Bittersweet Passion

Three? Claire suppressed a groan, dredged as she had been from a deep sleep. Dane was smoothing over the unpleasantness and about to unleash, she suspected, all the reasons against such a preposterous arrangement.

‘For some reason, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that I might have someone in my life who would make a marriage—discreet or otherwise—impossible.’

Her astonishment was unconcealed. ‘Have you?’

A very faint bar of colour accentuated his hard cheekbones. ‘No, as it happens. That doesn’t seem to surprise you,’ he noted drily.

Helplessly she smiled. ‘You’re not the marrying kind.’

‘No,’ he agreed, a mocking slant to his beautiful mouth, a night’s dark stubble increasing his raw sex appeal. ‘I enjoy my freedom and I intend to keep it that way. Tell me about Max.’

‘Is that necessary? It’s private … I mean …’ she stammered under his amused scrutiny.

‘What does he do?’

‘He went to agricultural college. He’s twenty-five, and came up here to work with Roy Baxter as a trainee.’

‘So what happened to him?’

Claire linked her hands loosely. ‘Grandfather sacked him once I told him that we wanted to get married. Max is in London now and he’s still out of work,’ she breathed bitterly.

‘And you want to bestow all your worldly goods on a guy who didn’t even have the interest to take you with him?’ Dane derided unfeelingly.

‘That’s unfair. Max knows I had no choice and he wouldn’t have asked me when he had nowhere to take me,’ she argued vehemently. ‘For goodness’ sake be practical, Dane. Max lives with his family.’

His lashes screened his eyes to a mere glimmer of midnight-blue. ‘And maybe he didn’t want you without the blessing of yours.’

Her breath rattled in her throat. My God, what a cruel cynic Dane was! ‘That’s a horrible thing to say. Max didn’t even know Grandfather was a rich man,’ she protested. ‘He could hardly have guessed, the way we live up here!’

‘Adam’s wealth is widely talked about locally and he was a legend of eccentricity.’ Dane viewed her furious face and sighed. ‘OK, I’ll make you a deal.’

Her forehead furrowed. ‘A deal?’

He came down lithely on the edge of the mattress and stretched out his long legs. ‘What do you propose to do after the ceremony?’

She took in his implication with a fast-beating heart. ‘Move in with Max,’ she confided shyly.

Dane treated her to a cold smile. ‘You’ve certainly grown up. I’ll do it, however, but on one condition.’

‘What?’ she prompted apprehensively.

‘I control Adam’s estate.’ He interpreted her blank stare. ‘I’m not prepared to stand by and let you gaily dispose of the money as soon as you get it. Adam clearly wanted that money to be yours, and I wouldn’t agree to you making any big decisions on what you do with it too quickly,’ he assserted. ‘You’ll surely be the first to admit that you have no experience of handling large sums of money. At least, they’ll be large to you but I seriously doubt he was one quarter as wealthy as this family imagines. He couldn’t have been if he mortgaged this house.’

His suggestion both off-balanced and irritated her. Somehow she had expected less chauvinism from Dane. But she trusted him implicitly. The matter seemed scarcely important when he was desirous of protecting her interests and simultaneously granting her the escape route she sought. ‘You’ll marry me?’ she gasped in sudden delight.

He sprang up again, a rueful smile fleeting across his lips like a shadow. ‘As you said, it may not be of profit to me but it’s not costing me anything either. And after all these years in this God-forsaken house, I think you deserve the right to do as you wish with your future. Setting aside such highflown ideals, I can’t wait to see Carter’s face.’

‘Oh, don’t!’ Gripped by discomfiture, she shuddered.

‘Wise up, Claire. Carter’s just being greedy, or aren’t you aware that Adam set him up in that engineering firm of his? They all had their dues while the old man was alive,’ he completed cynically. That was news to her but she said nothing. She was not a Fletcher by birth. For her to walk away with the bulk of the inheritance would still be wrong in her own opinion.

Dane swung round on his passage to the door. ‘I think we’ll head to Paris to tie the knot.’

‘P … Paris?’ she echoed.

‘More discreet. Hell, have you a passport?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘Yes … Max and I … well, we did hope to go on holiday …’ she muttered.

‘Until Adam stuck a spanner in the works. What’s Max like in looks?’

She gazed at him in forgivable surprise and then smiled reflectively. ‘He’s not very tall, but then neither am I. He’s got dark hair and dark eyes and a beard,’ she reeled off. ‘Why?’

‘I was curious to see what it took for you to go to such extreme lengths,’ he flicked carelessly before he departed.

Claire sank back against the pillows, rather dizzied by her success. Dane had agreed. Dammit, Dane had agreed! How on earth had she managed such a feat? Doubt crept in then, bringing her down to earth with a wallop. She hadn’t considered how Max might feel about her marrying Dane. Earlier, she hadn’t believed she had a ghost of a chance of Dane agreeing. It had been a matter of plunging into her one option and then coming down to face harsh facts again. Only now it was different. Dane was ready to help her.

Good Lord, where had her wits been? Max could conceivably be furious about such a scheme. How did Max feel about divorce? She would be a divorcee. The minute she arrived in London, she would go and see him, and they would discuss it all together. Dane wouldn’t lose any sleep if she had to back down … but could she back down?

If she went ahead they would have a home together just as they had always planned. In that home all the love and warmth she had been denied here would flourish. If she didn’t marry Dane, there would be no wedding, no future home. Max wouldn’t take on a wife he needed to support in his current situation. No … no! Everything in her retreated from the bleakness of such an uncertain and depressing future, and reinforced her belief that she had made the right decision for both of them. Max would understand that sometimes one just had to reach out and grab happiness in case a second chance never came.

Carter came looking for her when she was setting the breakfast table the next morning. ‘You can’t be marrying Dane!’ he thundered from the door.

So Dane had already spoken to him. Colour feathered in her cheeks. ‘I never gave you any reason to believe I would marry you,’ she answered.

Grandfather must be worth a great deal more than I ever realised!’ he replied nastily.

‘You’re a bad loser, Carter.’ Dane had entered silently. He looked neither aggressive nor amused, just cool as was his wont, and the momentary belief that he had come to defend her shrivelled.

Carter flung him a furious glance. ‘You think you’re so damned clever, Dane! You see no reason why Claire shouldn’t walk in and steal what she has no entitlement to. She’s not one of us!’ he blazed with uncustomary fervour, his mouth a pinched white line.

A sable brow lifted. ‘At this moment I’d say that was in her favour. And she didn’t walk in, Carter. Claire’s been in this family over eighteen years and Adam’s desire to secure her future hardly indicates that he didn’t consider her family,’ he quipped.

Claire wished he would stop acting as if she was helpless and gave him a rueful look before saying, ‘I intend to make sure the money is divided up equally, Carter, and …’

‘I wouldn’t depend on that,’ Dane interrupted smoothly.

‘I was doing you a favour asking you to marry me!’ Carter was in the grip of an uncontrollable rage. ‘God only knows what’s in your background! I shouldn’t be surprised if you’ve laid a trap for Dane.’

‘Dane!’ Claire snapped in sudden dismay, recognising that flare of anger in Dane’s brilliant blue eyes and hastily stepping between the two men. ‘Just leave it, please. And let’s all have breakfast in peace.’

Carter slammed out of the room loudly enough to let her know what he thought of that suggestion.

‘I don’t know what the hell you got in the way for!’ Dane breathed. ‘That …’

‘That was precisely why I got in the way,’ she murmured unhappily. ‘There have been quite enough family divisions created over the past twenty-four hours.’

Neither Sandra nor Carter appeared for breakfast. Dane was deep in the newspaper when she got up to clear the table.