The Bride's Baby Read online

  ‘No.’ The word was snapped out. Then, more gently, ‘Not yellow. April is getting late for daffodils. I did see violets as I drove in through the wood, though. Why don’t you take a tour of the exhibitors and bring me anything and everything you can find from deepest violet through to palest mauve? With just a touch of green, I think.’

  ‘Anything special?’

  ‘Ribbons, jewellery, accessories. Ask the florist what he’ll have available. And don’t forget to make a note of where everything came from…’

  She had her back to him, standing shadowed by the deep embrasure of the door as she quietly absorbed everything that was going on but, long before she turned, stepped forward into the sunlight streaming in through front doors propped wide open for workmen carrying in a load of steel trestles, he knew exactly who that voice belonged to.

  He’d spent an entire afternoon listening to it as they’d gone, item by item, through her account. Watching her unbutton her jacket. Moisten her lips.

  All the time he’d been away it hadn’t been Candy’s last-minute change of heart that had kept him from sleeping.

  It had been the flush on Sylvie Smith’s cheeks. The memory of long legs, a glimpse of lace.

  Her hot body moulded to his.

  Her pitiful tears.

  Her tears had haunted him, plaguing him with guilt, but now he understand that her tears had not been for what he’d done to her, but because she’d just risked everything she had in a momentary rush of lust. No wonder she couldn’t wait to get away…

  Sylvie smiled encouragingly at the youthful journalist, the advance guard from Celebrity whose job it was to research background and photo opportunities so that when the photographer arrived on Sunday there would be no waiting. And to encourage her to give her imagination free rein when it came to the fantasy wedding.

  Full of enthusiasm, the girl immediately set about hunting down anything she could find in the chosen colour scheme.

  Sylvie, not in the least bit enthusiastic, dropped the face-aching smile that seemed to have been fixed ever since she’d arrived at Longbourne Court and looked around at the chaos in what had once been her mother’s drawing room.

  The furniture had been moved out, stored somewhere to leave room for the exhibitors. But it wasn’t the emptiness that tore at her. It was the unexpected discovery that, despite the passing of ten years, so little had changed. It was not the difference but the familiarity that caught at the back of her throat. Tugged at her heart.

  The pictures that had once been part of her life were still hanging where they had always been. Velvet curtains, still blue in the deep folds but ever since she could remember faded to a silvery-grey where the light touched them, framed an unchanged view.

  There was even a basket of logs in the hearth that might have been there on the day the creditors had seized the house and its contents nearly ten years ago, taking everything to cover the mess that her grandfather, in his attempt to recoup the family fortunes, had made of things.

  But driving in the back way through the woods at the crack of dawn, walking in through the kitchen and seeing Mrs Kennedy standing at the sink, her little cry of surprised pleasure, the hug she’d given her while they’d both shed a tear, had been like stepping back in time.

  She could almost imagine that her mother had just gone out for an hour or two, would at any moment walk through the door, dogs at her heels…

  She swallowed, blinked, reminded herself what was at stake. Forced herself to focus on the job in hand.

  She’d already decided that the only way to handle this was to treat herself as if she were one of her own clients. Just one more busy career woman without the time to research the endless details that would make her wedding an event to remember for the rest of her life.

  Distancing herself from any emotional involvement.

  It was, after all, her job. Something she did every day. Nothing to get excited about. Except, of course, that was just what it should be. Something to be over-the-moon excited about rather than just a going-through-the-motions chore.

  She shook her head. The quicker she got on with it, the quicker it would be over. She had the colour scheme, which was a start.

  ‘I’ll be in the morning room,’ she called out to Lucy, already busily talking to exhibitors, searching out anything useful. It was time she was at work too, hunting down a theme to hang the whole thing on, something original that she hadn’t used before.

  And the even bigger problem of the dress.

  She turned to find her way blocked by six and half feet of broad-shouldered male and experienced a bewildering sense of déjà vu.

  A feeling that this had happened before.

  And then she looked up and realised that it was not an illusion. This had happened before, except on that occasion the male concerned had been wearing navy pin-stripe instead of grey cashmere.

  ‘Some billionaire…’ Laura had said, but hadn’t mentioned a name. And she hadn’t bothered to ask, pretending she didn’t care.

  She cared now because it wasn’t just ‘some’ billionaire who’d bought her family home and was planning to turn it into a conference centre.

  It was Tom McFarlane, the man with whom, just for a few moments, she’d totally lost it. Whose baby she was carrying. Who’d grabbed her offer to forget it had ever happened. She’d expected at least an acknowledgement…

  ‘Tell me, Miss Smith,’ he said while she was still struggling to get her mouth around a simple, Good morning, using exactly the same sardonic tone with which he’d queried every item on her invoice all those months ago. The same look with which he’d reduced her to a stuttering jangle of unrestrained hormones.

  Despite everything, she hadn’t been able to get that voice, the heat of those eyes, his touch, the weight, heat of his body, out of her head for weeks afterwards.

  Make that months.

  Maybe not at all…

  The man she most wanted to see in the entire world. The man she most dreaded seeing because she’d made a promise and she would have to keep it.

  ‘What?’ she demanded, since they were clearly bypassing the civilities, but then there had never been anything civil between them. Only something raw, almost primitive. ‘What do you want?’

  Stupid question…

  He didn’t want anything from her.

  ‘To know what you’re doing here.’ Then, presumably just to ram the point home, because he must surely know that it had once been her home, ‘In my house.’

  ‘It’s yours?’ she said, managing to feign surprise. ‘I was told some billionaire had bought it but no one thought to mention your name. But then I didn’t ask.’ And because she had nothing to apologise for-she’d not only been invited here, but was taking part in this nonsense at great personal inconvenience and no little expense-she said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr McFarlane?’

  She’d been so right to keep it businesslike.

  He didn’t move, but continued to regard her with those relentlessly fierce eyes that were apparently hell-bent on scrambling her brains.

  The man she’d dreaded seeing. The man she’d longed more than anything to see, talk to. If he would just give her a chance, let her show him a scan of the baby they’d made. His daughter. But maybe he understood the risk, the danger of being sucked into a relationship he’d never asked for, never wanted.

  She’d given him that get-out-of-jail-free card and could not take it back. And, since he was studiously avoiding the subject, clearly he had no intention of voluntarily surrendering it.

  ‘I have a lot to get through today,’ she said, unable to bear it another moment and indicating that she wanted to pass. She’d meant to sound brisk and decisive but the effect was undermined by a slight wobble on the ‘h-h-have’.

  She might have a lot to get through but the dress would have to wait until she’d had enough camomile tea to drown the squadron of butterflies that were practising formation flying just below her midriff.

  Except that it wa
sn’t butterflies but her baby girl practising dance steps.

  His baby girl…

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he responded, not moving.

  Well, no. She hadn’t for a moment imagined it would be that easy. Trapped in the doorway, she had no choice but to wait.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated.

  A man came through the front door carrying a pile of chairs and Tom McFarlane moved to let him pass, taking a step closer so that she was near enough for the warmth of his body to reach out and touch her.

  The warmth had taken her by surprise the first time; she would have sworn that he was stone-cold right through until he’d put his hands around her waist, slid his palms against the bare skin of her back and his mouth had come down on hers, heating her to the bone.

  Not cold. Anything but cold. More like a volcano-the kind with tiny wisps of smoke escaping through fumaroles, warning that the smallest disturbance could bring it to turbulent, boiling life.

  Her only escape was to retreat, take a step back. His eyes, gleaming dangerously, suggested it would be the safe move, but she knew better.

  She wasn’t the naïve girl who’d left this house nearly ten years ago. She’d made a life for herself; had used what skills she had to build a successful business. She hadn’t done that by backing away from difficult situations, but by confronting them.

  She knew he’d take retreat as a sign of weakness so, difficult as it was, she stood her ground.

  Even when he continued to challenge her with a look that sent the butterflies swerving, diving, performing aerial loop the loops.

  ‘In the middle of a Wedding Fayre?’ he persisted, when she didn’t answer.

  He didn’t sound particularly happy about that. He’d be even less so if he knew why she was part of it. They were in agreement about that, anyway. Not that it helped.

  ‘I’m, um, working. It’s a Celebrity thing,’ she said, offering the barest minimum in the hope that he wouldn’t be interested in the details. ‘They’re covering this event.’

  ‘I’d heard,’ he said, leaning back slightly, propping an elbow in one hand while rubbing a darkly stubbled chin in urgent need of a shave with the other as he regarded her with a thoughtful frown. ‘So what kind of feature would a wedding planner be working on for a gossip magazine?’

  Of course he was interested.

  Men like Tom McFarlane-women like her-did not succeed by glossing over the details.

  ‘I don’t just coordinate weddings,’ she replied. ‘SDS, my company, organises all kinds of events. Celebrations. Bonding weekends for company staff. Conferences…’

  At this point she would normally offer to send a brochure.

  She fought the temptation, but only because she’d have to explain to Laura how she came to be thrown out of what had once been her family home.

  ‘And which of those events is being featured by Celebrity?’ He spread his fingers in a gesture so minimal that it made the word redundant but which, nevertheless, perfectly expressed his meaning. ‘At a Wedding Fayre.’

  She shifted her shoulders, sketching an equally minimal shrug while she tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t send him through the roof.

  Rescue came in the form of Pam Baxter, approaching from the kitchen.

  ‘Tom?’ she said, evidently surprised to see him. ‘You’re still here. I’ve just asked Mrs Kennedy to make you some breakfast.’ Then, looking to see who he was talking to, ‘Oh, hi, Sylvie,’ she said, spotting her in the shadows of the doorway. ‘Have you introduced yourself to-’

  ‘There was no need-’ Tom McFarlane cut short her introduction ‘-Miss Smith and I have already met. In her professional capacity.’

  ‘Oh?’ Then, belatedly catching on to his meaning, ‘Oh.’ She might have added something else under her breath. Neither of them asked her to speak up. In fact no one said anything for what seemed like a very long time until Pam broke the silence with, ‘Have you settled in, Sylvie? Got everything you need?’

  ‘Settled in?’ Tom McFarlane demanded before she could reply, never taking his eyes off her.

  ‘Sylvie’s wedding is being featured by Celebrity magazine,’ Pam said, which saved her the bother of having to give him the bad news.

  ‘Her wedding?’

  The silver specks in the rock-grey eyes turned molten. He was angry. Well, of course he was angry. He probably thought she’d arranged the whole thing, had brought it to his doorstep in an attempt to force his hand.

  ‘They’re giving Sylvie’s charity a vast amount of money for the chance to feature it,’ Pam said before she could do anything, say anything to reassure him. ‘She was going to stay in Melchester, but it seemed so much more sensible to have her stay here. It’s not as if we’re short of rooms.’

  ‘Her charity?’ He turned away to look at Pam and for a moment Sylvie was assailed by a curious mixture of emotions. Relief, largely. But something else. Something almost like loss…

  As if being looked at by Tom McFarlane brought her to life. Which would explain why, ever since she’d had to leave him, taking delivery of that damn cake, she’d felt something had been missing.

  ‘The Pink Ribbon Club? Sylvie’s mother, Lady Annika Duchamp Smith, founded it.’

  ‘Your father was that Mr Smith?’ he said.

  For a moment Tom McFarlane had been distracted, but now he regarded her with, if that was possible, even more dislike.

  Something missing? That would be her common sense, obviously.

  ‘Yes,’ she said shortly. ‘He was that Mr Smith.’

  ‘And now the charity is yours.’

  ‘I took my mother’s place as the Honorary President, that’s all. I help with fund-raising when I can. Like now.’

  ‘So you used to live here?’

  She’d misjudged him over that. He hadn’t known. But he did now.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said, doing her best to imply a good-heaven’s-that-was-years-ago carelessness. As if it didn’t matter. Adding, with polite interest, ‘I understand that the plan is to turn the place into a conference centre.’

  ‘And where did you hear that?’

  ‘From someone who lives locally who’s involved with English Heritage.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘You can’t keep secrets in the country, Mr McFarlane.’

  ‘No?’

  There was something almost threatening in the word. A warning.

  Ignoring it, striving for casual, as if it really didn’t matter to her what he did with the house, she said, ‘Are you telling me it isn’t true?’

  ‘Oh, it’s true,’ he assured her, with what could only be described as a satisfied little smile-nowhere near big enough to get anywhere near his eyes-which suggested that she needed to work on her ‘carelessness’. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘Not at all-’

  ‘A rare moment of agreement-’

  ‘-in fact I was going to offer my company’s conference services. I’ll ask my office to send you a brochure, shall I?’

  That, at least, got a reaction. A glowering, furious reaction but Pam stepped in before it boiled over with a swift interjection.

  ‘I’d better go and put your breakfast on hold for another twenty minutes. Sylvie? Can I get you something?’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t need waiting on, Pam,’ she said. ‘I know my way about.’ Which was probably exactly the wrong thing to say but she doubted that there was anything she could say that was right.

  Realising that this was a conversation going downhill fast, Pam took charge. ‘It’s no trouble. Camomile tea, isn’t it?’ And, before she could say anything else calculated to irritate her boss, ‘You’re okay in the morning room? It’s warm enough?’

  ‘It’s perfect. Thank you.’

  Pam waited, evidently planning to escort her out of harm’s way, but, still trapped in the doorway by Tom McFarlane’s rocklike figure, she was unable to escape so, with a meaningful look at him, she said, ‘Shout if you need anything, Sylvie.’ And
left them to it.

  ‘So, Miss Duchamp Smith-’

  ‘Just Smith. Sylvie,’ she added with a touch of desperation-how ridiculous was that? It didn’t elicit an invitation to call him Tom and, since she was the one in the wrong place, she said, ‘I promise you that I had no idea that it was your company that had bought Longbourne Court, Mr McFarlane.’ She emphasized the Mr McFarlane, making the point that she wasn’t here to put in a plea for her baby. Or for herself. ‘If I’d known-’

  He didn’t wait for her to tell him that she wouldn’t have accepted Pam’s invitation to stay. He simply leaned close and, speaking very softly, said, ‘Well, you do now, so you won’t get too comfortable in the morning room, will you? Or upstairs. I’ve had my fill of your kind.’

  She didn’t have to ask what kind of woman he thought she was. Twenty per cent told her that and how could she protest when the last time they’d been this close he’d had one hand on her naked back and the other had just found the gap between stocking and the lace of her Agent Provocateur French knickers and nothing about her response had suggested she was anything but happy about it…

  ‘I promise you,’ she snapped back, her cheeks flaming, ‘getting comfortable is the last thing on my mind.’ Then, lifting her hand in a gesture that indicated she’d like to move and that she wanted enough space to do it without the risk of physical contact, she said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, the sooner I get started, the sooner I’ll be out of here.’

  And, finally, she’d managed to say something right because, without another word, he stepped back, allowing her to escape.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  T OM watched as, head held high, Sylvie Smith walked quickly away.

  At their last meeting she’d arrived buttoned up for business in a designer suit, hair coiled up in some elegant style, make-up immaculate, but it hadn’t taken her long to start unbuttoning, loosening up. For those big silvery-blue eyes, smoked with heat, to be sending out an unmistakable message, apparently as incapable as him of resisting the attraction between them.