The Husband Contract

“No, I’m just late getting home. Thanks again for—”

“If you really feel that Nick is in danger where you are,” he broke in calmly, “why not move back into Cartouche Court?” He smiled at her horrified expression. “I’m serious, Melanie. Why not? Joshua’s will specifically stipulates that you may live here, rent free, during the twelve-month evaluation period. Why not take advantage of his offer? Why not come home?”

Why not? A hundred thousand memories, all of them unhappy, that was why not. She looked helplessly around the library, half-expecting to see her uncle lurking in the dark corners. But the clouds had passed over—the shadows now were honey-colored.

“Come home?” she repeated hollowly. Was this home?

“Come home,” Copernicus ordered in a fierce voice that was eerily like her uncle’s. “Come home, damn it.”

It was obviously unanimous. Even Fudge wrapped himself around her ankle, purring. She stared numbly down at the cat, wondering why she was even letting herself consider this insanity. She leaned down to pet him, stalling.

“Damn cat,” Copernicus said sullenly, ruffling his feathers irritably.

Clay had stood now, too, and was studying her closely. “Why don’t you at least give it some thought? It would be financially advantageous for you, and it might even, as you say, expedite the work you and I need to do together. Fewer faxes, no phone messages to go astray.” He sighed. “I could even get to know Nick better.”

Get to know Nick…? She realized suddenly, with a nervous tightening in her gut, what he meant. “Oh, that’s right. You…you live here now, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He grinned, and for the first time, in the brightening sunshine, she could see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. “But I’m staying in the guest house, in case you’re worried about appearances.”

“Well, I would have to be, wouldn’t I?” she said dryly. “Considering that my character and my judgment are now officially on trial.”

He laughed as if he thought she was quite witty, but she knew it was no more than the truth. She was the defendant, and Cartouche Court was to be her jail. And Clay Logan was prosecutor, jailer, judge and jury all in one deceptively charming package. She closed her eyes. The prisoner was in big, big trouble.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f896d600-7be4-5f78-a79f-71a89bb2aeb7)

IT WAS the wrong side of midnight. As was his habit before retiring to the guest cottage for the night, Clay strolled quietly across the upstairs hall of Cartouche Court, his body slicing through the alternating stripes of blue moonlight and black shadow as he double-checked doors and windows.

The hall was like a long, straight saber, cleaving the mansion’s eight bedrooms into two sets of four. He peered into each one as he passed, assuring himself that all was in order. With so many workmen coming and going, it couldn’t hurt to be careful.

It was like taking a walk through time and space. Joshua had decorated the bedrooms to reflect different nations or eras, each using an antique map as inspiration. The Chinese bedroom, then the Irish, the Crusades, the Civil War, the St. Croix…The interior of Cartouche Court was as varied as history itself.

But silent, Clay thought, standing at the top of the stairs, scanning the emptiness. Some nameless disaster might have swept all living things from the face of the earth, leaving behind only hollow suits of armor, stopped clocks, beds that no one slept in, books that no one read.

Well, all that would change tomorrow when Melanie and her brother arrived. The transformation had, in fact, already begun.

He moved to the Chinese bedroom and knuckled the door open slightly. Over the past week, the room’s simple elegance had given way to a strangely delightful chaos as Melanie’s things had been sent ahead to await her arrival.

He flicked on the overhead light, wondering what new nonsense had been delivered today. On Monday she’d sent a dozen boxes, which now were stacked on the Oriental carpet. Each carton was labeled in black marker, and the careless scrawl was as impractical as Melanie herself. “Odds and Ends,” she’d written, or “Boring Papers.”

Her clothes had come on Wednesday. Two bulging suitcases and then a half-dozen dresses in soft, feminine prints, sent loose on hangers. They surged like flower-laden waves over the red-lacquered chest in the comer.

And here was today’s addition—a small, battered sound system, tangled wires and a handful of CDs littering the elegant trestle table from the ming dynasty. And on the carved rosewood tester bed, amid the richly embroidered pillows, a giant one-eyed teddy bear winked at Clay as if amused by his grand surroundings.

“She always was a messy one.”

Clay looked over his shoulder, not really surprised to see that Mrs. Hilliard was awake, still roaming the halls after midnight. Since Joshua’s death, the housekeeper had tended the old man’s estate with an almost obsessive care.

“Mrs. Hilliard,” he said, smiling, “we’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

She didn’t return his smile—she wasn’t much for grinning at the best of times—but he knew she liked him anyway. Her requirements were straightforward. She liked anyone who had been Joshua Browning’s friend.

Bustling past him into the room, the housekeeper swept the teddy bear off the bed and dropped it on top of the dresses. She flattened her brows into an ominous line. “Melanie never had a bit or respect for anything. Did I ever tell you how I caught her up in the hall here, bowling down ivory netsukes with a glass paperweight? A hundred years old, they were. Priceless.”

Clay chuckled. She’d told him the story at least three times this week.

“Honestly, that girl drove her uncle crazy.”

“I’ll bet she did,” he agreed, thinking of Joshua’s obsession with order and control. Even for a more relaxed personality, Melanie probably wouldn’t be a very soothing roommate—all that hot-blooded temper, all that restless, volatile energy. No, not soothing. But she might, he thought, be rather stimulating….

Whoa, boy. He jerked firmly on the reins of that thought. He mustn’t ever, ever allow himself to think of Melanie Browning that way. She was a client, not a woman. She barely qualified as one anyhow, with her enthusiasm for swordplay, her tomboy temper and her wide, innocent blue eyes that teared up as easily as a baby’s.

But then, like a fool, he thought of how she had looked in her knight’s tunic, all honeyed sunshine, silver sequins and incredible curves. Something deep in his gut tightened and warmed at the mental picture, instinct overruling intellect.

All right, so she was a woman, damn it. She still wasn’t his kind of woman. He’d been in love only once, right out of college, and Allison had been as different from Melanie Browning as ice was from fire. Ally had been the Grace Kelly type—calm, blond, polished and refined until she glowed like marble.

When she had died, only a month before their wedding, Clay had vowed he’d never look at a woman again. Needless to say, such wild, brokenhearted promises couldn’t be kept Now, ten years later, he looked—he even occasionally touched—but he always went for the same type. Blond, cool, collected. Would-be Allisons who would, of course, never be Allison.

But even if Melanie Browning had been Grace Kelly herself, she would have been off-limits to Clay. He could stand here till dawn listing all the ethical violations any fooling around with her would represent.

“And this young man who keeps bringing over her boxes,” Mrs. Hilliard was continuing as she circled the room, sniffing for new transgressions. “This Ted Martin. Who is he anyway? Why is a nice young man like that playing errand boy for her?”

“Ted Martin? I didn’t know about him,” Clay said, curious. “Boyfriend, perhaps?” He suddenly, intensely, hoped he was right If Melanie had a squeaky-clean fiancé at hand, it would solve all Clay’s problems at once. He could satisfy his conscience, turn over the inheritance and banish all pesky thoughts of curvaceous white knights forever.

“Boyfriend?” The housekeeper snorted. “Not hers, not on your life. Melanie’s taste always ran more to drummers and dropouts.”

Clay raised one brow. “She was only sixteen, remember,” he chided gently.

“She was old enough to know better.”

“Still, maybe you should cut her some slack,” he insisted.

He wasn’t going to let Mrs. H. destroy his dream of an easy resolution. A “nice young man” named Ted would be very helpful; an unemployed space cadet called Ringo would not. “Not many sixteen-year-old girls go around dating Nobel Prize winners.”

“Maybe not. But it’s one thing to flirt with one of those longhaired deadbeats when you’re sixteen.” Mrs. Hilliard switched off the light with a small huff. “It’s something else altogether to run off in the middle of the night and marry one.”

Was she doing the right thing?

Melanie had no idea whether she was about to salvage their lives or destroy them. For seven long days, her confidence had been under seige, and she had hardly slept, scarcely eaten. Doubts had raged through her mind like guerilla warriors, popping up whenever she relaxed, attacking whenever she let down her guard.

What if she was wrong? What if this whole move was folly? What if she took Nick back to Cartouche Court and then she couldn’t win her inheritance? Wouldn’t it be harder than ever for him to accept his fate? Or what if Clay had been right—that the problem was Nick, not their address? Would she have put them both through this for nothing? And would allowing Clay to live in close proximity to Nick really help anything?

Familiarity with Nick didn’t always breed respect, at least not these days.

But when Melanie woke up on Saturday morning and loaded the last of their things into her car, she felt oddly excited. For some reason, the doubts this morning were almost inaudible, like a cry heard in the distance. Today she dared to hope.

Perhaps it Just was her nature to be foolishly optimistic. Or perhaps it was the day itself. As they drove, the air was sweet with the promise of summer, and the hills rolled by like mounds of emeralds. It was a magical morning, designed to sow hope in even the most barren heart.

As she turned into the lane that led to Cartouche Court, she caught her breath. But the magic held. Sunshine sparkled along the driveway like a yellow carpet strewn with topaz. Orchard orioles, hidden somewhere behind the pink blossoms of the crab apple tree, filled the air with explosive ripples of song. A pair of comical jays, apparently sent straight from Walt Disney’s central casting, cavorted in the front fountain, which splashed merrily over its marble tiers.