The Englishman's Bride

“I won’t come with you as a stand-in mistress,” she told him clearly.

“Kit!”

“But I will come as co-driver and temporary assistant.”

Philip looked at her for a long moment. Then a light began to gleam in his eyes.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

Kit lifted her chin. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” Philip said hastily. “Believe me, I’ll take whatever I can get.”

“And if you want more,” she said with sudden determination, “I’m telling you now you’re going to have to work really, really hard to persuade me.”

The chiseled profile dissolved into pure appreciation.

“You’re on.”

Welcome to

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The Englishman’s Bride

Sophie Weston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THE Englishman was deceptive. Even after twenty-four hours, every man in the detachment agreed on that. He might look like a Hollywood heartthrob with his wild midnight hair and haughty profile. But the tall, thin body was as lithe as a cat. And he was tireless.

When they first heard that a New York bureaucrat was joining them on their jungle expedition, they muttered resentfully. But when they learned that he was a member of the British aristocracy as well, they nearly mutinied.

‘Sir Philip Hardesty?’ queried Texas Joe, stunned.

‘I ain’t calling no snotty pen-pusher “Sir”,’ said Spanners. As an Englishman himself, he spoke with authority.

The group decided to take their line from Spanners. And when the man arrived they were sure they were right. As well as his title, Philip Hardesty possessed beautifully kept hands, a backpack that was so new it shone and customised jungle boots.

But he did not use his title. He got his hands dirty without noticing it. When they waded through the river his boots kept the water out better than their own. And there was that tireless determination.

Nothing got him down. Not the evil-smelling insect repellent. Not the stifling humidity. Not the long, exhausting days pushing on through the jungle. Not even the horrible nights.

He did not have their precision training but his endurance was phenomenal. In his quiet way, he was as strong as any of them. He took the long days without complaint. He climbed well when he had to. And when he swung that bulky new pack off his back at rest stops, you could see that his shoulders were dense with muscle.

All right, none of them had wanted a civilian along. Captain Soames had wanted him least of all, though of course he had not said so. The trip was dangerous enough, between the hazards of the jungle and the unpredictable moods of the so-called freedom fighters that they were coming to see.

But High Command had insisted. And for once High Command had been right.

The man even knew how to make a fire—and how to put it out.

‘How did you get into this line of work?’ said Captain Soames as they all sat round the small flames.

It was their last night before they reached the rebels’ camp. All six of the men who had volunteered for this duty knew that there was no forecasting what awaited them at the camp. Rafek, the rebel leader, said he wanted to talk. It was he who had made the first contact. But rebels had lied before.

Philip Hardesty said quietly, ‘Family tradition.’

‘Very British,’ said Australian Captain Soames drily. ‘How long has the UN been going? Remind me.’

Philip Hardesty smiled. ‘Hardestys were meddling in other people’s affairs long before the UN thought of it. We’ve been doing it for centuries.’

It was a smile you remembered. It seemed to light a candle inside a mask. You had been talking to him, getting nothing but impassive logic back—and then he smiled!

Suddenly you felt he had opened a window to you. You could read him! And he was friendly! You felt you had been given a present.

‘I bet you’re good at it,’ said the hard-bitten captain, warming to Philip Hardesty in spite of recognising how the trick was done.

‘There’s no point in doing something if you don’t do it well.’

‘I’ll vote for that,’ the captain agreed. ‘So your family are OK with this?’

There was a tiny pause.

‘No family. Ancestors, yes. Family, no.’

‘Oh.’ The captain was genuinely surprised.

The wonderful smile died. ‘Families need commitment,’ said Philip Hardesty levelly. ‘I can’t do that.’

The captain shuffled uncomfortably. Sometimes, on these small, dangerous expeditions, men confided stuff that later they wished they hadn’t. He didn’t want to be the keeper of Philip Hardesty’s conscience.

But the man was not talking about his conscience, it seemed.

He said unemotionally, ‘You see, the job of a negotiator—a good negotiator—is to see everyone’s point of view. To say, no one is ever wholly in the wrong. Peace is just a matter of finding enough room for everyone to have some of what they want.’

The captain was puzzled. ‘So?’

‘So lack of commitment is my greatest professional asset. The moment I lose that, I’m in the soup. With everybody else trying to reach some goal of his own, I have to stay absolutely without any goals at all.’

The captain thought it over.

‘But surely personal stuff is different—’

‘Not for me,’ said Philip Hardesty, cool and level and just a little weary. ‘I can’t live two lives. What I am, I am all the way through.’

The captain thought, And maybe that’s why this bastard we’re going to see tomorrow trusts him.

‘And that’s why you don’t have a family? I see. Seems a lot to give up.’

Philip shrugged. ‘Family tradition,’ he said again.

The captain hesitated. But the others were either on watch or asleep and confidences seemed to be the order of the day.

‘Isn’t that lonely?’ he asked curiously.

The jungle night was full of noises. Above their heads, a bat screeched. There was a whirr of wings as some predator took off after it.

Philip held his hands out to the fire, though the night was not cold and the fire was dying.

‘Lonely?’ he echoed. ‘All the time.’

Five days later, Captain Soames was responding to reporters in the makeshift conference room at Pelanang airstrip.

Yes, they’d all got out alive. Yes, it had been dangerous. Yes, that part of the jungle was uncharted. Yes, they had brought back some totally new specimens.

‘And now we’re going to publish the map. Which was the aim of the expedition in the first place.’

‘You took UN negotiator Sir Philip Hardesty along with you on a field trip?’ said the local stringer for a group of European newspapers, scenting a story. ‘Do you want to comment on that?’

‘Sure,’ said Captain Soames with a grin. ‘It was a privilege.’

But later, over a beer under the palm trees, he said, ‘The Englishman? Off the record? The guy’s a phenomenon. If anyone can get these lunatics to make peace, he can.’

‘What’s he like?’ said the stringer, intrigued. ‘I mean, as a person.’

Captain Soames lowered the beer can. His face was sober.

‘As a person? He’s the loneliest man in the world.’

CHAPTER ONE

‘ANOTHER satisfied customer,’ said Mrs Ludwig, pushing the envelope across the desk. ‘They wanted you to stay on, of course. Don’t they always?’

‘That’s nice of them,’ said Kit Romaine, pocketing her salary envelope without opening it.

Really, the way that girl ignored money was downright heathen, thought Mrs Ludwig.

She said curiously, ‘Aren’t you ever tempted?’

‘To stay on in one job?’ Kit shook her head. ‘I like my freedom.’

She more than liked it. She needed it. It had taken her a long time to work that out. Now she had, she was hanging on to it like a drowning man to a lifeboat.

Mrs Ludwig shook her head. ‘From our point of view that’s fine, of course. You’re probably the best temp we’ve got. But shouldn’t you be thinking of your future?’

‘I’m strictly a live-for-today kind of girl,’ said Kit firmly. She had learned that the hard way too.

Mrs Ludwig gave up. She looked swiftly down her list.

‘Well, next week there’s a complete spring clean of a house in Pimlico. Owners moving back in after tenants. You’d like that. You’d have the place to yourself. Or Henderson’s Books need cover while their under-manager goes to a book fair. They particularly asked for you, by the way. Oh, no, that’s next month. Oh, hang on—there’s the Bryants again.’ She caught herself. ‘No, that won’t do, you’d have to look after the little girl after school for a couple of hours.’

In spite of what she said, she looked up questioningly. The Bryants were good clients. She’d like to give them the best. In terms of competence and reliability, Kit Romaine was the best.

But Kit Romaine was shaking her blonde head vigorously. Kit Romaine did not look after children. It was the only thing she refused to do.

This Century’s Solutions was a London agency priding itself on being able to find someone to solve any problem, no matter how extraordinary. Kit met the job description brilliantly. She was fit, clear-headed and completely unflappable. She was as at home with an embroidery frame as she was with a computer. Assignments that other people regarded as hopeless were just a challenge to Kit.

‘If there’s a problem, there’s a solution,’ she would say serenely. And take herself off to the library to research the problem of the moment.

There were only two things that Kit Romaine did not do. She wouldn’t take care of children. And she didn’t date.

Which was odd when you came to think of it. A gorgeous girl like that: good figure, perfect skin and the sort of grace that made people turn and look at her in the street. A client had even wanted to use her in a television commercial once. It was a shame to waste all that long, silky blonde hair, or so he had said. Kit had laughed at him. And been adamant in her refusal.

Make that three things that Kit Romaine did not do, thought Mrs Ludwig, sighing.

‘Not the Bryants,’ Kit was saying now. ‘Give me the house-cleaning. A whole week should get me to the end of module ten.’

Mrs Ludwig laughed. ‘What is it this time?’

‘War poetry.’

Mrs Ludwig pulled a face.

‘Sounds grim. Rather you than me.’

‘It’s not all grim, actually. It’s stuff every educated person ought to know.’

Kit was a dedicated self-educator. When she worked alone, she would slap a tape of her most recent subject into her Walkman. Then she could clean or drive or groom or do whatever it was she was being paid to do. And all the time, as she explained to Helen Ludwig, she was increasing her knowledge.

Helen Ludwig, who had two degrees and generally forgot both of them, wrote it off as an eccentricity. It did not get in the way of Kit’s efficiency or the agency reputation, and that was all she cared about.

‘Whatever you say,’ she said, bored. ‘The Pimlico house it is. Pick up the keys here on Monday.’

Kit nodded and stood up. ‘See you.’

‘Have a good weekend,’ nodded Mrs Ludwig, already forgetting her.

Kit went home on the underground. It was crowded on this wet winter night. The train smelled of wet mackintosh and too many people crowded together. But the crowds were cheerful. Everybody partied on a Friday night, after all.

Except me, thought Kit, getting out at Notting Hill and turning north, into the Palladian jungle. She thought it with relief.

There had been a time when she partied every night, desperate to keep up with the in-crowd. It had cost her a degree, her self-respect and, very nearly, her health. These days she was very glad to be a non-party-goer.

Fridays were the nights Kit washed her hair and listened to opera. She had done piano concertos and given up on them without regret. But she still had hopes of coming to like opera.

So much to learn, she thought. So much to experience. Who needed to date?

She ran up the steps of a white stucco terrace house and let herself in. The terrace was elegantly proportioned but, once inside, the house was all homely chaos. Tonight it smelled of joss-sticks and an ominous citrus and cinnamon mix that meant her landlady was brewing punch.

Kit lived in the basement flat, courtesy of her brother-in-law, whose aunt owned the house. She was an ex-ballerina and full of artistic temperament. It was Tatiana who was responsible for the chaos. Tatiana, too, who burned joss-sticks and threw wild parties on a Friday night.

Kit tiptoed past the door to Tatiana’s part of the house. Her landlady was quite likely to demand her presence at tonight’s bash if she caught her. She thoroughly disapproved of Kit’s antisocial tendencies.

‘Get a life,’ she had said as they passed on the front steps only that morning. Kit was coming back from her early swim. ‘The only things you do outside this flat are work and swim.’

‘I’m taking driving lessons,’ Kit had said defensively.

Tatiana snorted. ‘You need to get your hands on a man, not a combustion engine,’ she snapped.

‘Been there. Done that,’ said Kit flippantly.

But Tatiana looked up at her like a wise old tortoise. ‘Oh, yes? When?’

Kit shook her head, half annoyed, half amused in spite of herself. ‘Why do you keep on about it? It’s like living with the thought police!’

Tatiana was not offended. Indeed, she looked rather pleased.

A suspicion occurred to Kit. ‘Has Lisa put you up to this?’

Tatiana sniffed. ‘She didn’t have to. It’s not natural. You only go out if you’ve got an evening class. A girl your age ought to be having fun.’

‘Dating,’ interpreted Kit with a resigned sigh.

‘Having fun,’ corrected Tatiana. ‘Especially a girl who looks like you.’

Kit flinched.

‘Golden hair and green eyes,’ said Tatiana rancorously. ‘And you move like a dancer. You could be stunning if you wanted. Only you dress in potato sacks. And you never go anywhere.’

‘I go where I want,’ said Kit, losing her rag. ‘And wear what I want. If you can’t take it, I can always move out.’

But Tatiana had backed away from the challenge. She had flung up her hands and retreated into her flat, muttering in Russian.

Kit grinned to herself now, recalling it. She did not often win a battle of wills with her landlady. Still, no point in inviting a rematch, she thought, edging down the stairs to her own flat as softly as she knew how.

She heard the phone ringing even before she had the key in the lock. She flung the door open and dived on it, before the ringing could bring Tatiana out of her lair.

‘Hello? Kit?’

‘Lisa?’ said Kit incredulously. Her sister was supposed to be in a tropical paradise, holidaying with her naturalist husband while she recuperated from a series of winter infections. ‘What on earth are you doing ringing me? You’re supposed to be relaxing on a palm-fringed beach.’ And then, quickly, ‘There’s nothing wrong with Nikolai, is there?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I hardly see him.’ Lisa’s voice sounded as if she were at the bottom of the ocean. It did nothing to disguise the waspish tone.

‘Oh,’ said Kit, feeling helpless.

‘He told me the hotel was hosting a conference about local conservation and he might look in. I thought he meant he was going to go to a couple of talks. But he’s there all the time. And now he’s agreed to speak.’

Kit knew Lisa. From the sound of it, her sister could hardly contain her rage.

‘And the damned hotel is empty except for men at conferences. What genius ever went and built a super de luxe hotel on the edge of a war zone? I ask you!’

‘War zone?’ repeated Kit, alarmed.

Lisa sounded impatient. ‘Seems to have died down at the moment. That’s the reason for all the conferences, I gather. But no one in their right mind would come here for a holiday.’

Kit looked at her dark window onto the lavish communal gardens that the terrace shared. The rain lashed at it.

‘If you’ve got sunshine, you’ve got a holiday,’ she said firmly. ‘You don’t even want to think about what London is like tonight.’

Lisa said rapidly, ‘Then come and share it with me.’

‘What?’

‘Why not? Come and keep me company.’

‘Oh, come on, Lisa. I’ve never liked playing gooseberry.’

Lisa gave a hard laugh. ‘You wouldn’t. I never see Nikolai. That’s the trouble. There’s nobody to talk to. And damn-all to do.’

Kit kicked off her shoes and curled her legs under her. She stuck the telephone under her ear and leaned forward to turn on the fire.

‘Hey, hang on. It can’t be that bad. No grey skies. No puddles. And you’ve got leaves on the trees. Who needs anything to do when they can laze on a beach?’

There was a pause. Not a comfortable pause.

What on earth had happened? thought Kit. The last she had heard, Lisa and Nikolai could not wait to get away together. Lisa had had a series of mysterious viruses in the weeks running up to Christmas. They had left her weak and wan and uncharacteristically tearful. And Nikolai had been continent-hopping most of the year. This tropical holiday was supposed to get them some quality time together.

Now only four days into the holiday, Lisa could hardly speak her husband’s name without spitting.

‘Anyway, holidays in a tropical paradise are not in my budget,’ said Kit into the silence. There was a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t afford it.’

‘I can.’

There was no doubt about that. Lisa was head of trading in a London bond-dealing room. Her annual bonus alone made Kit’s eyes water.

But she still said, ‘You’ve done enough for me over the years, Lisa. I’ll pay my own way now that I can.’

‘But you can’t afford a tropical holiday and I—need you here,’ Lisa added, so softly Kit could hardly hear her. ‘I really need some support, Kit.’

Oh, lord, thought Kit, startled. What’s going on here? She had never heard Lisa say she needed support in the whole of her fast-paced life.

‘Come and keep me company, Kit.’ Her voice was tight. Kit knew that note. It meant Lisa was determined not to cry. And then, the controlled voice cracking, ‘I’m so lonely.’

Kit was too shocked to say anything.

‘There’s a flight on Sunday. I’ve booked you on it provisionally. At least think about it.’

She rang off without saying goodbye.

Kit paced the room, disturbed.

Had Lisa and Nikolai fallen out? But why? Lisa’s husband was an aristocrat and the Romaine sisters came from the wrong side of the tracks. A long way on the wrong side of the tracks, as Lisa had once told him.

Lisa had got her education and her high-profile job entirely by her own efforts. Yet that had never seemed to be a problem before. If she’d been asked, Kit would have said Count Nikolai Ivanov was more in love with his raggle-taggle wife now than he had had been when he married her.

But on the phone just now Lisa hadn’t sounded like a loved wife. And Kit loved Lisa. She was more than a sister. She was Kit’s best friend.

Maybe this was the time to sink her principles, after all.

She was still wavering when there came a tap on the French window.

Tatiana, thought Kit. Normally she and her landlady had a slightly edgy relationship. Tatiana thought Kit was boring at best; at worst, a passenger clinging to her successful sister’s coat tails. Kit thought Tatiana was an eighty-year-old delinquent. But they met on their affection for Lisa.

So Kit opened the door with unusual enthusiasm.

‘Lisa has spoken to you,’ said Tatiana, recognising the enthusiasm and diagnosing its source with accuracy.

‘Yes. I’m worried.’

‘So am I,’ admitted Tatiana.

To Kit’s astonishment she sat on the sofa and made herself comfortable without once complaining about Kit’s pale cushions. Tatiana liked her furnishings bright.

‘She sounded wretched,’ said Kit, biting her lip.

‘When did you talk to her?’

‘Just now. She wants me to go out there.’

Kit waited for Tatiana to say, Don’t interfere. Tatiana thought the only person who was allowed to interfere in the affairs of Lisa and Nikolai was herself. But she didn’t.

The vivid, lined face creased into an expression of profound foreboding.

‘You talked to her now?’

Kit nodded. ‘I just put the phone down on her. Or rather she put the phone down on me. She sounded really upset.’

Tatiana’s monkey face looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘Do you know what the time difference is?’

Kit was bewildered. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s seven o’ clock here. That makes it three in the morning at Coral Cove,’ said well-travelled Tatiana Ivanova. ‘Three. And she’s calling you. Where’s her husband, for goodness’ sake?’

Kit stopped her pacing, shocked.

‘No wonder she sounded so—fragile,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘You’d better go,’ said Tatiana. Adding, with that practicality that Kit always found so disconcerting, all mixed up with the crystal-balls philosophy and the joss-sticks, ‘Do you need some cash?’

Kit shook her head. ‘Lisa’s booked me a ticket and paid for it. And I haven’t used my credit card for anything this month. I’ll be fine.’

‘You’ll need a tropical wardrobe,’ said Tatiana, who thought clothes were the window of the soul.

Kit shrugged.

Tatiana bounced off the sofa. ‘You are impossible. Look at you. Wonderful golden hair, wonderful skin, pretty face. You’re tall and as slim as a model. Why on earth aren’t you out there buying disgracefully short skirts and giving everyone a heart attack with your skin-tight tops?’

Like Lisa.

Neither of them said it. They both knew what Tatiana meant.

Kit said more sharply than she meant, ‘Just stop it, Tatiana. I dress the way I like.’

Tatiana brooded. ‘Well, at least get yourself a swimsuit. I saw some pretty bikinis in—’

Kit went rigid. ‘No bikinis,’ she almost shouted.

Tatiana stared.

‘I’ll get a one-piece from the sports shop,’ Kit said in a more moderate tone.

‘And some shorts. And light tops. You have no idea how hot it’s going to be,’ Tatiana warned her. ‘Something respectable to wear in the evening. Oh, and a straw hat to keep your head covered in the sun. Coral Cove is on the Equator. You have to be careful. Blondes more than most.’

‘Thank you for the advice. But won’t I be able to buy straw hats and stuff there?’