In Bed With...Collection

She set her own glass on the table and stood up, bristling with angry disillusionment. “Shall I ring for him to come?”

He waved a dismissive hand and tried an appeasing smile. “I was merely remarking on the obvious. Why take offence?”

“You could have tried looking beyond the obvious, Mr. Prescott.”

The pretence of a smile twisted into a grimace. “You call my grandfather by his first name. Why not use mine?”

“Because I don’t assume familiarities. I never have. In my experience it’s asking to be slapped down if you do,” she answered tersely.

“Oh, come on! Not in Australia,” he protested. “It’s the most egalitarian society in the world.”

“That depends on where you’re coming from,” she mocked. “You’ve never lived an underprivileged life, have you? Never had to learn to be subservient. You have no idea what it’s like to live that kind of life.”

He frowned, unable to deny the charge.

Sick at heart, Maggie turned away from him and walked around the table, moving to stand where he had stood earlier, in front of the fireplace. She felt too agitated to sit down again. She glanced up at the painting of Cupid frolicking in a garden and a rueful smile curled her lips. The arrows being shot here tonight weren’t dipped in a love potion. More like poison.

When she swung around, Beau Prescott was keenly observing her, a perplexed V drawing his eyebrows together.

“I’ll tell you what Vivian gave me,” she shot at him. “Acceptance, approval, liking, respect. He took me in and made me one of his family. He transformed me into something more than I was and showed me what was possible. He educated me in so many ways—books, music, art—opening my mind to things I’d never known and would never have learnt without his guidance and tuition.”

She paused, showing her contempt for his shallow judgment of the situation. “I don’t know why your grandfather did it. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps he enjoyed playing Henry Higgins, turning me into ‘His Fair Lady.’ Perhaps he liked having an eager pupil. And I was certainly that. I was hungry for all he gave me and I did my best to live up to all he wanted for me.”

Her sense of rightness urged her to add, “I’m not ashamed of that, Mr. Prescott. I’m proud of it because I did Vivian proud. I loved your grandfather. I really did. And whether you like it or not, that’s the truth.”

He said nothing, retaining an intense air of listening as though waiting to hear more. She held his gaze in fierce challenge. The silence lengthened. The tension between them thickened.

Sedgewick stepped into the room and cleared his throat. “Dinner is ready, sir.”

It was so pedantic, such a ridiculous anticlimax, Maggie broke into a peal of laughter. “I do assure you, Mr. Prescott, our cook’s Beef Wellington will be much tastier than sinking your teeth into me. Best that we answer his call immediately.”

She set off for the dining room, not waiting for any response, savagely berating herself for being a gullible fool. Never again, she vowed. Beau Prescott might be capable of charming birds off trees, but this bird was going to keep her wings tightly folded against him.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ud535c0fb-8216-5cc4-a273-7d8e9771b73f)

BEAU forced his jaw to keep working, doggedly chewing up each mouthful of the Beef Wellington to the point where he could swallow it. At the other end of the table, Maggie Stowe was carving through her dinner with military precision, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her see she’d robbed him of his appetite. The woman had too much power as it was.

She tapped straight into every male hormone he had, setting them more abuzz than they’d ever been, regardless of the dictates of his brain. She messed with his mind, too, blurring what should be completely clear, straight-line logic. He couldn’t decide whether she was a superb actress or completely for real. If it wasn’t for the missing million, he’d be tempted—strongly tempted—to accept her story at face value.

At least he now had some facts to check. Sir Roland would be a reliable eyewitness to the first meeting in the restaurant and he wouldn’t mind Beau questioning him about it. Zabini’s Circus and the cattle station, Wilgilag, were items he could pass on to Lionel Armstrong. Any competent private investigator should be able to get some character references out of them. If she’d told the truth about her nanny background.

He glanced down the table. Her face was in shadow, frustrating his need to see past her polished facade. “Sedgewick, would you please switch on the overhead light and remove the candelabra? I can hardly see what I’m eating.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Beau could feel his irritation growing as Sedgewick complied with ponderous dignity. The disapproval emanating from the old butler was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Maggie Stowe was clearly upset. With all the subtle skill at Sedgewick’s command, he kept letting Beau know who was at fault and it wasn’t the nanny.

The brighter illumination of the room didn’t really help. Maggie’s face was like a white mask, completely expressionless. Beau watched her pick up her glass of claret and take a swig. Not champagne tonight, he thought with acid satisfaction. He’d told Sedgewick to serve a good red. The champagne days were over for Nanny Stowe at Rosecliff. No doubt she could buy it for herself soon enough with the missing million.

She had to have that million squirrelled away somewhere.

It was the obvious answer.

Yet she had flatly denied taking any money from his grandfather apart from her wage. And she had scorned him for not looking beyond the obvious.

The woman was a wretched torment. He glared at her as he picked up his glass of wine, needing a good dose of full-bodied claret to ease the angst she’d given him. She didn’t look up from her dinner. Since she’d sat down to it, she hadn’t met his gaze once. Beau was left with the strong impression she had wrapped a shield around herself and comprehensively shut him out. Her stony silence reinforced it.

The urge to smash it down spurred him into speech. “What did you do after you left Wilgilag?”

Very slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her head. Her eyes glittered like sapphires. “If you want ammunition against me, find it yourself, Mr. Prescott,” she said flatly.

Her reply gave him no joy nor satisfaction. Having made him feel like a slime, she returned her attention to her meal and continued eating. Beau couldn’t stomach any more food. She had his gut twisted into knots.

“I simply want to know more about you, Maggie,” he defended, trying to beat off the sense of being in the wrong. Very badly in the wrong.

She shook her head, not bothering to even glance up at him.

Beau seethed with frustration. He couldn’t make her talk. He recalled the artless, open way she had bubbled on before he’d put in the jab about millionaires and savagely wished he’d held his tongue on that point.

Yet had it been artless or artful? Truth or lies? Impossible to know until he’d checked out what she’d told him. One thing was certain. Because of his stupid gaffe in revealing his own train of thought, she was not about to hand him any more information about herself.

He emptied his glass and signalled to Sedgewick to refill it. The action was performed without comment, without eye contact. Beau felt himself being cold-shouldered on more than one front.

Was he wrong about Maggie Stowe? Was he hopelessly, foolishly, hurtfully wrong? He couldn’t deny that her passionate defence of her relationship with his grandfather had struck chords of truth. And guilt.

Perhaps he’d been lonely.

Those words hit hard. Beau doubted this situation would ever have arisen if he hadn’t stayed away so long. Or if he’d found the time and the woman to marry and have children—which was what his grandfather had most wanted, an extension of the family line. Having plenty of friends did not provide the same sense of closeness and caring as having someone who belonged to you, who was there all the time.

Beau could even see now why his grandfather had chosen to take Maggie Stowe in and make her one of his family...a flower-seller with the potential to be much more, given the means and the guidance. “She’s going to be my creation,” he’d boasted to Lionel Armstrong, and he would have revelled in the role of Henry Higgins; the achievement of it, the sheer theatre of making someone over and producing a star, the heady reward of her appreciative response to his teaching.

If Maggie Stowe had really had an underprivileged life, why wouldn’t she be eager to try everything on offer, hungry for it, loving it? It made sense. The only fly in that ointment was the missing million, which suggested she could be a very clever con woman.

Beau just couldn’t let that go. Not without knowing more. A lot more. He cursed himself again for letting his advantage slip. She was on guard against him now. He’d have to work other angles and hope something pertinent would turn up.

It startled him out of his dark reverie when she rose abruptly from her chair. She laid her refolded napkin on the table and looked directly at him, making his heart kick at the renewed link between them.

“I beg to be excused, Mr. Prescott,” she said with quiet dignity. “I am not feeling well.”

Which left him no loophole for insisting she stay. Beau set his glass down and rose to his feet, courtesy demanding he let her go gracefully. “I’m sorry. If there’s anything you require...”

“No. Thank you.” She turned to the butler. “Sedgewick, please apologise to Jeffrey for me. I know he will have prepared a special sweets course. Perhaps Mr. Prescott will have two helpings to make up for my leaving it.”

“I’ll ensure Jeffrey understands, Nanny Stowe,” Sedgewick returned kindly, drawing her chair back for easier movement.

“Thank you.”

She walked the length of the table with the carriage of a queen, yet when she paused by Beau, he saw she was trembling, and her face was so bloodless he wondered if she were really ill. Her eyes were no longer glittering. They reflected a sickness of soul that screwed Beau up even further.