A Proposal To Secure His Vengeance

‘I think I need an early night, to be fresh for tomorrow,’ she’d told her father, knowing there was no chance at all she would sleep.

Even if Raoul returned soon, Ciara was still out somewhere in the dark, wet night, the sudden storm and driving rain taking all trace of summer from the atmosphere. She would never be able to settle until she knew her sister was safe.

The glare of headlights drew her attention, warning her that a car was arriving. Squinting through the rain, she saw the sleek, dark vehicle draw to a halt at the door and three male figures get out, heads bent as they dashed through the rain and up the steps.

‘At last!’

Now, surely, she would have a chance to try to get the truth out of Raoul, to find out just what fiendish scheme was in his mind. Would he let the wedding go ahead tomorrow or did he plan to spoil it somehow?

The shudder that ran through her was as if the window had suddenly blown wide open, letting the rain in. She had changed into her nightwear when she’d come up to the room, but now the strappy nightie felt too cold, too little protection against the chill of the night, so she turned from the window, reaching for her robe as an extra layer of warmth. Adnan had been one of the men who’d arrived; she recognised the distinctive leather jacket he wore. Her father had been another. How could she manage this without being seen by these two men? She couldn’t bear to wait until everyone was asleep. The burn of apprehension and fear was bad enough already.

Her question was answered by her father’s voice down in the hall declaring that he had a fine whisky to share.

‘We could have a nightcap...?’ he offered jovially.

‘Not for me, thanks. I’m going to turn in.’ That was Raoul; the sexy accent made it clear.

As heavy male footsteps came up the stairs, the sound of the library door swinging shut behind the other two men made Imogen sag against the wall in relief. At last she was free to make her way to Raoul’s room, and she wasn’t going to leave without some much-needed answers.

But she couldn’t head for Raoul’s bedroom openly—across the main landing, straight to his door. That would be just asking for trouble.

Luckily, Blacklands House was old enough to have many secrets, amongst which were the hidden passages that linked one room to another by a series of stone steps. Much of her childhood had been spent running along these passages, learning how to get into them from every room and where each one came out.

The fake wall beside the bookcase was easy to open if you pressed one of the plaster roses that decorated it. Slipping inside, she made her way along the passage in darkness, bare feet making no sound. It was as she pushed slightly open the secret entry door into Raoul’s room that she heard the main door open again down in the hall. At last, Ciara was home. Now she needed to make sure that her sister’s fears—and her own—could be put behind them. Somehow, she had to convince Raoul not to ruin the wedding, or to drag Ciara’s name any further through the mud than it had been already.

The roar of the elderly shower from the bathroom hid the sound of the door sliding closed behind her as she crept into the room.

* * *

Raoul reached up and switched off the shower with a violent snap of his wrist. It had taken an age for the damn thing to run even close to warm, never mind hot, and he was far from feeling the relaxation he had hoped for.

Grabbing a towel, he rubbed it roughly over his soaking hair, thankful that the short, cropped cut retained little of the water. It was so damn cold in this ramshackle place; no hint of warmth in the old-fashioned bathroom.

‘Nom de Dieu!’ he swore explosively, tossing the damp towel aside and reaching for another, slinging it around his hips and fastening it tight. It was supposed to be summer!

But it wasn’t just the weather that was turning his mood sour, he knew. It was being here at all that was the problem. Being here, surrounded by the beauty of the countryside, the magnificence of the spectacular animals that grazed in the field, and knowing that the whole enterprise was rotten to the core; that there was no money to support the business and everything was in hock to the bank. Even the magnificent stallion Blackjack... Knowing that he had been conned into paying stud fees for a horse that didn’t actually belong to Joe O’Sullivan burned like acid in his gut.

Rubbing the back of his hand across his face to wipe away the moisture, he padded across the tiled floor, wrenching the handle to yank the door open. The financial situation couldn’t be any worse, so Imogen had clearly turned to the oldest trick in the book—marrying the nearest really wealthy man in order to help clear her family’s debts. The same trick that she’d tried to pull on him when she’d discovered that he was not the simple olive farmer he’d claimed to be. Obviously, the financial problems had already begun to bite back then.

‘Damn her to hell!’

He had known this—most of this—before he’d arrived. It was the reason he was here, after all. But it had all seemed so much simpler before he’d left Corsica. The woman who had tried to get her hands on his fortune had now found someone else equally wealthy to marry. Someone else whose child, it seemed, she was prepared to have when the truth was that she had already got rid of her first baby—his child. Tossed it aside because its wealthy father wasn’t going to fall into the trap she’d laid for him.

But now, she’d found someone who would do just as she wanted. Someone who would marry her, pour money into this downtrodden estate and pay off the bills.

He had come here to stop that wedding.

But things had got so much more complicated since he’d arrived. He’d seen Imogen and her sister. He’d met the man Imogen was going to marry, and—damn it to hell—he liked Adnan Al Makthabi. Respected him. Adnan was the type of man he’d like as a friend—if he had such a thing.

‘Raoul...’

A voice, soft, uncertain and shockingly familiar, broke into his thoughts, bringing his head up. Dashing any last trace of water from his eyes, he swung round sharply to face her.

It was as if his heated sexual memories of their time together, the ones that had made the inadequate temperature of the shower a positive bonus, had brought her out of the past, conjured her up as a real person here in his room.

But how the devil had she got in here? He was between her and the exit and he knew he’d turned the key in the bedroom door when he’d gone into the bathroom. Yet there she was, tall and slender in a deep crimson robe wrapped tightly around her, tied at the waist. She was standing against the wall, half-hidden by the heavy, embroidered drape of the curtains around one of the carved posters of the bed.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

He saw the way her breasts rose and fell under the delicate silk of her robe with every sharp, uneven breath she took. The wide, wide eyes were clear and sapphire blue even in the dusky shadows, and her mouth was partly open, as if to speak—or to kiss, his rebellious thoughts whispered to him. She’d always been beautiful. Hell, she was still beautiful—more so than before, if that were possible.

She had once worn a scarlet dress that had been little more than the nightgown she had on under the robe, but it had been short and sweet with a flippy sort of hem that had shown off her long legs. He had revelled in watching the pale, Celtic skin slowly tan to a subtle, sexy golden brown after days in the sun. The kick of lust at his groin was unwelcome and ill-timed—and appallingly distracting. The white towel suddenly felt like no covering at all and he shifted uncomfortably, pulling it tighter at the waist, tucking the edge in again.