twisting derisively. ‘And it’s certainly been a long time since that happened,’ she rasped.

‘Has it?’ Amanda frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose it has,’ she nodded slowly. ‘You could have taken Frank’s name——’

‘I didn’t want it,’ she dismissed sharply, having disliked her mother’s second husband intensely.

‘No,’ Amanda grimaced. ‘You and Frank never did get on.’

She had never felt the need to tell her mother the reason she disliked Frank Shepherd so much, of the advances he always made to her whenever she came home from the expensive boarding-school they had sent her to after their marriage. She had been on the edge of sixteen at the time, just budding into womanhood, a late developer physically, and Frank had obviously found the way that she was developing extremely erotic.

‘Frank was a——’

‘We’ll get straight off if you don’t mind, Amanda,’ Reece cut in tightly as he stopped the Jaguar outside the impressive Harrington home, several lights glowing welcomingly inside the house. ‘Laurel has to open the shop in the morning.’

‘Of course, darling.’ Amanda got out of the car as Reece opened the door for her, turning to push the seat forward so that Laurel could get out. ‘I’m sure you want to sit next to Reece,’ she said knowingly.

As Laurel had been the one to insist her mother be the one to sit next to him on the drive here that assumption was completely erroneous. She reluctantly climbed out of the back of the car, receiving a hug from her mother before getting into the front passenger seat.

‘The two of you must come to dinner tomorrow evening,’ Amanda invited eagerly. ‘Robert will insist,’ she added firmly as Laurel seemed about to refuse.

‘And as Dad’s even more arrogant than I am we might as well give in gracefully,’ Reece accepted lightly. ‘About seven-thirty, okay, Laurel?’

‘Fine,’ she agreed drily, staring out the front window as Reece walked her mother into the house.

‘What did he do to you?’

Laurel turned to give Reece a startled look, the question coming out of the blue after they had driven in silence for the last ten minutes. ‘Giles?’ she frowned her puzzlement. ‘You read the letter——’

‘Not Gilbraith,’ Reece dismissed harshly. ‘Frank Shepherd!’

Her breathing suddenly became ragged. ‘I rarely saw him, I was away at school a lot.’

‘And when you weren’t?’ he persisted grimly.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know——’

‘Laurel, don’t lie to me; I could clearly see your face in the driving-mirror.’ His hands tightly gripped the steering-wheel, his body rigid. ‘What did the bastard do to you?’ he asked again.

She swallowed hard, moistening stiff lips. ‘Amanda was only married to him for a year——’

‘Laurel,’ Reece cut in with controlled violence. ‘I could see the disgust in your face, a remembered fear in your eyes. Darling, tell me,’ he encouraged throatily. ‘It will be all right.’

She sighed. ‘He didn’t really do anything,’ she shook her head. ‘Not really.’

‘Then tell me!’

‘He… it was just talk, mainly! About my body.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘I was just developing breasts.’ She swallowed again. ‘And he—he was offensive, Reece, that’s all,’ she dismissed impatiently.

‘Did he touch you?’

She gasped at the bluntness of the query, glad of the semi-darkness to hide her flushed cheeks. ‘Only once or twice,’ she admitted in a pained voice. ‘Look, Reece, I don’t——’

‘Do you know why Amanda divorced him?’ Reece asked harshly.

Laurel shrugged uninterestedly. ‘She told me they had realised they weren’t suited to each other.’

He nodded. ‘That was part of it. She stayed with him to try and give you a stable life, the education you deserved. I’m sure that if she had any idea what he was doing to you——’

‘I didn’t tell her then, and I don’t want her to know now,’ Laurel gave him a warning glare. ‘I don’t blame her for it, Frank was careful always to be the loving stepfather whenever my mother was around.’

‘She had quite an unhappy time with him too, although it isn’t up to me to discuss that with you. What a damned mess!’ he ground out. ‘Has—did the experience put you off making love?’

‘No,’ she answered abruptly. How could she be put off something she had never been on! She had been prepared to be a wife to Giles, but he hadn’t been all that interested in the physical side of their relationship either, had never tried to make love to her fully. It had been something else about him that she liked and approved of.

‘Thank God,’ Reece sighed his relief at her answer.

‘Why didn’t you let me tell Amanda the engagement wasn’t a real one?’ she abruptly changed the subject.

‘I didn’t think you would want to be the object of her pity any more than you did anyone else’s,’ he rasped. ‘Less so than most!’

She blushed at the truth of that. ‘Thank you. I—I don’t think I said this earlier, but——’

‘You didn’t,’ he mocked.

Laurel glared at him. ‘You have no idea what I’m going to say!’

‘I don’t?’ He raised innocent brows. ‘I thought you were going to thank me for becoming your fiancé and so rescuing you from an awkward situation.’

‘I was,’ she snapped.

‘Well?’ he prompted as no gratitude was forthcoming.

‘I said I was; I changed my mind!’

Reece began to laugh softly. ‘Laurel, has anyone told you that you’re adorable?’

No one ever had. She hadn’t been a pretty child, a late developing adolescent, was now a capable lady rather than a sexy one. ‘Not lately,’ she drawled. ‘Although I’m glad you find me so amusing,’ she added with obvious sarcasm.

He sobered instantly. ‘I’m not laughing at you, Laurel, I’m laughing at your humour. I like it.’