Promise Of Passion

‘I’m sure I will,’ he agreed, his eyes fixed on hers so hard that she could do little else but glare back to match him. ‘Tomorrow at ten, then. You have my card. Phone if anything crops up——’

‘Nothing will,’ Caroline assured him firmly as she turned to the door to show him out.

At the gallery door, which Caroline had opened for him, he turned and looked at her. It was a while before he spoke, as if he was choosing his words carefully in his mind before speaking them.

‘She mentioned a nanny. You have staff and she will, of course, look after the child when you come tomorrow?’

‘She’, ‘the child’. Did he mean to insult with his choice of words to describe Martha?

‘She has a name—Martha,’ Caroline informed him tightly. ‘And Nanny isn’t the hired help. She’s my mother and the grandmother of my daughter and have no fear that I will impose Martha on you tomorrow. She’s an astute child and will know when she isn’t wanted.’

His eyes darkened. ‘I meant nothing of the sort,’ he told her crisply and Caroline realised she had been hypersensitive in taking it that way.

She let out a small apologetic sigh and lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

To her astonishment he lifted her chin and gazed deep into her green eyes. His touch was far warmer than she would have expected from such a cold man. His dark eyes too were suddenly so unexpectedly soft that she parted her lips in silent surprise and her heart seemed to squeeze for some unearthly reason.

‘I understand your protective feelings for your daughter,’ he said quietly. ‘But please don’t be on the defensive for her all the time. You’re a very lucky lady to have such a beautiful daughter. Some are not so fortunate.’ The words came out leaden and Caroline wondered at what had powered them but had no chance to try and analyse them for the moment. He went on, ‘I was simply trying to establish the facts for tomorrow. My mother is a frail lady and not used to young children. If you wanted to bring the…bring Martha I would have to prepare her in advance. That was the only reason I asked about a nanny.’

Caroline tried to nod but his fingers on her chin wouldn’t allow that. She felt a sudden crushing feeling in her chest as that touch smoothed into a caress and then he took his fingers away and she wondered if she had imagined it all.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he finalised, and turned away from her and was gone.

Caroline flattened herself against the back of the door, having shut it after him, and took long breaths and closed her eyes. She should have explained to him from the off, told him that Martha wasn’t her daughter but the orphaned daughter of her dear sister who had died so tragically. But how could she tell anyone, least of all that damned arrogant Frazer stranger? Martha believed her to be her real mother because it was Caroline who was bringing her up. That dear, sweet child, conceived by her irresponsible sister, father unknown, and orphaned at the age of four months, would have a lot to contend with in later life and Caroline was going to do everything in her power to smooth the way for her. If she was defensive over Martha she had reason to be.

Later, when she lay on the bed with Martha, reading her favourite bedtime story of the prince from a foreign land searching the world for a princess who had troubled his dreams since childhood, she couldn’t help her thoughts drifting to the stranger who had made such an impact on her that afternoon. Ellis Frazer: she had read the card property after he had left. She didn’t know if she liked him or not but she suspected not. He had an attitude that wasn’t so surprising. It reminded her of David, the man she’d thought was the one for her till baby Martha had come into her life. He had actually insisted on her making a choice—him or Martha. Though her heart had nearly broken she had made that choice and never regretted it. Martha had given her more joy than a thousand Davids could ever have, but with that choice had come a realisation that there wasn’t ever likely to be anyone else for her. A single woman with a child…

Well, she didn’t have to like this Ellis Frazer to do the work for him and he didn’t have to approve of her to commission it, so it wasn’t a problem.

‘Night, Mummy,’ sleepy Martha breathed in her arms as Caroline closed the book, everyone living happily ever after. I love you lots.’

‘I love you too, darling,’ Caroline breathed, holding her tightly and brushing a warm kiss across the child’s soft brow.

Caroline extracted her arm from beneath the now sleeping child and gazed down at her adoringly and yet with her heart dragging painfully. Why now? she wondered as she pulled the duvet up around Martha’s chin. The weight of responsibility for the child sometimes dragged at her but it hadn’t for a long time so why now suddenly? Probably because Martha was growing up and Caroline knew she would have to do something about a legal adoption before Martha went to proper school. She supposed that would raise emotional problems which her and her mother might not find easy to cope with. They both missed Josie so much. And Martha? She called her aunty ‘Mummy’ and one day she would have to know the truth—that she had no real mother and there wasn’t a princely father from foreign lands coming to find her.

With a sigh Caroline closed the bedroom door on the child she adored and turned her thoughts to tomorrow. In a way she was looking forward to it, in a way she wasn’t.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHERE’S that wretched card?’ Caroline huffed impatiently as she searched the sitting-room, lifting cushions to see if it had slipped down the side of the sofa. She was running late and that wouldn’t go down well with Ellis Frazer.

‘Nanny had a card last night,’ Martha told her absently from the doorway. ‘Nanny isn’t well this morning.’

Caroline let out a ragged moan and raked her hair from her forehead. This was all she needed. Her mother had been out at one of her community meetings the night before and Caroline hadn’t had a chance to tell her about her new commission and her appointment this morning. There was no nursery school this morning and her mother’s not feeling well meant she wouldn’t be able to look after Martha.

‘Ah, here it is.’ She slid the card from the sideboard and tucked it into her jeans pocket. ‘Martha, sweetheart, get your books and your paper and pens. We’re going out.’

‘Out!’ Martha cried with excitement as if she’d never been out in her life and she tore into the hall and upstairs, making enough noise to wake the devil.

Caroline groaned, wondering if she had made the right decision—a snap decision to take Martha with her. But what choice did she have? Phone and cancel for one, she told herself as she went across the hall to her mother’s bedroom. But she might lose the job altogether if she did and she might lose it anyway if she turned up with Martha. Well, she’d have to take a chance on that, possibly leave Martha in the car while she did her preliminary sketches. That was all she’d be able to do this morning anyway.

Her mother was sitting up in bed when Caroline went in. She knew what was wrong with her and it wasn’t physical. Caroline knew she would have to be strong for her again.

Phoebe Maxwell was still a lovely lady but the tragedies in her life seemed to have shrunk her over the years. She sat pale and pinched in her bed, surrounded by old photos, her eyes red and watery with crying.

Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed and took her mother’s long, artistic fingers in her own.

‘Bad day?’ she murmured softly.

Phoebe nodded and let out a loud sigh. ‘It catches me up now and then,’ she whispered weakly.

‘I know,’ Caroline said quietly, squeezing her mother’s fingers.

The loss of Josie caught Caroline up too, so badly at times that she wondered how she ever coped with being strong for her mother. It had got better recently but something had set her mother back again; Caroline didn’t ask what. Sometimes it was the smallest thing—a smell, a piece of music, the sight of someone in the distance which reminded her of Josie. Caroline felt anger coupled with her grief at times for what her older sister had done to her mother’s life-given her more heartache than any mother deserved. She’d left home at seventeen, travelled to France with a fringe theatre company, at eighteen married a French actor, at nineteen left him. Three years later she had returned to Cornwall, pregnant, refusing to name the father, not in the least bit repentant for the anxiety she had caused her mother. Two months after Martha was born she’d taken off again, leaving the baby with her mother in Cornwall. Two months after that poor Josie died of meningitis in a clinic in the south of France.

But how could Caroline feel such anger for long? What had propelled her sister on that tragic path of self-destruction? The loss of their dear father whom Josie had adored? No one knew because Josie had always held so much back from them.

‘I’m going out for the morning,’ Caroline told her quietly, straightening the sheets. ‘You rest and I’ll bring something nice in for lunch.’

‘Don’t go,’ Phoebe pleaded, eyes swimming with unshed tears. ‘You might not come back and——’

‘Mum, please don’t,’ Caroline croaked, trying to sound firm but not being very successful. ‘Nothing will happen to me or Martha.’ She understood her mother’s insecurity, the fear she felt when she was as low as this. ‘I’m not Josie, Mum.’

‘I know, darling. You always were the good, strong one. I don’t know how I would have coped without you and Martha.’

Caroline kissed her mother lightly on the cheek. ‘Rest now and we’ll be back soon.’

She closed the bedroom door on her mother and closed her eyes briefly. Sometimes she wasn’t the good, strong one; sometimes she wanted what Josie had had—some excitement in her life, some love of some sort, however ephemeral. But look where that sort of life had led her sister. Caroline couldn’t be that way because she wasn’t born that way but sometimes…only sometimes…

She gave herself a mental shake as she bundled Martha into the back of her Escort, strapping her in and making sure she was secure. She had more than most, was more fortunate than most. Ellis Frazer had said that. Yes, she was very fortunate, in spite of her loneliness at times. And maybe one day she would meet a prince for Martha. Maybe.

She found his home easily enough, though it was in a part of the countryside she wasn’t too familiar with, the lanes deep and narrow. Ellis Frazer was waiting for her when she drew up outside Treverva Manor. Pacing, Caroline noted as she glanced at the dashboard clock. She was only twenty minutes late but late none the less.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she blurted as she leapt out of the driving seat, dragging her fingers through her hair, drawing it back from her face. ‘Something cropped up and——’

He stood powerful in front of her in riding gear—second-skin jodhpurs and black roll-necked sweater, a riding crop thrumming impatiently against his left thigh. No eyes for her, though. They were riveted on Martha, squirming out of her seatbelt in the back of the car, and he wasn’t looking pleased.

‘I had to bring Martha,’she went on in explanation. ‘My mother isn’t well this morning and I was running late and couldn’t make alternative arrangements. I know I should have phoned but didn’t think this morning would matter. I’ll only be able to do the preliminary sketches anyway and ‘

‘You have horses!’ Martha cried, jumping out of the car and glancing excitedly up and down Ellis Frazer, astutely taking in his riding gear and coming to the conclusion that her four-legged favourites were somewhere in close proximity.

Ellis Frazer’s eyes widened in surprise at the intelligence of the child. Caroline silently blessed Martha for diverting his obvious anger for her lateness away from her.

‘Yes, I do have horses. Are you old enough to ride?’

Martha gave Caroline a hesitant look and then made her own decision, which was so like her. She beamed up at him innocently.

‘Yes, but it’s a secret. Mummy takes me riding every week but we mustn’t tell Nanny. Nanny wouldn’t like it.’

Ellis Frazer raised a questioning brow at Caroline who could feel herself blushing with the effect of trying to think how to explain that.

‘Grandmothers can be over-protective,’ Caroline offered, which was very true in Phoebe’s case. She doted on the child but lived in fear that she too would be snatched from her.

‘And the mother isn’t?’ Ellis said, as if questioning her abilities as a mother.

‘At certain times, yes. Martha has an aptitude for riding and under the right sort of supervision I see no point in denying her something which gives her enormous pleasure.’

‘But you allow a certain deception where her grandmother is concerned. Is that healthy for the child?’ His tone was mildly accusing.

Caroline tensed against it. Just who did he think he was?

‘I do what I do to ensure a quiet life for all concerned, Mr Frazer. Martha understands that her grandmother has to be handled with care at times and if a small deception makes for a stress-free life for an older person I see nothing wrong in that.’

Ellis Frazer nodded silently as if he understood. The conversation was way over the top of Martha’s head so Caroline felt no guilt for what she had just told him; besides, Martha wasn’t listening, just fidgeting and gazing around her, her wide eyes searching for any suggestion of a horse.

‘Would you like to see my horses?’ Ellis asked Martha unexpectedly. A suggestion that took Caroline by surprise, but was it surprising? She remembered his frail mother who wasn’t used to small children. He obviously wanted Martha out of the way while he introduced Caroline to her.

‘That isn’t necessary,’ Caroline said quickly. ‘Martha brought books and she can wait in the car if you——’

A wail of indignation from Martha stopped her in mid-sentence. ‘I don’t want to stay in the car. I want to see the horses!’

Caroline could happily have throttled her. Ellis Frazer gave Caroline a sidelong glance and then, to her surprise, smiled at her. ‘I see no point in denying her something which gives her enormous pleasure,’ he echoed Caroline’s words, almost triumphantly, as if he had caught her out.

Heat rose to Caroline’s face and Martha gave a skip of delight. Caroline wished she were anywhere else but here.

‘Excuse me for a minute,’ Ellis Frazer said, and strode away, leaving Caroline and Martha standing on the gravel drive staring after him.

‘Perhaps he has a pony I can ride,’ Martha enthused, slipping a warm hand, trembling with excitement and anticipation, into Caroline’s.

‘Not without a hat, Martha,’ she told her, squeezing her hand.

‘Perhaps he has hats too, like the riding school. Does he have children?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Caroline murmured; in fact she’d bet her life savings he had no one warm and cuddly in his life. He looked and sounded the sort who got more pleasure out of thrashing a wild stallion around the countryside than bouncing a child on his knee.

He was back almost immediately, with a young girl groom in tow, and Caroline could hear the instructions he was rapping out to her as they approached across the gravel.

‘Keep her away from Blaize. Show her the foals and Misty and on no account let her mount any of them. Watch her like a hawk and keep her away from the house.’

Caroline felt her blood run cold and prayed Martha didn’t pick up on the hostility in his tone. But Martha was so excited that she wouldn’t even have noticed if a thunderbolt landed at her feet. She skipped happily away with Karen, the young groom, who was giving little Martha a wide grin of welcome which made Caroline feel a whole lot better. She reached into the car for her bag with her sketching gear and locked the car after her, which didn’t go unnoticed by the glaring Frazer. He obviously thought it an insult to his hospitality.

‘Force of habit,’ she returned to that look of disapproval.

‘Sign of the times,’ he muttered in return and turned to the house.

‘I’m really sorry about bringing Martha, Mr Frazer,’ Caroline said as she followed him a pace or two behind, trying to catch up.

‘Ellis,’ he corrected her. ‘What’s done is done,’ he clipped over his shoulder as he led her between the stone columns of the house and into a wide, spacious hallway that screamed out his wealth. She wasn’t surprised by the opulence but was surprised by the warm ambience of the place. She’d imagined him a man of marble and austere elegance but, as her feet sank into inches of luxurious Axminster and the smell of ancient beeswax assailed her nostrils, she guessed she’d got it wrong about him again.

‘You have a lovely home,’ she murmured as he led her through double doors to an equally spacious and luxurious reception-room.

He said nothing in return, obviously not a small-talker, but stopped at another panelled door with Georgian gilt hardware and before opening it said, ‘I’ll introduce you to my mother, but remember she’s a frail lady and I don’t want her tired. Be as brief as possible, do what you have to do and don’t antagonise her. She has a biting temper so be warned.’

Caroline stared at him in open dismay. She sounded an ogre—a family trait, no doubt!

Suddenly he lifted her chin and looked deep into her anxious eyes. ‘Do you think you’re up to this?’

Already he was having doubts about selecting her for this commission, but no more than she had about taking it on, Caroline told herself. Well, rats to him. She was a professional and besides, he didn’t know it but she didn’t suffer fools gladly either.

She twisted her chin away from his grasp and her eyes darkened to glare back at him.

‘Mr Frazer…Ellis, I’ve told you already, I want this commission but don’t need it. I see this as a two-way proposition. You have doubts about me and I have doubts about you. Let’s see who cracks first!’

A glint of humour crept sideways into his eyes. He leaned back against the door-jamb and crossed his arms over his chest, lightly tapping the riding crop against his shoulder.

‘I’m beginning to like you,’ he uttered under his breath.

Feeling her chest tightening, Caroline covered the sensation with a defiant jut of the chin he was so fond of lifting.

‘You have an advantage over me, then,’ she told him coolly. ‘For I fear I won’t live long enough to begin to like you.’

The humour in his eyes didn’t flag, which was curious to Caroline because she had expected him to rise to such an insult.

‘So what brought that on?’ he asked quietly, raising a teasing dark brow to accompany the query.

With difficulty Caroline held his quizzical look, but without difficulty she knew what was bothering her. He was an attractive man and she had acknowledged that in her heart but there could be nothing more. David had taught her a salutary lesson in what made attractive men tick. But she would have to be careful with this man. Her defences were spilling silly insults from her lips. If she wasn’t careful she could insult her way out of his commission.

‘Attitude,’ she said at last. She’d go for that. He was obviously very displeased with her for bringing Martha.

Both brows came up this time. ‘Oh, I have one, do I?’

‘Yes,’ Caroline said bravely.

‘Perhaps you’d like to expand on that.’

To be honest Caroline didn’t know where to begin because now that she had started all this she didn’t know where it was going.

‘You can’t, can you?’ he said when she failed to respond. ‘Allow me to try and analyse you, then. I suspect it has something to do with me not falling rapt at the feet of your small daughter. Appealing as she is, I’m afraid I have no rapport with females under the age of twenty-five. I don’t know any children, I’m not about to father any in this world or the next and frankly I find your daughter an irritating encumbrance I’d rather live without.’

Flushing hotly, Caroline opened her mouth to protest, but she wasn’t allowed such a pleasure.

‘But,’ he went on deliberately, ‘she is here and a part of your life and I accept that because I want you to do these commissions for me. Now I will make a deal with you. I will suffer your bringing the child with you when you need to be here but in return you will have to suffer my “attitude”. If we can put personalities aside and get on with the job I see no reason why we can’t both part happily at the end of it. Does that sound like a deal to you?’

It sounded like a deal between her soul and the devil! Of all the pompous, arrogant, child-hating, misogynist creeps it had ever been her misfortune to meet, he was the Prince of Darkness! Wild horses in his crummy old stables wouldn’t keep her here to immortalise his wretched stud horse and his wretched mother. Over and out Caroline.

With one last contemptuous look of disdain she turned to walk away but before she knew what had happened he had swept her back against the oak panelling of the wall, so imprisoning her, and his mouth came down to hers in a shocking kiss that was pure thousand-watt electricity.

The pressure was intense, searing with a heat she could never have imagined from such a cold, inhospitable Prince of Evil. It charged through her whole body, turning bones to jelly, skin to flame, sending emotions through the roof of her head. Her head swam dizzily as the pressure on her mouth eased and drifted and swirled into something more infinitely dangerous than the initial thrust, a softness that stilled her pulses till she thought her life’s blood had ceased to function her heart. Her heart was floundering badly and nothing else was working either. Suddenly she realised the pressure on her mouth had gone and she fluttered her eyes open. She stared at him in horror, shocked that he had done that, shocked that she hadn’t done anything to stop it.

His dark eyes were riveted on where his lips had just assaulted her, drinking in her heated lips with the same ferocity. Her tongue snaked out to balm those lips, to somehow smooth away the fire that stung as if he had used his riding crop on them. His eyes shifted up to meet hers and his voice when it came was soft and beguiling yet speaking arrogant poison that wrenched at her sensibilities, infuriating her even more.

‘I suspect that will go a long way to dispersing any animosity between us.’

Taking her upper arm, he urged her into the next room, pushing her ahead of him, kicking the door shut behind him with a highly polished riding boot.

Drunk with fury and frustration for not defending herself against those arrogantly spoken words, she spun dizzily into the room, the clicking of the door behind her going nowhere near to snapping her out of her shock. Her head started to clear as Ellis Frazer strode across the room to a silver coffee-service elegantly arranged on a side-table by long French doors overlooking a rose garden.

The scent of roses was the first sensation that registered with Caroline, then the heat of the room from a blazing coal fire in the Adam-style grate. It was a warm September day and a fire was unnecessary; then Caroline noticed the wheelchair positioned in front of it.

There was a sudden whirring sound as the chair moved and slowly turned to face her and it was in that moment that Caroline swallowed down her anger and frustration with Ellis Frazer.

The fragile lady that focused her gaze on Caroline took her breath away. Once she had been a raving beauty, Caroline recognised that immediately, but she still was beautiful, in a hauntingly pale, luminous way. Her hair was snow-white, piled high on top of her head, her face, though ravaged by illness, was perfectly made up. She was dressed in pale lilac silk which added to her appearance of delicacy and her jewellery was the finest of amethysts set in platinum around her fragile throat. She was a lady, a true lady in spite of the clumsy wheelchair she sat elegantly in. A light blue cashmere rug was draped over her legs, legs which Caroline instinctively knew were of no use to her now.