The Valentine Child

Uncle Bertie had been an eminent judge destined for one of the highest positions in the English judiciary, until he had suffered his heart attack last November.

Zoë closed her eyes and lay back against the wall, her feet tucked beneath her. She was going to miss him, she knew. But—thank God!—she had Justin; she was not alone, and Uncle Bertie had been delighted when she’d married his protégé. So she at least had the solace of knowing that her uncle’s last weeks had been happy.

Smiling softly to herself, she glanced at her sparkling engagement ring and the pale gold band beside it. Then she breathed on the window, misting the glass, and, in a childish gesture, drew a heart with her forefinger and inserted the initials ZG and JG with a rather wobbly arrow, remembering the Valentine’s ball.

No girl had ever had a more tender, intoxicating initiation into womanhood. Justin was the perfect lover; slowly and carefully he had kissed and caressed, urged and cajoled her through the intricacies of love, and at the final moment had protected her from any untoward consequences.

The next morning, when he had taken her back to Black Gables, he had formally asked Uncle Bertie for her hand in marriage, informed her arrogantly that as his wife-to-be she no longer needed to work, and, of course, she had agreed. Then, a month later, on the arm of her uncle Bertie, she had walked down the aisle of the village church to wed Justin.

She sighed. Who would have thought that two months later Bertie would be dead? Then she heard the voice of Mrs Sara Blacket, the wife of one of the partners in Justin’s law firm, speaking.

‘It’s a magnificent house. Gifford has done very well for himself, even if he did have to marry the old man’s niece to get it.’

Why, the cheeky old bat! Zoë thought, and would have moved, but then she recognised another voice—that of Mary Master, the wife of a High Court judge.

‘Oh, I don’t think Justin married for any mercenary reason. They make a lovely couple, and it’s obvious she adores him.’

‘I don’t dispute the girl loves him, but my Harold told me he’d heard that Bertie Brown, when he realised he was dying, offered Justin his place as the head of chambers on condition that he married the niece. He wanted her settled before he died.’

‘I find that hard to believe. In any case, the other partners would have had some say in the matter,’ Mary Master argued.

‘Bertie was well liked, and which one of them would refuse a dying man’s last wish? As Harold said, the girl is exquisitely beautiful, tiny—like a rare Dresden china doll—but young and hardly a match for an aggressively virile male like Gifford.

‘His taste in the past was for large, bosomy ladies more his own age. Remember the Christmas dinner two years ago and Justin’s redhead partner? Harold told me they were taking bets on whether her boobs would stay covered through to the sweet course.’

‘Oh, really, Sara!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘That’s a bit much, and in any case Justin was not dating Zoë at the time. He was a free agent.’

Zoë cringed behind the curtain, her face flaming; she could not believe what the Blacket woman was saying. Didn’t want to.

‘Believe me or not, Mary, but I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when the will is read. Bertie befriended Justin Gifford when he was a teenager and his father died—apparently they were old friends. I’ll bet Gifford gets at least half the old boy’s estate, if not more. Hardly fair on Zoë, his only living relative.’

‘Surely it’s not important? They are married—everything they have is divided equally anyway.’

Zoë heard Mary Master reply. The woman’s voice was fading—they were obviously leaving the room—but Zoë could not move; she was frozen in shock.

‘Exactly my point.’ Sara Blacket’s piercing voice echoed in the room as she closed the door. ‘Gifford is a very ambitious man and by doing what the old man wanted and marrying the American girl he has made doubly sure of getting control of virtually everything. I can’t see young Zoë being involved in finance at allshe’s the arty type.’

Zoë stared at the heart she had drawn on the glass; the mist was fading, the shape disappearing—a bad omen! Don’t be stupid! she told herself, and quickly raised her hand and rubbed the window clean. But she could not clean the doubt in her mind away so easily. Could it be true? Had Uncle Bertie insisted that Justin marry her? No, of course not, her common sense told her. Justin loved her, didn’t he?

She slid off the seat and stood up. She was overreacting. Sara Blacket was a nosy, overbearing old gossip whose husband, as the most senior in chambers, had wanted to be head himself. Justin had told her as much. Obviously it was pure sour grapes on Sara’s part.

‘Zoë? Zoë?’ Justin’s voice broke into her uncomfortable thoughts, and, smoothing the plain black jersey shift down over her hips, she moved towards the door. It was flung open and Justin walked in, his dark eyes full of concern.

‘Ah! There you are. I saw Mary and Sara leave. I take it you didn’t get the peace you were looking for,’ he said lightly, casually slipping an arm around her shoulders. ‘Judge Master is waiting in the study, darling. It’s time to say goodbye to the guests, and then the will will be read. Are you up to it or would your rather wait? There’s no hurry.’

‘Why? Because you know what’s in it?’ The curt words had left her mouth before she could stop them…

‘No. No, I don’t.’ Justin turned her around to face him, his arms encircling her waist, holding her loosely, his dark eyes scrutinising her pale face. ‘I was thinking of you; you look tired. It’s been a long day.’

Held in his arms, conscious of his warmth and the tender care in his expression, Zoë hated herself for doubting him for a minute, but she could not control her wayward tongue. She loved Justin, and she needed his reassurance.

‘You do love me, Justin?’ she asked softly, her eyes catching his, a pleading light in their sapphire depths.

‘Of course I do, silly girl; I married you, didn’t I?’ And his dark head lowered, blocking out the light as his mouth moved over hers in an achingly tender kiss.

She moved closer into his embrace and curved her slender arms around his neck; she felt his arms tighten and she opened her mouth, inviting the kiss to deepen. She sighed into his mouth, their breath mingling there, tongues entwining; she ran her fingers through his thick black hair, her heart pounding. Justin loved her; he was her husband, her love, her life.

Justin slightly parted his long legs, one strong hand curving down over her bottom and urging her between his muscular thighs. She curved into the hot, hard warmth of his body, her breasts flattened against his rihcage, her nipples tingling with the contact then hardening as his other hand swept up to cup possessively over one high, firm breast through the soft wool of her dress.

He broke the kiss long enough to nuzzle her throat, his mouth covering the madly beating pulse in her neck then trailing back to her softly parted lips; a low moan escaped her just as his mouth found hers once more.

As always she trembled, melting against him, her blood pounding through her veins, but suddenly he was easing her away. ‘Justin,’ she murmured.

‘Easy, Zoë. Now is not the time.’

She raised passion-hazed eyes to his rugged face; she recognised the dark blush of desire staining his taut features at the same time as she saw the familiar iron control reassert itself in the black depths of his eyes.

‘You’re right, as usual,’ she agreed, and was swept into a gentle hug, his large hand stroking the back of her head as he pressed her to his broad chest, easing the sexual tension surrounding them into something more manageable.

‘Come on, Zoë; the quicker we say goodbye to the guests, the sooner we can get this day over with.’

He was right, but sometimes, just sometimes, Zoë wished that he would get swept away by passion. But the great Justin Gifford, renowned for his cool, lethal voice, his absolute control of any jury, never, ever lost control.

Now, where had that unkind thought come from? Zoë mused as she saw the guests depart. Justin was British and restraint was an accepted characteristic of the people, and she should know! On first arriving here, a typical American teenager, she had found it difficult to adjust to the more formal way of life.

Half an hour later she followed Justin into the study and sat down beside him on the black hide sofa. Mrs Crumpet, the housekeeper, Jud, her husband—also the gardener—and John Smith, the chauffeur, plus the two daily women, stood around in a rather embarrassed silence as Judge Master sat down in the chair behind Uncle Bertie’s desk.

It soon became apparent that Bertie hadn’t changed his will in years. All the staff were left generous amounts of money and there were pensions for Mr and Mrs Crumpet and the chauffeur. His law books were to go to Justin and the remainder of the estate was left to Zoë, with the proviso that Justin be her guardian until she was twenty-five.

‘You—my guardian.’ She smiled at Justin. ‘It sounds slightly kinky as we’re already married.’

Judge Master laughed. ‘Bertie made this will when you were sixteen; he did think about changing it, but, as you and Justin married, there was no real point. It’s all in the family anyway.’

The staff left the room, and then Judge Master revealed the extent of the estate. It was not a great deal of money but, with the house, a very nice legacy. She felt Justin tense beside her, and she shot him a puzzled look, but he ignored her, his gaze fixed on Judge Master.

‘With the house included, if he didn’t make prior arrangements, the death duty will be quite considerable.’ Justin was all business, and Zoë felt oddly excluded as the two men talked literally over her head.

‘Yes, I did warn him,’ the judge responded.

‘But you know Bertie—he refused to admit he was dying right up until the end.’

‘I shouldn’t worry about the tax, though. Zoë is twenty-one in a month, when she will obtain control of her trust fund from her parents. I was talking to the lawyer in New York only a few days ago, and, with the reissue of an old film of her father’s about dinosaurs, apparently her trust fund is quite healthy.’

‘How healthy exactly?’ Justin asked quietly.

‘Double what Bertie left, so the tax should not be a problem. Mind you, I would advise you to sell this place; it’s far too big for this day and age. Maintenance alone was always a drain on Bertie’s funds.’

‘Do you mind, gentlemen? I am sitting here,’ Zoë intervened, and wanted to laugh as the two males in the room turned to look at her as though she were some apparition.

Judge Master was the first to recover. ‘Yes, of course. It has been a long day; Justin and I can discuss all this in a day or two, and I’d better be making tracks or Mary will not be pleased.’

Zoë smiled; she liked Judge Master and, after the conversation she had overheard earlier, she appreciated his wife, who had defended her against the infamous Sara Blacket.

Justin rose to his feet and walked across to the cabinet in the corner of the oak-panelled study. ‘You will join me in a drink, Judge? I need one.’ He picked up a bottle of whisky, opened it and poured a large shot into a crystal tumbler before adding, ‘How about you, Zoë?’

She looked across at her husband; his back was to her, his shoulders tense, and, as she watched, his dark head tilted back as he lifted the glass to his mouth and drank. It was unusual for Justin to drink spirits—an occasional glass of wine was more his style.

‘Zoë.’ Justin turned, glass in hand. ‘Do you want one?’ he asked again, his expression austere.

‘No. You and the judge carry on. I’ll go and find Mary.’

Ten minutes later, she stood in the entrance hall and thanked Judge Master for all his help, but her glance kept straying to Justin at her side as she said goodbye to the couple. She had the oddest feeling that although he was there he was not really with her.

The door closed behind Judge and Mary Master and she sighed in relief.

‘At last it’s all over,’ she murmured, her eyes seeking her husband’s. He had been a tower of strength all through the death, the funeral, everything. She could never have managed without him, and all she wanted now was to feel the comfort of his arms around her.

Dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit, a stark white shirt and the obligatory black tie, he looked all powerful, virile male, as though nothing could touch him or those he cared for. He was her rock, her comfort and her lover, and she had never needed him more than now. She stepped towards him.

‘I have some work to attend to, Zoë; I’ll see you at dinner.’

She shot him a pleading if puzzled glance and could have sworn that he was avoiding her eyes. ‘Yes, OK.’ But she doubted whether he heard her as she was talking to his back.

CHAPTER TWO

ZOË knocked on the heavy oak door, turned the handle, opened it and entered the study. Justin was sitting behind the huge mahogany desk in what used to be Uncle Bertie’s chair, his broad shoulders hunched, his head buried in a mass of papers.

He had removed his jacket and tie, and his white shirt was open at the neck, the sleeves rolled back to reveal sinewy forearms sprinkled with a downy covering of dark hair. He looked stern and somehow remote. She moved silently across the room but he sensed her presence, his proud head lifting.

‘Yes?’ he said distantly.

‘It’s eight—dinner is ready.’ She shook her head in disgust at his vacant look, her long blonde hair floating around her shoulders in a silvery cloud as she moved to his side and leant against his broad shoulder. Placing one slender arm around his other shoulder, she added, ‘You work far too hard, Justin, and it has got to stop.’ She pressed a swift kiss on the top of his head. ‘Come and eat.’

‘I have to work hard if I expect to keep my beautiful wife in the manner to which she is accustomed,’ he retorted, his sensuous mouth curving in a brief smile, and, getting to his feet, he spanned her tiny waist with his strong hands and swung her high in the air, as one would a child. ‘And that’s my mission in life.’

She grinned down into his handsome face, thrilled by the compliment. ‘Not any more, you don’t, if what Judge Master said about my trust fund is correct,’ she teased.

Justin looked up at her, all trace of amusement deserting his hard features, and abruptly he lowered her to the ground. ‘Yes, of course. Apparently I’ve married a woman of means,’ he drawled, stepping back and rolling down the sleeves of his shirt. ‘The tax man will certainly see it that way,’ he added with dry sarcasm, hooking his jacket with one hand as he headed for the door, and flinging over his shoulder, ‘Let’s eat.’

She stared at his retreating back for a moment, hurt by the obvious sarcasm in his tone. Was it possible that Justin was disappointed not to have received more in the will? No, he couldn’t be. He was a comfortably wealthy man in his own right.

Later, sitting opposite each other across the small table in the breakfast-room, sharing a simple, almost silent evening meal of beef goulash and rice followed by icecream, the thought haunted her, and by the time they were sipping their coffee she could contain herself no longer.

‘Justin, are you upset by the will?’ She had to ask. Absolute honesty was essential to a good marriage—or so all the books said—and she wanted their marriage to be perfect.

His black head lifted, his eyes capturing hers across the table. ‘No, certainly not. But why do you ask?’ he demanded, the hard tone of his voice jarring on her sensitive nerves.

‘Earlier, in the study, you didn’t seem too amused when…’

His mouth compressed. ‘Today is hardly a day for amusement; we have just buried your uncle,’ he prompted, in a voice he usually used to destroy some unsuspecting witness.

‘Please, Justin, you don’t have to remind me. I just thought…Well, maybe you felt left out.’ How could she tell him of the conversation she had overheard? Her own doubts…?

‘No, I assure you,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘as far as the will is concerned, it was exactly as it should be. Bertie was my guide and mentor all through my career and before, and I am greatly honoured that he left me his law books.’

Zoë believed him; she knew his sentiment was genuine and she wanted to say so, but, as often happened though she was reluctant to admit it, her brilliantly clever husband left her tongue-tied. She only had to look into his deep brown eyes, or note the curve of his mouth as he spoke, and his effect on her was immediate. After two months of marriage her pulse still raced at the sight of him. Tonight a lock of black hair had fallen over his broad brow and unconsciously she reached across the table and brushed it back with her fingers.

Justin caught her hand in his and pressed a quick kiss to her palm, his glance flashing knowingly to her face. ‘You’ve had a long, hard day, Zoë. Leave the worrying to me and go to bed, hmm? I’ll join you later.’ He squeezed her hand before letting it go to resume drinking his coffee.

But the mention of bed reminded her of another problem she had. The house! Because of Uncle Bertie’s ill health when they had married there had been no honeymoon; Justin had simply moved in with them, here at Black Gables.

It was a massive old house, totally impractical and virtually impossible to heat. It contained fifteen bedrooms and several reception-rooms, plus a ballroom and a dozen attic rooms. In the extensive grounds were two cottages and a range of outbuildings, some with commercial use but long since left derelict.

Her uncle had insisted on having the master suite decorated for them, but unfortunately for Zoë it was built on the old-fashioned lines of two bedrooms joined by a dressing-room and bathroom. She would have much preferred to share a bed with her husband. Instead, she found that after making love Justin invariably went back to his own room…

‘About the house, Justin,’ she burst out. ‘Judge Master suggested we sell it and I’m inclined to agree.’

She was a thoroughly modern girl, having spent the first fourteen years of her life living at home in California and boarding-school in Maine. She had once before broached the subject of separate rooms to Justin, but he had fobbed her off with, ‘Best to leave things as they are. There’s no point in upsetting Bertie,’ and, as a new bride and still in some awe around her dynamic husband, she had let it go. But now…

‘I mean the separa—’

‘It’s your house—you can do what you like with it, but I had thought you felt something for the old place. Obviously I was wrong.’ He rose from the table, threw down his napkin, and turned to leave.

‘I simply meant it’s far too big for us, and you have to travel to London every day.’ She jumped up, hurrying after him. She did love Black Gables but she loved her husband more, and she could not bear him to be angry with her.

“Zoë.’ He spun round, his hands falling on her shoulders, gripping them tightly. ‘Shut up and go to bed; now is not the time to discuss these things. Neither of us is thinking straight.’ He looked down into her flushed, puzzled face and sighed, his gaze moving from her sapphire eyes to the long, soft fall of her silver-blonde hair, and finally settling on her wide, soft mouth.

‘Are we having our first fight?’ She tried to joke, but could not hide the tremor in her voice. The events of the day were finally getting to her, and her self-control was perilously close to breaking.

‘No, no, of course not, little one,’ he hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m a bit tense, that’s all. It’s been a sad and difficult few weeks for both of us.’ He lowered his head.

She trembled at the first brush of his lips and all rational thought deserted her, and when Justin carefully turned her around and pointed at the stairs she meekly walked up them.

Slipping out of her clothes, she walked into the dressing-room, and, replacing the black wool dress in the wardrobe continued to their shared bathroom, where she placed her undies in the wash-basket.

She pulled on a shower-cap and stepped into the double shower stall. Turning on the water and adjusting it to a pleasant temperature, she tilted back her head and closed her eyes, welcoming the soothing spray. It had been a long, sorrow-filled day and she was tense and tired. Justin was right as usual. Picking up the soap, she lazily lathered the fragrant cream into her naked body.

Her hands stilled on her small, firm breasts. How much nicer it would be if they were Justin’s hands. The sensual thought brought a brief smile to her small face. Justin sharing the shower—dream on! She smiled wryly.

Justin was a magnificent lover, as she had discovered on Valentine’s night, but she had also discovered in the weeks before her wedding that he possessed a monumental self-control, refusing to make love to her again until they were married, however much she had tried to tempt him.

Then, on her wedding night, he had, with skill and patience and a sensitivity she could only marvel at, turned her into a molten mass of pure sensation, leading her to an ecstatic explosion of the senses and emotions that she had never imagined in her wildest fantasies. Plus, he had repeated the miracle almost every night since.

But he was conservative with a small C. They only ever made love at night—in bed! The shower was certainly not Justin’s scene.

A frown marring her smooth brow, Zoë stepped out of the shower and wrapped a large, fluffy towel around her slender form. Why, tonight, did the thought of Justin’s restraint worry her? It never had before. Surely she wasn’t letting the bitchy Sara Blacket’s comments get to her? Justin loved her; he had said so, hadn’t he?

Much later she lay naked in her bed, trying to keep her eyes open, waiting for him. It had crossed her mind to go to his bed, but, as a relative novice at lovemaking, she somehow found the thought of taking the initiative with her formidable husband oddly intimidating.

Her eyes flew open as she heard Justin entering his room, then the sound of running water in the bathroom. She pulled herself up the bed, tucking the sheet around under her arms, and switched on the bedside light. She waited until the noise from the bathroom stopped, then called his name. She needed him tonight, even if only to hold her and reassure her that she was not alone. He was all the family she had left; he was her world…

‘What is it, Zoë?’ Justin demanded, walking into the room, a small towel riding low on his hips his only covering. ‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’ He crossed to the bed, to look soberly down at her small frame outlined beneath the covers then up to the pure, pale oval of her lovely face.

Her heart turned over in her breast at the sight of him. His night-black hair, damp from the shower, was swept severely back from his broad forehead, throwing his rugged features into prominent relief. His deep brown eyes, the cast of his high cheekbones and his slightly olive-tinged complexion revealed his father’s Spanish ancestry, though he never spoke much about his family. She knew his parents were dead, and he had a stepsister who was living with some tribe of Indians in the rainforest on a four-year anthropology study.

‘I was waiting for you,’ she told him softly, stretching out a slender hand to touch his forearm, her sapphire eyes roaming over him in undisguised want.

His wide shoulders gleamed like gold satin; a thick mat of hair covered his broad chest, and arrowed down in a fine line past his navel to disappear beneath the towel. His long, muscular legs were planted slightly apart, a lighter dusting of hair shading them darker.

‘I thought you were never coming,’ she murmured, trailing her hand from his arm to thread her fingers through his curling chest hair.

Justin caught her wrist and, easing her hand back behind her head, lowered his big body down beside her and bent his dark head towards hers. ‘Oh, I think I will, and very quickly, my darling girl,’ he drawled with mocking amusement, but his eyes flashed for an instant with what, to Zoë, looked suspiciously like anger just before his lips brushed over hers in a kiss as light as thistledown.