Just For A Night

‘I’ve always wanted you, Marina,’ he insisted, with a thickened quality to his voice. ‘From the first moment I saw you. But your mother warned me right from the start that I could look, but not touch. Her little princess was not for the likes of me.’

Marina was not really surprised by this news. Her mother had been a very contradictory person. British-born and bred, she’d apparently defied her wealthy, upper-crust parents to run off to Australia with a colonial stablehand. She’d been told never to darken their doorstep again. Which she hadn’t.

Her bitterness over their attitude had been such that she’d never spoken of her English ancestors to her daughter, and had forbidden Marina to ever seek them out.

One would have thought she’d bring up Marina to despise this kind of snobbery and hypocrisy. And she had, in a way. But at the same time, perversely, she’d tried to turn her only daughter into a right little madam, with all the associated refinements and manners. Marina had been given ballet lessons, piano lessons and speech and drama lessons, not to mention the obligatory riding and dressage lessons.

It hadn’t really worked. Marina might look an elegant twenty-five-year-old lady on the surface, and she could hold her own in any company, but she was still Australian through and through—with a stubborn streak a mile long, an instinctive irreverence for authority and a pragmatic no-nonsense attitude to life.

She was also a chip off the old block when it came to defying parents, because when she’d gone to England on a backpacking holiday a couple of years previously she had tried to look up the maternal side of her family—her mother’s maiden name being on her birth certificate—only to find that there were more Binghams in England than you could poke a stick at.

Without more information to narrow the field, or money to hire an investigator, finding the right Binghams would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. Since she had never been all that curious about the English side to her family—they sounded horrible snobs to her—she’d given up the search without another qualm.

Shane’s comment reminded her that she would be in England again soon. And this time she did have some money. Her mother’s estate had been larger than she’d envisaged. It seemed she’d been a very astute businesswoman over the years. Now that Marina could not hurt her mother with a more in-depth search, she might just see if she could find her grandparents, plus any possible aunts, uncles and cousins.

And maybe she wouldn’t.

They’d never searched for her, had they? Why should she care a whit for them? They’d probably only upset her by not wanting to have anything to do with her.

No, she would abandon that idea entirely. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

‘I never thought you’d look twice at me,’ Shane was saying, ‘with your private school education and your looks. But you did, didn’t you, princess? And now…now you’re mine.’ He bent to back his claim with a long and very intimate kiss. It did set her heart a-thudding, but it was not what she wanted at that moment. All she wanted was to be left alone. Her head was absolutely whirling.

‘Come back as quickly as you can,’ he urged. ‘Don’t stay over there a moment longer than necessary.’

Marina didn’t know what to say. She felt very confused. A couple of weeks ago she had not been able to wait to marry Shane. Now, suddenly, those heady feelings of being madly in love seemed to have disappeared and her thoughts were very disturbing.

Surely Shane could not be just marrying her for the horses. Surely he loved her. And surely she loved him back. Hadn’t she quivered under his touch only last night? Hadn’t she cried out with pleasure?

Her mental toing and froing led nowhere, but the urge to get away from Shane remained acute. The urge to get away all round was becoming even stronger.

The trip to London, which had loomed in her mind as something of a trial, now took on a different perspective. It became a welcome escape, a time away from Shane during which she could think more clearly. By the time she returned, hopefully, she would know what to do.

It would not be too late to break her engagement even then. It wasn’t as though they were going to have a big church wedding, only a simple ceremony in her mother’s prized rose garden, with a celebrant and a few close friends attending.

This had been Shane’s wish, not Marina’s. She’d always wanted a traditional wedding, but Shane had argued the unsuitability of a big celebration so soon after her mother’s death. She recalled Shane had also said it would be a waste of money—money better spent on the plans he had for building new stables and buying new horses.

Money figured a lot in Shane’s arguments, Marina was beginning to realise.

When the phone call had come from the children’s hospital, asking her if she could fly to London as soon as possible to be a bone marrow donor, Shane’s first concern had been how much money it would cost and who was going to pay. He hadn’t shut up about it till a follow-up letter had arrived, explaining Marina would not be out of pocket in any way whatsoever.

Shane still hadn’t been happy about her going.

But in this case Marina had remained adamant, her natural tendency to stubbornness rising up through the uncharacteristic submissiveness which had been plaguing her. This had nothing to do with them as a couple and everything to do with herself as a decent and caring human being. She was prepared to go even if she had to pay for it all herself. How could she not, when a little girl’s life was at stake?

Her name was Rebecca, and she was only seven. An orphan, God love her, but with a wonderful great-uncle, it seemed. An earl, no less. And rich as Croesus, thank heavens.

He’d sent a first-class return ticket for Marina, plus a written assurance that he would be personally responsible for all her expenses. His gratitude knew no bounds. He claimed he would be in her debt for the rest of his life.

Marina smiled as she thought of the letter and its incredibly formal-sounding expressions. The man was British aristocracy through and through, all right. But rather sweet, she conceded. For a blue-blood.

‘Ahh, you’re smiling,’ Shane said, and bent to peck her on the lips. ‘I must be forgiven.’

Marina could not trust herself to speak. She twisted out of Shane’s arms and busied herself shutting and locking her suitcase. ‘We’ll have to leave for the airport shortly,’ she said. ‘If you’re still going to drive me, that is?’

‘Why wouldn’t I drive you?’ he said expansively. ‘Don’t be so sensitive, sweetheart.’ He scooped the suitcase off the bed and placed his spare arm around her shoulders.

‘I know why you’re so touchy,’ he said, hugging her to his side. ‘You’re just jumpy about the flight. And about your hospital stay at the other end. I’ll say this for you, Marina, you’re damned brave, volunteering to have needles poked in you like that. I know I wouldn’t do it. Not for a perfect stranger.’

Marina frowned. She didn’t think of herself as particularly brave. She’d been assured the procedure was not painful, though there might be some discomfort in her hip for a couple of days.

It dawned on her then that Shane was a very selfish man. Selfish and ambitious and stingy.

Marina fingered her engagement ring all the way from Bringelly to the airport at Mascot. Half a dozen times she contemplated taking it off and giving it back. But she didn’t. And, in the end, she boarded the plane still an engaged woman.

CHAPTER TWO

THE man holding the sign which said ‘MISS MARINA SPENCER’ didn’t look like a chauffeur.

He wasn’t wearing a uniform for one thing, like several of the other sign-carrying chauffeurs standing near him. He was wearing a black pin-striped three-piece suit and a crisp white business shirt whose starched collar was neatly bisected by a classy maroon tie. A matching maroon handkerchief winked from the breast pocket of the superbly tailored jacket.

Frankly, he looked like an executive. A very tall, very good-looking, very successful executive. In his early thirties, Marina guessed, he had straight black hair—impeccably parted and groomed—straight black brows, and an air of urbane superiority. She could see him sitting behind a desk, in one of those black leather swivel chairs. Or in a boardroom, at the head of one of those long, polished tables.

But the sign he was carrying placed him very firmly as the chauffeur she’d been told would meet her at Heathrow. So Marina set her luggage trolley on an unswerving path straight towards him.

His gaze, which had been staring rather blankly at the steady stream of arrivals, shifted abruptly to hers, and Marina found herself looking into deeply set blue eyes which widened at her approach. Clearly she didn’t fit his idea of a Miss Marina Spencer any more than he did her concept of a chauffeur.

Admittedly, she probably didn’t look like most Englishmen’s idea of a girl from Sydney. Her bright red hair and very pale skin did not fit the clichеd beach beauties from Bondi, sporting honey-blonde hair as long as their legs and a gorgeous all-over tan.

At least I have the long legs, she thought, smiling ruefully to herself over her total inability to tan—inherited, possibly, from somewhere on her maternal side. Unless it came from her father’s distant Irish ancestry. Who knew, where recessive genes were concerned? Luckily, Marina’s mother had lathered her daughter’s sensitive skin with sun factor fifteen her entire life, and she only carried a smattering of light freckles.

Marina stopped the trolley right in front of the chauffeur and smiled politely up into his by now frowning face.

‘I’m Marina Spencer,’ she informed him.

He gave her the longest look in return, one which left her feeling as poorly composed as the twenty-two-hour flight had. She’d hardly slept a wink, for one thing. And something she’d eaten had not agreed with her. All in all, the trip had been a trial, and she wasn’t looking forward to the return flight, regardless of the first-class seat.

She’d done her best to resurrect her appearance in the Ladies just before disembarking, but despite fresh make-up her skin still felt dehydrated, and her normally vibrant red-gold curls hung rather limply around her face and shoulders. Her widely spaced green eyes, one of her best features, had dark smudges under them.

On the plus side, her jeans had survived the trip better than a skirt or a dress. And her favourite and thankfully crease-proof black jacket hid the wrinkles in the white shirt underneath.

But she still felt somewhat the worse for wear.

The chauffeur’s thorough visual assessment irritated her somewhat. Finally, he bent to prop the sign against a nearby pillar, then straightened, still unsmiling, to hold out his hand to her in greeting.

‘How do you do, Miss Spencer? I trust you had a good flight? I’m James Marsden.’ The fingers which enclosed hers were firm and cool. ‘My chauffeur had a problem with one of his knees this morning. Arthritis. So I came to collect you myself. He’s waiting for us out in the car.’

Marina blinked her astonishment. This was James Marsden? This was Rebecca’s great-uncle? This was the Earl of Winterborne?