The Bartered Bride

The Bartered Bride
ANNE WEALE

Contract–one wife!Reid Kennard is a ruthless financier used to buying and selling stocks, shares and priceless artifacts. But now Reid has his eye on a very different acquisition–Francesca Turner.Left destitute by her father's recent death, Francesca had walked into Reid's bank looking to extend her overdraft rather than for a marriage proposal! As Fran needs money and Reid needs a wife, he proposes the perfect barter: he'll rescue her and her family if she'll agree to marry him! But in this marriage of convenience can Fran ever be anything more than a bartered bride?Of A Marriage Has Been Arranged:"Talented writer Anne Weale's…masterful character development and charming scenes create a rich reading experience."–Romantic Times

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought this was a merchant bank... not a marriage bureau.” (#u195768c6-e097-5149-8503-6e2de62680b0)Letter to Reader (#u1a4655e9-6b60-5354-bb5e-a496180d871b)Title Page (#ud35786ac-0cad-513c-8763-001aab939865)CHAPTER ONE (#u75a932db-93c3-5283-86b8-ca1de0385268)CHAPTER TWO (#ua8e6e6e2-7daa-53d6-8a55-7acac7e14ef0)CHAPTER THREE (#u100cf7aa-7a80-56e9-8d27-17b6bc7ca7cc)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I thought this was a merchant bank... not a marriage bureau.”

“It is a bank, and I am its chairman,” Reid said calmly.

“You wouldn’t be for much longer if your shareholders heard what you’re suggesting. They’d think you were out of your mind. You can’t buy a wife.”

“It isn’t the usual method of acquiring one,” he agreed, going back to his chair. “But these are unusual circumstances. I have neither the time nor inclination to follow the traditional course. You are in urgent need of someone to straighten out the financial shambles you find yourself in. If you agree to marry me, your mother won’t have to move and you won’t have to worry about her future. I’ll take care of that. Think it over, Francesca. When you’ve had time to assess it, I think you’ll agree it’s an eminently sensible plan.”

Dear Reader,

For twenty years, with my husband, usually in late spring and early fall, I’ve been crossing the range of mountains that separates France from Spain.

There are many different ways to cross the Pyrenees, from the sweeping curves of the autopista at the Mediterranean end to the narrower, more twisting minor roads in the central and eastern sections. We’ve tried most of them, including the route through the tiny principality of Andorra.

In between times, flying to London to meet my editor, often I’ve had an eagle’s view of inaccessible valleys so high up that the snow never melts. It never ceases to amaze me that the long, uncomfortable, perilous journey of earlier centuries can now be accomplished in two hours by air. Even by car, it takes only a few days. We like to do it slowly, picnic-lunching in woods or by the banks of streams, spending the night at quiet country hotels.

On a recent journey, it struck me that it was time to write a book about these magical mountains that, if not as remote as they once were, still retain a feeling of tranquillity long lost in more populous areas.

A short time later I happened to catch a brief glimpse of a tall, striking man and a beautiful girl, both wearing shorts and walking boots. I shall never know who they were...and they will never know they were part of the inspiration for the story you’re about to start reading.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Bartered Bride

Anne Weale

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

EXPECTING him to be a middle-aged toad, Francesca was surprised when the man who rose from behind the large orderly desk was a tall dark thirtysomething, not precisely handsome but undeniably personable.

‘Ms Turner...please sit down.’ He gestured to the chair on the outer side of the desk and waited until she was seated before resuming his own seat.

She knew nothing about him, except that his name was Reid Kennard and he occupied a large office on the highest floor of a prestigious office block in the City.

This area of London was one of the world’s great money markets. Judging by his discreetly luxurious surroundings, this man was one of the market’s moguls.

To Fran, until very recently, money had been something she spent with careless extravagance on clothes for herself, presents for others and anything else she wanted. Now the supply had dried up. That was why she was here in the formidable presence of this well-built six-footer whose physique didn’t match her mental image of a top-level financier.

All she knew about him was that Mr Preston, her late father’s lawyer, had said that Reid Kennard wished to see her and might be able to help her and her mother out of their predicament.

Predicament being the understatement of the year, Fran thought wryly, leaning back in the comfortable leather chair and automatically crossing her legs, remembering a moment too late that this was a no-no in the books of advice on how to impress interviewers.

The movement caused Mr Kennard to shift the focus of his cold grey gaze from her face to her shapely knees and then to her slender ankles.

Fran was accustomed to men admiring her legs furtively or openly according to temperament. Reid Kennard belonged to the latter group, but whether his frank appraisal was appreciative, critical or indifferent it was impossible to tell. He had the most deadpan expression she had ever come across. It made her nervous. She wasn’t used to being nervous. She didn’t like it.

The appraisal didn’t last long, perhaps not more than three seconds. Leaning forward, his forearms resting on the edge of the desk and his long-fingered hands loosely clasped, he returned his gaze to her face.

‘You’re in trouble, I hear.’

Lacking any regional or social accent, his voice gave no clue to his background. Self-assured and brisk, it was a voice she could imagine giving decisive orders people would jump to obey.

Had she met him in surroundings not indicative of his occupation, and been asked to guess it, she would have surmised that he held a senior rank in one of the special units of crack fighting men called to the world’s trouble spots when drastic action was the only solution. He had an air of contained physical power. A man of action rather than a desk-bound number-cruncher.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘we are. Since my father’s death, my mother and I have discovered that instead of being comfortably off we’re extremely hard up... virtually penniless.’

‘Not penniless,’ he said dryly. ‘The watch you’re wearing would pay the grocery bills of an average family for several months.’

‘I shan’t be wearing it much longer.’ She looked down at the stylish Cartier watch her parents had given her for her eighteenth birthday. ‘But I don’t mind that. I can cope with the change in our circumstances. It’s my mother I’m worried about. She’s not young. She has never worked. She—’

He interrupted her. ‘Nor have you, I understand. The press describe you as a playgirl.’

‘The press puts labels on everyone...not always accurate. It’s true I’ve never had a job. There was no point. My father was rich...so we thought. I wasn’t brainy enough to train for one of the professions. I don’t have any special bent. The most useful thing I could do was help to keep other people employed, not take a routine job someone else needed.’

‘You don’t have to justify your butterfly existence to me, Ms Turner. But without any work-experience, you’re not going to find it easy to start supporting yourself, particularly not at the level you’re accustomed to.’

‘Presumably you didn’t ask me here to tell me what I already know,’ she replied, with a flash of irritation.

There was something about his manner that put her back up. He hadn’t smiled when he greeted her. Beyond standing up when she was shown in by his secretary, he hadn’t done anything to put her at ease.

‘Why did you send for me?’

Rising, he picked up a file lying on the top of his desk. He walked round to hand it to her. ‘Have a look through that.’ He strolled away to a window looking out on a vista of rooftops. He stood with his hands behind him, the right hand clasping the left wrist.

The file held plastic pockets containing illustrations taken from magazines and the glossier kind of catalogue. Mostly they showed pieces of sculpture, paintings and other objets d’art. There were also several photographs of horses, an aerial view of an island off Scotland and a picture of a small French château.

Half turning from the window, he said, ‘They’re all things that caught my eye over the last few years. Some of them are now mine. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to indulge my acquisitive impulses...as I expect you did before your father died.’

‘Not on this scale,’ said Fran. She couldn’t see where this was leading.

As she glanced enquiringly at him, Reid Kennard returned to his desk, resting one long hard thigh along the edge of its polished surface and folding his arms across his chest.

‘There’s one picture in there you’ll recognise. Carry on looking.’

Intrigued, she obeyed, turning the pages more rapidly than before. Suddenly, with an indrawn breath of surprise and puzzlement, she stopped. She hadn’t expected to see a photograph of herself.

It had been taken at a party for socialites. She was wearing a figure-hugging dress of black crushed velvet and showing a lot of sun-tanned cleavage, having recently returned from a winter holiday in the Caribbean.

‘What am I doing here?’ she demanded, baffled.

‘You, I hope, are going to be my next major acquisition, Ms Turner.’ For the first time a hint of amusement showed in the hard steel-grey eyes and flickered at the corners of his wide, chiselled mouth.