Loves Choices

Love’s Choices

Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IF only something would happen, Hope wished rebelliously, dragging the toes of already grubby tennis shoes along the dusty earth. If Sister Maria knew of her thoughts she would give her a penance for their wickedness, but as she had undoubtedly already earned herself a scolding by skipping tennis, she might as well compound her sin.

Although hidden from her by the high hedge surrounding them, Hope could hear the sounds from the tennis courts; the almost soporific springy thud of the ball against the racket, which came with such regularity that she knew without going to see that Charlotte Howell was playing. Charlotte was by far and away the convent’s best player—way, way out of her class, Hope thought dreamily, bending her head to study the ambling flight of a bee, tennis and her other sins forgotten as she watched the small creature entranced, the silky silver-blonde weight of her hair sliding from its clasp.

Her hair was just another grievance. She hated its long straightness, but whenever she pleaded to have it cut, Sister Maria told her that her father had refused his permission. The nuns knew a good deal more about her father’s wishes than she did herself, Hope reflected a little bitterly. She hadn’t even seen him in years. Sometimes the panicky feeling that he intended to leave her in the convent for the rest of her life, swept over her, almost drowning her. Already several of the girls in her class had left, swept away by parents and family, some going on to exclusive finishing schools, others disappearing into carefully arranged marriages.

Hope shivered a little, glancing apprehensively over her shoulder, but no one had come to disturb the calm peace of the cloister gardens—her secret retreat for those times when living constantly surrounded by other people swamped her spirit.

What must it be like to have a home and family of one’s own, Hope wondered enviously. As a younger girl she had fantasised frequently on this subject, imagining that her father would arrive, a laughing, warm-hearted woman at his side, who would tell her that a daughter was the very thing she had always wanted. Only her father had never married again, and her own mother, who had died when Hope was two, was only a vague memory.

The intensity of the Spanish sun beating down out of the cobalt sky warned Hope that her peace would soon be at an end. The lesson would shortly come to a close and then she would have to join the others for lunch—a frugal but meticulously served meal in the large refectory, as the school dining room was called.

The convent wasn’t simply a school in the ordinary sense—even Hope with her limited knowledge of the world knew that. The majority of the girls came from wealthy and titled families who had sent their daughters to St Cecilia’s knowing that the nuns’ strictly enforced regime and very stern moral attitudes would produce young women of a type the French described approvingly as bien élevée.

Even in her innocence Hope was aware that a far different world existed outside the convent walls from that she knew. Although she had no one special friend at school, she was a popular if somewhat aloof girl and knew from the chatter of the others—girls whose parents were not quite as elusive as her own father, and who spent holidays at home and abroad—that the ways of the world were not entirely as portrayed to them by the nuns.

Only at Easter—six short weeks ago—Leonor de Silva, one of her closest acquaintances, a South American girl of lush, dark beauty, had returned to the convent, her eyes sparkling, her mouth soft and warm with an emotion which caused a curious pang to quiver through Hope’s own inexperienced flesh, as the girl described her feelings for the young man she had met while at home.

‘Of course, Rodrigo is not “suitable”,’ she had added in an unhappy voice. ‘My parents have told me this, and I know that it is so—there has been a marriage arranged for many years with my cousin …’

That was Leonor’s fate, but what was her own? Hope brooded. She had been eighteen two weeks ago—the event totally ignored by her father—and she could not remain at the convent for ever. At least the majority of the other girls knew what their families had in mind for them. She was unusual in that she was the only English girl at the school. Most of the others were Spanish, or Latin American, with the odd French and Italian pupil, but she was the sole representative of her own country, and sometimes that made her feel very alien, despite the fact that the convent had been her home since she was eight years old.

As the bell rang for lunch, Hope sighed and slowly uncurled herself, stretching as she stood up, examining her uniform for grass stains and dust. Cleanliness was next to Godliness as far as the nuns were concerned, and Hope, with her long swathe of pale blonde hair and her coltish, almost gawky limbs, often earned the Sisters’ disapproval for her ungainliness.

Recently, though, her body had started to change—her legs still seemed as awkwardly long as ever, but she was no longer as terribly thin as she had been; in fact it made her blush a little to realise how provocatively full her breasts had become, her waist so narrow that her uniform, now straining across her breasts, hung like a sack on the rest of her body.

Bianca Vincella, an Italian girl who had befriended Hope when she was a shy young junior, had remarked only days before her scandalous expulsion that Hope was starting to look incredibly sexy, but then Bianca had always enjoyed teasing her. Besides, Hope was not so naïve that she didn’t know that ‘incredibly sexy’ was the last thing the convent wanted its pupils to be.

As she made her way to the refectory, Hope shivered a little, her eyes, a soft dove-grey, pensive. Sex was something only to be discussed in hushed, excited whispers in the dormitories at night, and Hope, who had not spent so much as a few days outside the convent walls since she had entered them, had no knowledge of this activity bar that passed on by the Sisters during biology lessons, and what she had gathered from the other girls’ whispered confidences.

From her reading she knew of the ecstasy two people could experience together, but how this ecstasy was to be equated with the dismal facts of procreation described by the nuns, and the fumbling intimacies of her friends, she did not know.

Today was a ‘French’ day, which meant that only French conversation was allowed, but Hope was fluent enough in this language not to mind. Indeed, she was fluent in most languages, and not simply the regulation French, Spanish and Italian taught at the school. German was another of her languages, and she had started to learn Russian. At the back of her mind was the idea that once she left the convent she would like to have a job—to train as a secretary perhaps, and use her languages in that capacity. Hope always did well at her lessons, but the convent set no conventional examinations for its pupils, so she had no real way of judging her ability.

Lunch was frugal as always, but the food was well prepared and attractively served. Any girl returning from her holidays spotty and plump soon found both spots and extra weight disappearing under the convent’s strict regime.

‘Summer holidays soon, what bliss,’ the girl on Hope’s right said dreamily. ‘My parents have a villa on Capri and we’re going there.’ She was a kind girl, who had known Hope since they were both fourteen, and she bit her lip self-consciously, not wanting to hurt Hope’s feelings. Many of the girls had invited Hope to share their holidays, but Hope’s father had always refused permission.

‘It is almost as though he wants to keep you locked up behind these walls for ever,’ one friend had remarked rebelliously when yet another refusal had been received, and although she had smiled the comment aside, a tiny sliver of fear had lodged deep in Hope’s heart.

But now she was eighteen and surely her own mistress? In law perhaps, she admitted inwardly, but although she was equipped to choose menus for fifty guests and upwards without blinking an eye; although she knew exactly what vintage wine to serve with what dish, and how to cope with staff, she had very little idea of how to take care of herself in a world which she sensed she might find alarming and even hostile after the cushioned protection of the convent.

Hope might be naïve, but she was no fool. The convent had an excellent library and Hope had made good use of it, but all her knowledge of the past could not compensate for her lack of knowledge about the present. Newspapers, other than those permitted by the Church, were not allowed. The convent possessed no television and the girls were not permitted to have radios. In the past this had not bothered Hope unduly, but lately … She frowned as she tried to analyse the cause for her recent discontent, the strange restlessness that pursued and possessed her.

‘Hope? Hope, you are daydreaming again!’ The exasperated tones of Sister Catherine’s voice penetrated her thoughts and Hope flushed guiltily.

‘The Reverend Mother wishes to see you,’ Sister Catherine told her, watching not unkindly as the colour came and went in Hope’s face. ‘Run along child—you must not keep her waiting.’

Keep the Reverend Mother waiting? It was unthinkable! Hope didn’t believe she had been summoned to the lady’s room on more than half a dozen occasions during her school life and her heart started to thud as she wondered why she had been sent for now. It couldn’t have been because her father had refused her permission to spend her holidays with yet another schoolfriend—this year she had known better than to ask.

The Reverend Mother had a suite of rooms separated from the main school building by a long cloistered walk, and normally Hope would have enjoyed admiring the enclosed garden the Reverend Mother’s rooms looked out on, but today she felt inexplicably nervous, searching her conscience for any sin which might have merited this summons. Skipping tennis hardly seemed worthy of the Reverend Mother’s intervention—and surely, omnipotent though she was, she had not read her charge’s rebellious and resentful thoughts, Hope wondered nervously.

Outside the study door she knocked and waited to be told to enter. The Reverend Mother was only small, barely five foot two to Hope’s five foot seven, but possessed of such a presence, such an aura of calm peacefulness, that it was Hope who felt dwarfed.

‘Sit down, child,’ the Reverend Mother commanded with a smile. She had been the head of the Convent School for nearly thirty years, and she knew her charges better than they knew themselves.

Hope was her only English pupil and the Reverend Mother had been startled at first when the child’s father had told her his wishes. Hope was to be kept cloistered in a way she herself would not even have recommended for a proposed novice. The Reverend Mother was no romantic—those who wished to forsake the world must first experience it. But while she might deplore what she secretly thought of as Sir Henry’s lack of feeling for his only child, with one or two exceptions Hope had been brought up largely as he had wished.

In these enlightened times it was neither wise nor practical to keep young girls ignorant of sexual matters. The Reverend Mother had been of a generation where in Spain this ignorance had been the norm, but it was like trying to hold back the tide to keep mentally innocent, young girls whose families were as wealthy and powerful as those to whom her pupils belonged. Indeed, she herself had had to fight against considerable opposition to have sex education included in the curriculum, and what she knew of Sir Henry made her wonder rather cynically at the double-standards operated by the world. Which made her all the more relieved about today’s turn of events.

Sir Henry had not been in touch with her before Hope’s eighteenth birthday, as she had expected. Most of her pupils left at seventeen, and it grieved her that Hope, who was one of her brightest pupils, would never go on to university. Indeed, it was her own personal view that Hope would fare better in the life she suspected Sir Henry planned for her, if her intelligence was less, and she eyed her sympathetically. In a school comprised of mainly Latin races, Hope’s silvery blondeness was unique. Her bone-structure differed from the other girls, too; like her body it was far more fragile and delicate, betraying her Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

‘Don’t look so worried, Hope. I’ve got some good news for you. You are to leave us and join your father, who apparently is in France at the moment. A friend of your father’s, the Comte de Serivace is calling to collect you tomorrow and he will escort you to your father.’

She busied herself kindly with some papers on her desk, well aware of the changing emotions and turmoil churning Hope’s stomach and mind. If anything, she wished that Hope was less vulnerable, more equipped to deal with the vagaries of life outside the convent, but it was not up to her to question the dictates of her pupils’ families. Sir Henry had been most adamant that Hope was not to be ‘contaminated’ by any contact with the outside world. A strange desire for a man who … Sternly the Reverend Mother suppressed the uncharitable thought, turning her attention to the girl standing before her.

‘I know this has come as something of a shock, Hope. Indeed, we could have wished for your father to give us more notice, but you are eighteen and it is time that you took your place in the world. Remember, child, we will always be here if you should need us.’ It was something she said to all the girls when they left, but some deep instinct told her that Hope was more likely to stand in need of the shelter offered by the convent than any other pupil.

Like someone in a dream Hope made her way back to her room. At sixteen, girls were promoted from sleeping in a dormitory to sharing a room with three other girls. The girls who shared with Hope had all left at Christmas and she had been alone ever since. Not that she minded. Solitude was something one came to appreciate, living in such a busy community. But it had happened at last—her father had sent for her!

In her room, Hope sank down on the narrow bed, staring unseeingly through the window down into the convent grounds. Strange how, after she had longed for something like this to happen so much, she should feel so curiously empty; frightened almost. Although never of a particularly religious turn of mind, Hope found herself praying silently, suddenly terrified of the world she would find outside the convent.

After dinner Sister Teresa sent her to pack her things. Her father had sent her an expensive case, no doubt realising that the one she had taken with her to the convent ten years previously was rather the worse for wear. It was a pity he had not realised the same thing about her clothes, Hope thought unhappily. Apart from her uniform, she had nothing!

After dinner the girls were allowed a free period when they could chat, but Hope found herself strangely reluctant to announce her departure. She was intelligent enough to know how much some of the other girls pitied her, and she had no wish to let them know that after ten years her father was not coming to collect her himself, but had sent someone else.

Daddy was probably too busy, she told herself loyally.

Her father had many business interests, but the most important was his small share in Montrachet’s, the worldwide merchant bankers, whose headquarters were in Paris. Her father had often written to her about the Montrachet family; their wealth and their pride, and once again she shivered, dreading facing the outside world. How contrary she was. Only this morning she had been longing to escape the convent and now … now she was hanging back nervously, confused and alarmed by her own reactions.

It wasn’t until after breakfast that the Reverend Mother sent for Hope. Breakfast was eaten early at the convent, although this morning Hope hadn’t been able to touch hers, and she had had nothing to do for several hours afterwards, other than walk in the gardens, trying to suppress her nervousness. No doubt the Comte, who would probably be staying in Seville, the nearest town to the convent, would have breakfasted at leisure, perhaps in his room, unaware and uncaring of her growing tension. For some reason she didn’t like the Comte, which was surely ridiculous as she hadn’t met him. Deep down inside her Hope acknowledged that her resentment probably sprang from the fact that she would have preferred her father to come for her, and that she was transferring her resentment, because he had not, from her father to the Comte—but knowing this still did not change her feelings.

She was walking slowly through the gardens for the third time when Sister Teresa came hurrying towards her, breathless and hot, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

‘Hope, mon petit … the Reverend Mother wishes to see you.’ Sister Teresa was the youngest and friendliest of the Sisters. She taught French and often lapsed into this language, forgetting the rules. Today, by rights, was Italian day, but Hope answered her in French automatically, aware that her cheeks were suddenly burning with a colour that had nothing to do with the heat of the sun, as she followed Sister Teresa back to the cloisters.

As before, she paused and knocked outside the Reverend Mother’s door, catching the soft murmur of the Reverend Mother’s voice, and the deeper, masculine tones of her companion. When she entered the room the Reverend Mother smiled reassuringly at her. ‘Ah, Hope, my child, let me introduce you to Monsieur le Comte, who has come on behalf of your papa.’

Stubbornly, Hope refused to look in the direction of the Comte until the last moment, her eyes widening in stunned astonishment when she finally did so. This man was not at all as she had imagined a friend of her father’s to be. For one thing, he was so much younger. Thirty, or thirty-five at the most; considerably older than her, but far, far younger than her father, and for another …

Feeling like someone who has suddenly been deprived of breath, Hope forced herself to glance a second time into the face of the man watching her. Was it because she was used to seeing only softer female features that the harsh masculinity of high, sharply defined cheekbones and a dark, taut jaw had such an impact on her?

Hope’s eyes returned almost dazedly to the angles and planes of a face so totally male that she felt the shock waves of seeing it reverberating strongly through her. Green eyes, dangerous, predatory eyes, half concealed by thick black lashes, studied her coolly for several achingly long seconds, before subjecting her to an assessingly keen stare, holding her gaze deliberately until Hope felt she was drowning in emerald seas.

Tearing her gaze from the Comte’s eyes, Hope made an effort to study him as objectively as he had done her, her cheeks still hot with colour from the knowledge that he had deliberately and quite cynically stripped her of every article of clothing when he studied her—and in the Reverend Mother’s presence! She could not match his savoir-faire, but she did make a valiant attempt to study the sharply defined bone-structure of his face, wondering why it should be vaguely familiar and yet so different from what she had imagined. His mouth curled sardonically as though he was aware of her mental rejection of him, his thick, black hair brushing the collar of his shirt as he lazily flicked back his cuff to study a pale gold watch.

Taking the hint, the Reverend Mother came forward, kissing Hope gently on each cheek. ‘Remember, my dear, we are always here if you want us.’ She spoke in Italian and Hope responded in the same language, startled when the tall, dark man at her side drawled cynically in perfect Italian:

‘We must hope that life treats her too kindly for her to need a refuge, Reverend Mother,’ and then he was opening the door, one dark, long-fingered hand on Hope’s shoulder, her fragile bones feeling as though they were burning beneath his touch as he pushed her gently through the open door.

Outside in the front courtyard of the convent, a long, squat car glinted darkly in the sunlight, a fitting means of transport for this dark, almost menacing man, Hope thought, shivering a little as she recognised instinctively the power and threat of two such masculine objects.

Her case was placed in the boot, and the passenger door opened for her, dark eyebrows rising in a sardonic appraisal which hinted that he was not entirely surprised as he drawled, ‘Surely you have something else to wear? Or does the good Reverend Mother seek to remind me of what you are?’

Not entirely understanding the reason for his comment, Hope told him coolly that she had no other clothes.

‘None? Your father is not a poor man.’

‘My father … My father is not a wasteful man,’ she managed primly at last, trying not to notice the way in which the fine fabric of his dark pants stretched over his thighs as he slid into the driving seat, and her hands folded tensely in her lap.

‘You think it wasteful, to spend money on clothes? But you cannot spend the rest of your life in garments which, rather than reinforcing your schoolgirl status, draw attention to the fact that it is past time for you to change them for something a little more … womanly.’ His eyes rested meaningfully on the taut fabric stretching across her breasts and Hope blushed fiery red, hating the way he was looking at her, and yet curiously excited in some strange way.

‘You must fasten your seat-belt,’ the Comte told her coolly. ‘Like this.’ He reached across her, the dark fabric of his suited arm brushing the fullness on which his eyes had so recently rested. Something like an electric current shot through Hope making her stiffen automatically, shrinking into her seat as he secured the belt around her, apparently unaware of the effect of their momentary physical contact.

Having fastened his own belt, he started the car, the powerful roar of the engine drowning out the hurried thud of Hope’s heartbeat as she tried not to give in to the desolation gripping her as the car swept along the drive and out of the convent gates.

‘I cannot drive you all the way to France wearing those garments,’ the Comte told her when they had gone several miles. ‘I have no wish to be arrested for attempting to kidnap a child.’

‘I expect my father has forgotten that I have grown,’ Hope offered unhappily, feeling that some explanation was needed. ‘I haven’t required any other clothes as …’

‘As your father has never permitted you to leave the convent,’ her companion finished for her. ‘Yes, I am aware of that.’ His attention momentarily diverted from the road to her, and Hope felt herself flushing again under his thoughtful scrutiny. ‘However, you have left it now, and your father’s past deficiencies will soon be remedied.’

Hope looked into the man’s face as he spoke, surprised to see the grim coldness in his eyes, tiny feathers of alarm curling along her spine, and a tension she couldn’t understand infiltrating the atmosphere in the car until every muscle in her body was taut in response to it.