The English Aristocrat's Bride Read online

  Her knees were trembling from her flight. Her trousers were flecked with bracken and dirt. She felt both exhausted and horribly wired. But she was alone. And she was safe.

  She’d learned two things this evening. That Fiona lived a privileged life amid surroundings of exquisite beauty; and that her sister had a lover, a black-haired man who had—under the assumption that Karyn was Fiona—kissed her as though there was no tomorrow.

  No, Karyn thought sickly, levering herself away from the door and dragging off her coat. She’d learned three things. She’d learned that passion, which she’d thought had died within her long before she was widowed, wasn’t dead after all. It had taken just one kiss from a total stranger to show that her sexuality, far from being dead, had merely been slumbering. Waiting to be reawoken.

  Never again, she thought. Never again. Sinking down on the old brass bed, Karyn buried her face in her hands.

  It took Rafe nearly five minutes to get the six dogs sitting in a circle at his feet, gazing up at him adoringly, their pink tongues flopping from sharp-toothed jaws. “You’re idiots,” he said coldly. “I love my mother dearly, but on the subject of dogs we differ. I’d have paid ten times over for obedience classes, and will she do it? Oh darling, they listen to me, and that’s what counts.”

  Right. They listened to his mother when she had a pocketful of dog biscuits, that’s when they listened. In a resigned voice Rafe went on, “Okay, we’re going to Fiona’s. I’m locking you in the garage and I’m expecting you to keep your big mouths shut. Have you got that?”

  Charlotte flopped down on her belly and rolled over. With an exasperated sigh Rafe headed for the house. In a way, he was almost glad of the six dogs now trooping at his heels as though they’d never leaped up on him and stopped a kiss that had overturned his world. What would have happened next? Would Fiona have gone with him to Stoneriggs and made love with him in his big bed?

  Maybe not, he thought with a touch of grimness. After all, hadn’t she pulled free and run for the woods as though all the hounds of hell were after her? Had she so quickly regretted that surge of passion, wishing it had never happened?

  He could have gone after her. But the dogs would have liked nothing better than another mad dash through the trees, and the odds of finding her were slim. Besides, he couldn’t bear the thought of chasing her down like a fugitive.

  His whole body was one big ache of frustration. His jaw set, Rafe marched past the perennial garden and across the forecourt of topiaried yews and formal clipped boxwood. He loathed topiary. Clarissa’s gardener was never going to get within a mile of Stoneriggs.

  He ushered the dogs into the garage and shut the door firmly, ignoring their downcast faces. He’d walk them home once he’d seen Clarissa and done his level best to find out what had upset Fiona. The haircut. He’d be willing to bet it was the haircut.

  What had brought about that particular rebellion?

  After cursorily rapping the large brass knocker against the door, Rafe let himself in. His boots were muddy from the stream, and his jeans wouldn’t meet with Clarissa’s approval; but he’d needed the exercise of walking over here from Stoneriggs after the day he’d had. He shucked off his boots, and heard Clarissa call from the dining room, “Is that you, Rafe?”

  “Sorry I’m so late,” he called back, and walked into the vast living room with its array of Victorian ceramics, several of which he’d been tempted to knock—accidentally, of course—off their pedestals. There was only one person in the room. She was standing by the fireplace with a Spode cup in her hand; emerald earrings shot green fire as she turned her head.

  Fiona.

  Her long hair was drawn into an elegant twist on the back of her head. Her dress was a slim pencil of leaf-green.

  Rafe’s breath hissed through his teeth. Was he losing his mind?

  Not stopping to think, he strode across the room. Taking the cup from her hand, he plunked it down on the priceless Chippendale table, took her in his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  No flame of response. No flick of her tongue. No matching heat, body to body.

  No surrender.

  Only her jerk of shock and sudden withdrawal, her hands warding him off. The sweet naiveté of lilies of the valley drifted to his nostrils, rather than subtle layers of scent that teased all his senses. As he wrenched his mouth free, Fiona gasped, “Rafe! Whatever’s wrong with you?”

  Before he could think of a word to say, she added in genuine horror, “What if Mother had seen us?”

  “Even your mother must know that old friends kiss each other on occasion.”

  “That wasn’t just a friendly kiss!”

  “Maybe it’s time for a change.”

  “But you’ve never kissed me like that. Ever.”

  He had. Only minutes before, under the shadow of the oak tree. Hadn’t he?

  His head whirling, Rafe said, “I need a drink.”

  “The coffee’s freshly brewed.” Her cheeks bright pink, Fiona indicated the ornate sterling pot on a tray by the hearth.

  “Whiskey,” he said tersely, and poured himself a triple from the crystal decanter on the sideboard.

  “What’s the matter?” Fiona said, distressed. “I don’t understand why you’re behaving like this. Didn’t Athens go well?”

  He swallowed a hefty gulp of Glenfiddich, gazing at her broodingly. Fiona, well-known friend of so many years. Slim, beautiful, exquisitely groomed, her blue eyes like the delphiniums in the garden, her brows arched like the wings of birds. And her hair, in its thick coil on the back of her head, its wheaten gleam under the chandelier.

  It wasn’t Fiona he’d kissed under the trees. Obviously.

  So who had he kissed? And where had she gone, that woman who’d looked enough like Fiona to be her sister, yet who’d responded to him as though she was his soul mate? Meant for him, and for him alone, calling to his blood as though he’d known her all his life.

  He’d never seen her before this evening. He might never see her again.

  “Darlings!” Clarissa said, sweeping into the room in a rustle of taffeta.

  “Hello, Clarissa,” Rafe said, and dutifully kissed her expensively scented cheek.

  “Lovely to see you, Rafe.” She smiled charmingly at his jeans and socked feet. “Even in deshabille. How was Athens?”

  He’d recently opened a new resort several miles south of the city, one more addition to the international chain of luxury hotels that he owned and managed. “Ironing out a few wrinkles,” he said casually. “Well worth the trip. You’re looking lovely, Clarissa.”

  From the doorway, Douglas Talbot said bluffly, “I bought her that dress in London. It suits her rather well, don’t you think?”

  If Clarissa had the brittle beauty of a Dresden statuette, Douglas was a Toby jug. Rotund, outwardly hearty, Douglas was also, as Rafe knew all too well, a rabid social climber with a tendency to bully. Yet he adored his wife and would have done anything for her.

  Rafe said smoothly, “A delightful dress, Clarissa, to which you more than do justice. Little wonder you have such a beautiful daughter.”

  Fiona’s smile was almost natural; quite plainly, she’d decided Rafe’s kiss was best ignored. Douglas poured himself a drink, asking a shrewd question about the political situation in Greece, and the evening proceeded along its predictable path. A couple of hours later Rafe took his leave, for once unamused when Fiona’s parents tactfully left him alone with her. Clarissa and Douglas wanted much more than friendship between himself and their daughter; they wanted him to marry Fiona. Douglas, to put it bluntly, was applying the crudest of pressures toward that end.

  He, Rafe, wasn’t going to be pushed around by Douglas. Although, at the time, hadn’t that kiss under the trees made the thought of marrying Fiona a lot more plausible?

  Except for two small details. The woman hadn’t been Fiona and the kiss had gotten way out of hand.

  He was going around in circles, he thought furiously. Like a dog ch
asing its tail. Striving to sound casual, he said, “Am I taking you shopping tomorrow, Fiona?”

  “In Coverdale, if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem. I’ll pick you up around ten?”

  “That’d be lovely.” With the shyness that normally Rafe found endearing, she reached up and brushed her lips to his cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  His pulses didn’t even stir. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Rafe patted her on the shoulder and let himself out. The dogs surged out of the shed, and he set off across the gardens behind the house. After closing the gate behind him, he took the path that meandered from Willowbend’s more civilized surroundings to the open fells. The moon had risen over the trees, Venus a small steady light just below it.

  Venus, goddess of love.

  He loved Fiona, Rafe thought soberly. She was a dear friend he’d known all his life. But he wouldn’t even have entertained the idea of marrying her if it hadn’t in many ways suited him. He was thirty-three years old, ready to settle down and raise a family, and who better to do that with than Fiona? She’d never betray him as Celine had done all those years ago.

  He’d bet every one of his hotels on that.

  If he married Fiona, he’d also be rescuing Douglas from a series of disastrous investments. His eyes narrowed. A little financial leverage wasn’t a bad thing to have should Douglas become his father-in-law. Rafe was several times smarter than Douglas and could be ten times as ruthless, and he’d have no hesitation in using any weapon at his command to free Fiona from her parents’ smothering hold: a hold Fiona was too sweet and trusting to see, let alone counter.

  He hadn’t yet mentioned the word marriage to Fiona. He’d needed time to think about it first.

  The path left the trees for the open fields. To the west Rafe could see the turrets and spires of Holden Castle, where he’d grown up. Eight years ago he’d had it extensively renovated as a five-star hotel and installed his parents as managers, to their enormous gratification. If Joan and Reginald Holden added a certain eccentricity to the castle, so be it. The customers didn’t seem to mind.

  He’d take the dogs back to his mother, then head home to Stoneriggs.

  The moon had disappeared behind a cloud. But Rafe knew every footstep of the way, and walked confidently westward, Charlotte demurely trotting at his heels as though she’d never heard of misbehavior.

  Why hadn’t the woman, whoever she was, told him she wasn’t Fiona? Why had she been hiding in the grounds of Willowbend in the first place? And why had she kissed him until he hadn’t been able to think with anything except his hormones?

  He swore under his breath. Rafe was no stranger to women throwing themselves at him; he was, after all, filthy rich and—so he’d been told—sexy to boot. But the woman couldn’t possibly have known he’d be coming through the woods toward Willowbend. He hadn’t even known it himself until after his flight delay.

  He didn’t like being made a fool of.

  Didn’t like the fact that passion could still take him unawares? Was that the crux of the matter?

  He didn’t want passion. Its betrayals were too cruel.

  Tomorrow afternoon, after he’d taken Fiona home from the shopping expedition, he was going to get some answers to all his questions. In a village the size of Droverton, it shouldn’t be difficult to find someone who so closely resembled Fiona. She had some explaining to do, that unknown woman. She owed him that much.

  Maybe he would marry Fiona, he thought trenchantly, rounding a crag where a stream fell in a series of gurgling waterfalls. Assuming she’d have him. Marrying Fiona would ensure his personal life was entirely and happily predictable. Unlike the tempestuous ups and downs of his affair with Celine.

  Unlike the tempestuous kiss in the woods?

  There’d be no repeat of that, he thought grimly. He’d make it his business to forget the blond-haired witch who’d woven a spell around him under the shadow of the oak trees.

  The sooner the better.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THAT night Karyn slept about as badly as it was possible for anyone to sleep. She did sleep. She knew that, because all too clearly she could remember fragments of dreams whose eroticism horrified her in the cool light of morning. But she also spent far too long wide-awake, her body on fire with needs she was determined to deny. Tossing and turning, she’d found every lump in the mattress and had heard every creak as the old building was buffeted by the night winds.

  At some point in the middle of the night, as she stared wide-eyed at the low ceiling, Karyn had finally admitted to herself that being kissed, in all good faith, by the man who was Fiona’s lover had further complicated her own compulsive need to meet her sister. Wasn’t it all too likely that in meeting Fiona she’d meet him as well? How would she ever face him? Shake his hand and say How do you do, so nice to see you again? She groaned aloud, wishing with all her heart that she’d been rational and sensible and four weeks ago had written a letter to Fiona about her proposed visit.

  She hadn’t. So what was she going to do instead? Phone the Talbots this morning and ask for a meeting? Or write a letter and have it hand-delivered to Willowbend? She had to do one or the other. She couldn’t just hang around the village on the off-chance that she’d bump into Fiona on the street; that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. And she’d come too far at too great an expense to simply turn tail and flee.

  What was she, a coward? No way. She was going to meet her sister, no matter what it took.

  A bath in rather tepid water, choosing her most becoming summer dress and applying makeup all helped to restore Karyn’s spirits. Okay, so last night had been a disastrous beginning to her quest. This was a new day, and she was going to begin afresh.

  She snacked on an apple and some granola bars she’d stashed in her luggage, not wanting to face the landlord or any of the villagers now that she knew about the resemblance between herself and Fiona. In the little desk by the window she found a pad of yellowing notepaper and some envelopes. She sat down, took out her pen and, her tongue caught between her teeth, began to write.

  It took several false starts before Karyn was satisfied with her letter. She folded it carefully and stuck it in one of the envelopes. Just as she got up from the desk, stretching the tension from her shoulders, someone rapped on the door.

  She gave a nervous start, staring at the door in horror. The black-haired man from the woods was standing on the other side. She knew it. Who else could it be?

  The landlord. Of course. Come on, Karyn, smarten up.

  She marched over to the door and pulled it open. The man glaring at her in the hallway was almost a caricature: scarcely an inch taller than herself, round as a barrel, clad in a tweed suit with a tweed hat clasped in his pudgy hands. But, she realized rapidly, there was nothing remotely funny about the look in his eyes. Her smile dying on her lips, she said, “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “My name is Douglas Talbot. You are, I presume, Miss Karyn Marshall?”

  “Yes.” He looked ready to give her a hard right to the chin, and somehow this freed Karyn’s tongue. “Although I’m not sure how you know my name.”

  “I wish to speak to you in private. May I come in?”

  Her heart hammering in her rib cage, Karyn said calmly, “Of course, Mr. Talbot,” and gestured him toward the chair by the desk. Quickly she picked up the letter and tossed it on the bed before closing the door. Then, there being no other option, she sat down on the bed and folded her cold hands in her lap.

  The chair creaked ominously as Douglas Talbot sat down. He put his hat on the desk. “You can start by telling me exactly what you’re doing here.”

  Karyn said pleasantly, “I’d be pleased to. But first I’d like to know how you got my name.”

  “The landlord phoned me last night to tell me you’d booked into the inn, and that you looked exactly like my daughter, Fiona. I want to know what game you’re up to.”

  Karyn clamped firmly on her temper; losing it wouldn’t a
dvance her cause. “I’m sure you know why I’m here,” she said. “I’m Fiona’s twin sister. I—”

  “Balderdash.”

  With a faint flicker of humor, Karyn realized she’d never actually heard anyone use that word before. She said flatly, “You asked why I was here. I’m trying to tell you. But if you won’t listen, we’re wasting each other’s time.”

  Calculation flicked across Douglas’s red face; clearly he hadn’t expected any argument from her. “Then why don’t you tell me your story? I’m sure you’ve had lots of time to concoct it.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” Karyn said.

  As Douglas gave a rude snort, she tried to organize her thoughts. Douglas Talbot deserved the facts, yes; but none of the emotions that went along with them. She said coolly, “My mother died last winter. When I was going through her papers a month ago, I found a letter telling me I’d been adopted in England as a baby, twenty-six years ago. My twin sister had been adopted at the same time by a couple called Douglas and Clarissa Talbot, from Droverton in Cumbria.” She paused, fighting the tightness in her throat. “I hadn’t known I was an adopted child. To cut a long story short, I decided to come to Droverton to meet Fiona. A long-overdue meeting, as I’m sure you’d agree.”

  She seemed to have run out of words. She’d give her soul for a cup of hot, black coffee.

  His voice laced with sarcasm, Douglas said, “A charming story—and not a word of truth in it. Fiona was not adopted. So that’s the end of it.”

  “You can look at me, and deny every word I’ve told you? Fiona and I—we’re identical twins. Of course she was adopted!”

  Douglas leaned forward. “Let me tell you something that I’m sure you already know. I have a considerable position in the business world and in society. A very considerable position.” He gave the shabby little room a disparaging look. “It would be greatly to your advantage to ally yourself with our family.”