The Marriage Demand

‘Justice,’ Nash supplied with soft deadliness.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’VE instructed Mrs Jenson to put you in your old room.’

Her old room. Hugging her arms around herself for protection, Faith recalled the openly challenging way in which Nash had delivered that piece of information. It had been obvious to her that he was expecting some kind of hostile reaction, but she refused to allow him to manipulate either her actions or her emotions.

Her old room. Pensively she walked across to the small window and looked down at the elegant mini-patchwork of the gardens.

This room had once been part of the house’s original nursery, tucked away in the faux turret that formed such a distinctive part of the house’s architecture. It was an amusing piece of fantasy on the part of its designer, and at fifteen Faith had still been young enough to imagine herself as a fairy tale princess, enjoying the solitude of her private tower.

‘I expect you’re disappointed that the tower isn’t surrounded by a lake,’ Nash had teased her when she had tried to express her pleasure at being given such a special room, but to Faith the tower room Philip Hatton had chosen for her was perfect as it was, and she had struggled to find the words to tell him so.

That night, her first night in the room’s comfortable and generously proportioned bed, she had closed her eyes and thought about her mother, whispering to her in her thoughts, telling her how lucky she felt, describing the room to her and knowing how much pleasure her mother would have had in sharing with her the wonder of everything she was experiencing. She had wished passionately that her mother could be there with her.

But of course she couldn’t. And tears had filled her eyes, Faith remembered, and she had cried silently into her pillow, knowing with the maturity that the last painful and frightening six months had brought her that her mother would never see Hatton.

Restlessly Faith moved away from the window. The room had hardly changed; the bed in it looked exactly the same as the one she remembered, although the curtains at the window and the covers on the bed were different. Even the faded old-fashioned rose-coloured wallpaper was the same. Tenderly she reached out and touched one of the roses.

Her bedroom in the tiny Housing Association flat she and her mother had shared had had pretty wallpaper. They had papered it together just after they moved in. She had known how much her mother had hated leaving the small cottage they had lived in since Faith’s birth, but the garden had become too much for her and the flat had been closer to the hospital, and to Faith’s school, and much easier for her mother, being on the ground floor.

There was something almost frightening about the power one event could have to change a person’s whole life, Faith acknowledged now as her thoughts focused on the past. It had only been by the merest chance that she had ever come to Hatton at all.

Shortly after the move to their flat, her mother’s doctor had announced that she had to have a major operation and that after it she would be sent to recuperate at a special rest home, where she would have to stay for several months.

At first her mother had flatly refused to agree. Faith had only been just fifteen, and there had been no way she could be left to live on her own for the time the doctors had said her recuperation would take. The doctor’s response had been to suggest that the Social Services be approached to find a place for Faith temporarily at a local children’s home, where she could stay until her mother was well enough to look after her.

At first her mother had refused to even consider such an option, but Faith had seen for herself just how rapidly and painfully her mother’s health was deteriorating, and despite her own dread and fear she had set about convincing her mother that she was perfectly happy to do as the doctors were suggesting.

‘It will only be for a while,’ Faith had tried to reassure her mother. ‘And it will be mostly during the summer holidays. It will be fun having some other girls to talk to…’

And so it had been arranged. But right at the last minute, on the very day that Faith’s mother had been due to be admitted to hospital, it had been decided that instead of going to the local children’s home Faith would have to be sent to one almost fifty miles away.

Faith could still remember how apprehensive she had felt, but her fear for her mother had been greater. Even worse had been the discovery that she would not be allowed to visit her mother, either after her operation or whilst she was recuperating.

Although on her arrival at the home the staff there had been kind, Faith had felt overwhelmed by the anonymous busyness of the place, and the hostility of one particular group of girls who had already been living there.

She had been allowed to speak to her mother by telephone after her operation, but Faith had determinedly said nothing about the crude attempts of this group of girls to bully her and demand money from her. The last thing she’d wanted was for her mother to worry about her when Faith knew she needed all her strength to get better.

A week after she had first arrived at the home Faith had been thrilled to discover that they were being taken out for the day to visit a nearby Edwardian mansion and its gardens. Her father had been an architect, and it had been her secret dream to follow in his footsteps—although with her mother’s meagre income she had known it was unlikely that she would ever be able to go to university and get the necessary qualifications.

It had taken a little of her pleasure away to discover that the girls who had taken such an open dislike to her were also going on the trip—as well as surprising her, since they had all been extremely and crudely vocal about their favourite ways of spending their time.

Faith had known that her mother would be horrified if she knew about them. Faith had heard them boasting openly about their criminal activities. She had even heard whispers from some of the other girls about them going into the local town and stealing from the shops there.

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’ Faith had asked the girl who had told her. The other girl had shuddered.

‘They’d kill me if they found out, and anyway, like Charlene says, even if they do get caught they’ll only be sent to a juvenile court.’

‘Only!’ Faith hadn’t been able to conceal her own shock, but the other girl had shrugged dismissively.

‘Charlene’s brother’s already in a remand home. She says he says it’s great…they can do what they like. He got sent there for stealing a car. Charlene hates it here because she says there’s nothing worth thieving—only bits of stuff from shops.’

Faith had been appalled, and even more determined to give the girls in question a wide berth. They’d seemed to take a delight in taunting and tormenting her, but her mother’s illness had given her a maturity that had helped her to ignore them and to treat them with a dignified silence.

The theft from her room, though, of the delicate silver brooch her mother had given to her—a tiny little fairy—which had originally been given to her by Faith’s father—had been very hard to bear. Especially when Faith had been pretty sure of who was responsible for taking it. She had reported her loss to the home’s harassed staff, though she had sensed it was a waste of time.

Hatton was virtually within walking distance of the home, although they had been taken there by coach, and Faith could still remember the wave of delight that had swept her as she’d seen the house for the first time.

Designed by Lutyens, it had a magical, storybook air that had entranced Faith even whilst her quick intelligence had registered the architectural features favoured by the famous designer.

Whilst the other girls had hurried in bored impatience through the house Faith had lingered appreciatively over every room, and it had been when she had sneaked back for a second look at the study that Philip Hatton had found her.

He had been elderly then—in his mid-seventies—thin and ascetic-looking, with kind, wise eyes and a gentle smile, and Faith had been drawn to him immediately.

She had spent the rest of the afternoon with him, listening to him talk about the house and its history, drinking in every word and in return telling him about her own circumstances.

Much to the bemusement of the carer in charge of them, Philip had insisted that Faith was to remain after the others had left, to have tea with him.

‘But how will she get back to the home?’ the poor woman had protested.

‘I shall send her back in my car,’ Philip had responded.

Faith smiled now, remembering the lordly air which had been so much a part of him.

Faith could remember every tiny detail of that shared supper.

After sending her upstairs to ‘wash her hands’, in the kind care of his elderly housekeeper, Faith had returned to the study to find that Philip Hatton was no longer on his own.

‘Ah, Faith.’ Philip had beamed at her. ‘Come in and meet my godson, Nash. He’s spending the summer here with me. Nash, come and say hello to Faith. She’s a fellow Lutyens fan.’

And so it had begun. One look at Nash, tall, impossibly good-looking, with his muscular sexy body and his shock of thick dark hair, his amazing topaz eyes and his stunning aura of male sensuality, and Faith had fallen headfirst in love. How could she not have done so?

They had dined on fresh asparagus, poached salmon and strawberries and cream—Philip’s favourite summer supper, as she had later discovered—and even today the taste of salmon, the smell of strawberries always took her straight back to that meal.

It had seemed to her then that the very air in the room was drenched in some special magical light, some wonderful mystical golden glow, that suddenly she was grown-up, an adult, with both Philip and Nash listening attentively to her participation in their shared conversation.

The misery she had experienced at the home had been forgotten; she had felt somehow like a caterpillar, emerging from its constricting chrysalis to experience the exhilaration and freedom of flight.

It was Nash who had driven her back to the home. Faith could still remember the way her heart had started to race with frantic excitement when he had stopped the car just outside the entrance. It had been dark by then, and in the shadowy privacy of the quiet lane, seated next to Nash in the car, Faith had held her breath. Was he going to touch her…kiss her? Did he feel like she did?

A mirthless smile stretched the soft fullness of her mouth now as she relived her naïve emotions and the sharpness of her disappointment when Nash had simply thanked her for her kindness to his godfather.

‘But I enjoyed talking to him,’ she had insisted truthfully.

Less than a week after that she had been living full time at Hatton—an arrangement that had been made after Philip had written to her mother, inviting Faith to spend the rest of the school holidays at Hatton as his guest.

She had been speechless…ecstatic, unable to believe her good fortune when the news had been broken to her. If only she had known then what the outcome of her stay was to be…