Craving the Forbidden
India Grey
The wrong Fitzroy brother?Ticket-dodging in a First Class train carriage is not how bubbly Sophie Greenham envisaged meeting Kit Fitzroy, fearless army hero and brother of her friend Jasper. The smouldering heat between her and Kit is an unwelcome shock – especially as Sophie’s masquerading as Jasper’s girlfriend all holiday!Although Kit’s bravery is legendary, he’s dreading the return to his bleak ancestral home. But Sophie’s vibrancy dispels the shadows in his tortured soul, consuming Kit with a potent desire for the one woman he’s forbidden to touch… The FITZROY LEGACY Wedlocked to the aristocratic Fitzroy family – where shocking secrets lead to scandalous seduction An unforgettable two-part story from award-winning author India Grey
His shirt was open to the third button, his silk tie hanging loose around his neck in the classic, clichéd image from every red-blooded woman’s slickest fantasy. But that was where the dream ended, because Kit’s face was like chiselled marble and his hooded eyes were as cold as ice.
And in that second, in a rush of horror and pain, his expression—completely deadpan apart from the slight curl of his lip as he looked at her across the space that separated them—said it all.
‘You unutterable bastard,’ she breathed.
She didn’t wait for a response. Somehow she made her trembling legs carry her out of the wine cellar and along the corridor, while her horrified mind struggled to take in the enormity of what had just happened. She had proved Kit Fitzroy right. She had played straight into his hands and revealed herself as the faithless, worthless gold-digger he’d taken her for all along.
Award-winning author
India Grey
presents The Fitzroy Legacy
Wedlocked to the aristocratic Fitzroy family—where shocking secrets lead to scandalous seduction
The epic romance of Kit and Sophie begins with … CRAVING THE FORBIDDEN On sale October 2011
And concludes with IN BED WITH A STRANGER On sale December 2011
Can you wait to find out what happens …?
Craving the Forbidden
India Grey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my blog regulars
With thanks for listening, sharing and making me smile.
CHAPTER ONE
‘LADIES and gentlemen, welcome aboard the 16.22 East Coast Mainline service from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. This train will be calling at Peterborough, Stevenage …’
Heart hammering against her ribs from the mad, lastminute dash down the platform carrying a bag that was about to burst at the seams, Sophie Greenham leaned against the wall of the train and let out a long exhalation of relief.
She had made it.
Of course, the relief was maybe a little misplaced given that she’d come straight from the casting session for a vampire film and was still wearing a black satin corset dress that barely covered her bottom and high-heeled black boots that were rather more vamp than vampire. But the main thing was she had caught the train and wouldn’t let Jasper down. She’d just have to keep her coat on to avoid getting arrested for indecent exposure.
Not that she’d want to take it off anyway, she thought grimly, wrapping it more tightly around her as the train gave a little lurch and began to move. For weeks now the snow had kept falling from a pewter-grey sky and the news headlines had been dominated by The Big Freeze. Paris had been just as bad, although there the snow looked cleaner, but when Sophie had left her little rented apartment two days ago there had been a thick layer of ice on the inside of the windows.
She seemed to have been cold for an awfully long time.
It was getting dark already. The plate-glass windows of the office blocks backing onto the railway line spilled light out onto the grimy snow. The train swayed beneath her, changing tracks and catching her off guard so that she tottered on the stupid high-heeled boots and almost fell into an alarmed-looking student on his way back from the buffet car. She really should go and find a loo to change into something more respectable, but now she’d finally stopped rushing she was overwhelmed with tiredness. Picking up her bag, she hoisted it awkwardly into the nearest carriage.
Her heart sank. It was instantly obvious that every seat was taken, and the aisle was cluttered with shopping bags and briefcases and heavy winter coats stuffed under seats. Muttering apologies as she staggered along, trying not to knock cardboard cartons of coffee out of the hands of commuters with her bag, she made her way into the next carriage.
It was just as bad as the last one. The feeling of triumph she’d had when she’d made it onto the train in time ebbed slowly away as she moved from one carriage to the next, apologising as she went, until finally she came to one that was far less crowded.
Sophie’s aching shoulders dropped in relief. And tensed again as she took in the strip of plush carpet, the tiny lights on the tables, the superior upholstery with the little covers over the headrests saying ‘First Class’.
Pants.
It was occupied almost entirely by businessmen who didn’t bother to look up from their laptops and newspapers as she passed. Until her mobile rang. Her ringtone—’Je Ne Regrette Rien’—had seemed wittily ironic in Paris, but in the hushed carriage it lost some of its charm. Holding the handles of her bag together in one hand while she scrabbled in the pocket of her coat with the other and tried to stop it falling open to reveal the wardrobe horror beneath, she was aware of heads turning, eyes looking up at her over the tops of glasses and from behind broadsheets. In desperation she hitched her bag onto the nearest table and pulled the phone from her pocket just in time to see Jean-Claude’s name on the screen.
Pants again.
A couple of months ago she would have had a very different reaction, she thought, hastily pressing the button to reject the call. But then a couple of months ago her image of Jean-Claude as a free-spirited Parisian artist had been intact. He’d seemed so aloof when she’d first seen him, delivering paintings to the set of the film she was working on. Aloof and glamorous. Not someone you could ever imagine being suffocating or possessive or …
Nope. She wasn’t going to think about the disaster that had been her latest romantic adventure.
She sat down in the nearest seat, suddenly too tired to go any further. You couldn’t keep moving for ever, she told herself with a stab of bleak humour. In the seat opposite there was yet another businessman, hidden behind a large newspaper that he’d thoughtfully folded so that the horoscopes were facing her.
Actually, he wasn’t entirely hidden; she could see his hands, holding the newspaper—tanned, long-fingered, strong-looking. Not the hands of a businessman, she thought abstractly, tearing her gaze away and looking for Libra. ‘Be prepared to work hard to make a good impression,’ she read. ‘The full moon on the 20th is a perfect opportunity to let others see you for who you really are.’
Hell. It was the twentieth today. And while she was prepared to put on an Oscar-worthy performance to impress Jasper’s family, the last thing she wanted was for them to see her for who she really was.
At that moment Edith Piaf burst into song again. She groaned—why couldn’t Jean-Claude take a hint? Quickly she went to shut Edith up and turn her phone off but at that moment the train swayed again and her finger accidentally hit the ‘answer’ button instead. A second later Jean-Claude’s Merlot-marinated voice was clearly audible, to her and about fifteen businessmen.
‘Sophie? Sophie, where are you—?’
She thought quickly, cutting him off before he had a chance to get any further. ‘Hello, you haf reached the voicemail service for Madame Sofia, astrologist and reader of cards,’ she purred, shaking her hair back and narrowing her eyes at her own reflection in the darkening glass of the window. ‘Eef you leaf your name, number and zodiac sign, I get back to you with information on what the fates haf in store for you—’
She stopped abruptly, losing her thread, a kick of electricity jolting through her as she realised she was staring straight into the reflected eyes of the man sitting opposite.
Or rather that, from behind the newspaper, he was staring straight into her eyes. His head was lowered, his face ghostly in the glass, but his dark eyes seemed to look straight into her.
For a second she was helpless to do anything but look back. Against the stark white of his shirt his skin was tanned, which seemed somehow at odds with his stern, ascetic face. It was the face of a medieval knight in a Pre-Raphaelite painting—beautiful, bloodless, remote.
In other words, absolutely not her type.
‘Sophie—is zat you? I can ‘ardly ‘ear you. Are you on Eurostar? Tell me what time you get in and I meet you at Gare du Nord.’
Oops, she’d forgotten all about Jean-Claude. Gathering herself, she managed to drag her gaze away from the reflection in the window and her attention back to the problem quite literally in hand. She’d better just come clean, or he’d keep ringing for the whole weekend she was staying with Jasper’s family and rather ruin her portrayal of the sweet, starry-eyed girlfriend.
‘I’m not on the Eurostar, no,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m not coming back tonight.’
‘Alors, when?’ he demanded. ‘The painting—I need you here. I need to see your skin—to feel it, to capture contrast with lily petals.’
‘Nude with Lilies’ was the vision Jean-Claude claimed had come to him the moment he’d first noticed her in a bar in the Marais, near where they’d been filming. Jasper had been over that weekend and thought it was hilarious. Sophie, hugely flattered to be singled out and by Jean-Claude’s extravagant compliments about her ‘skin like lily petals’ and ‘hair like flames’, had thought being painted would be a highly erotic experience.
The reality had turned out to be both extremely cold and mind-numbingly boring. Although, if Jean-Claude’s gaze had aroused a similar reaction to that provoked by the eyes of the man in the glass, it would have been a very different story …
‘Oh, dear. Maybe you could just paint in a few more lilies to cover up the skin?’ She bit back a breathless giggle and went on kindly, ‘Look, I don’t know when I’ll be back, but what we had wasn’t meant to be for ever, was it? Really, it was just sex—’
Rather fittingly, at that point the train whooshed into a tunnel and the signal was lost. Against the blackness beyond the window the reflected interior of the carriage was bright, and for the briefest moment Sophie caught the eye of the man opposite and knew he’d been looking at her again. The grey remains of the daylight made the reflection fade before she had time to read the expression on his face, but she was left in no doubt that it had been disapproving.
And in that second she was eight years old again, holding her mother’s hand and aware that people were staring at them, judging them. The old humiliation flared inside her as she heard her mother’s voice inside her head, strident with indignation. Just ignore them, Summer. We have as much right to be here as anyone else …
‘Sophie?’
‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly subdued. ‘Sorry, Jean-Claude. I can’t talk about this now. I’m on the train and the signal isn’t very good.’
‘D’accord. I call you later.’
‘No! You can’t call me at all this weekend. I-I’m … working, and you know I can’t take my phone on set. Look, I’ll call you when I get back to London on Monday. We can talk properly then.’
That was a stupid thing to say, she thought wearily as she turned her phone off. There was nothing to talk about. What she and Jean-Claude had shared had been fun, that was all. Fun. A romantic adventure in wintry Paris. Now it had reached its natural conclusion and it was time to move on.
Again.
Shoving her phone back into her pocket, she turned towards the window. Outside it was snowing again and, passing through some anonymous town, Sophie could see the flakes swirling fatly in the streetlamps and obliterating the footprints on the pavements, and rows of neat houses, their curtains shut against the winter evening. She imagined the people behind them; families slumped together in front of the TV, arguing cosily over the remote control, couples cuddled up on the sofa sharing a Friday evening bottle of wine, united against the cold world outside.
A blanket of depression settled on her at these mental images of comfortable domesticity. It was a bit of a sore point at the moment. Returning from Paris she’d discovered that, in her absence, her flatmate’s boyfriend had moved in and the flat had been turned into the headquarters of the Blissful Couples Society. The atmosphere of companionable sluttish-ness in which she and Jess had existed, cluttering up the place with make-up and laundry and trashy magazines, had vanished. The flat was immaculate, and there were new cushions on the sofa and candles on the kitchen table.
Jasper’s SOS phone call, summoning her up to his family home in Northumberland to play the part of his girlfriend for the weekend, had come as a huge relief. But this was the way it was going to be, she thought sadly as the town was left behind and the train plunged onwards into darkness again. Everyone pairing up, until she was the only single person left, the only one who actively didn’t want a relationship or commitment. Even Jasper was showing worrying signs of swapping late nights and dancing for cosy evenings in as things got serious with Sergio.
But why have serious when you could have fun?
Getting abruptly to her feet, she picked up her bag and hoisted it onto the luggage rack above her head. It wasn’t easy, and she was aware as she pushed and shoved that not only was the hateful dress riding up, but her coat had also fallen open, no doubt giving the man in the seat opposite an eyeful of straining black corset and an indecent amount of thigh. Prickling all over with embarrassment, she glanced at his reflection in the window.
He wasn’t looking at her at all. His head was tipped back against the seat, his face completely blank and remote as he focused on the newspaper. Somehow his indifference felt even more hurtful than his disapproving scrutiny earlier. Pulling her coat closed, she sat down again, but as she did so her knee grazed his thigh beneath the table.
She froze, and a shower of glowing sparks shimmered through her.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, yanking her legs away from his and tucking them underneath her on the seat.
Slowly the newspaper was lowered, and she found herself looking at him directly for the first time. The impact of meeting his eyes in glassy reflection had been powerful enough, but looking directly into them was like touching a live wire. They weren’t brown, as she’d thought, but the grey of cold Northern seas, heavy-lidded, fringed with thick, dark lashes, compelling enough to distract her for a moment from the rest of his face.
Until he smiled.
A faint ghost of a smile that utterly failed to melt the ice in his eyes, but did draw her attention down to his mouth …
‘No problem. As this is First Class you’d think there’d be enough legroom, wouldn’t you?’
His voice was low and husky, and so sexy that her spirits should have leapt at the prospect of spending the next four hours in close confinement with him. However, the slightly scornful emphasis he placed on the words ‘first’ and ‘class’ and the way he was looking at her as if she were a caterpillar on the chef’s salad in some swanky restaurant cancelled out his physical attractiveness.
She had issues with people who looked at her like that.
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed, with that upper-class self-assurance that gave the people who genuinely possessed it automatic admittance to anywhere. ‘Shocking, really.’ And then with what she hoped was utter insouciance she turned up the big collar of her shabby military-style coat, settled herself more comfortably in her seat and closed her eyes.
Kit Fitzroy put down the newspaper.
Usually when he was on leave he avoided reading reports about the situation he’d left behind; somehow the heat and the sand and the desperation never quite came across in columns of sterile black and white. He’d bought the newspaper to catch up on normal things like rugby scores and racing news, but had ended up reading all of it in an attempt to obliterate the image of the girl sitting opposite him, which seemed to have branded itself onto his retinas.
It hadn’t worked. Even the laughably inaccurate report of counter-terrorist operations in the Middle East hadn’t stopped him being aware of her.
It was hardly surprising, he thought acidly. He’d spent the last four months marooned in the desert with a company made up entirely of men, and he was still human enough to respond to a girl wearing stiletto boots and the briefest bondage dress beneath a fake army coat. Especially one with a husky nightclub singer’s voice who actually seemed to be complaining to the lovesick fool on the other end of the phone that all she’d wanted was casual sex.
After the terrible sombreness of the ceremony he’d just attended her appearance was like a swift shot of something extremely potent.
He suppressed a rueful smile.
Potent, if not particularly sophisticated.
He let his gaze move back to her. She had fallen asleep as quickly and neatly as a cat, her legs tucked up beneath her, a slight smile on her raspberry-pink lips, as if she was dreaming of something amusing. She had a sweep of black eyeliner on her upper lids, flicking up at the outside edges, which must be what gave her eyes their catlike impression.
He frowned. No—it wasn’t just that. It was their striking green too. He could picture their exact shade—the clear, cool green of new leaves—even now, when she was fast asleep.
If she really was asleep. When it came to deception Kit Fitzroy’s radar was pretty accurate, and this girl had set it off from the moment she’d appeared. But there was something about her now that convinced him that she wasn’t faking this. It wasn’t just how still she was, but that the energy that had crackled around her before had vanished. It was like a light going out. Like the sun going in, leaving shadows and a sudden chill.
Sleep—the reward of the innocent. Given the shamelessness with which she’d just lied to her boyfriend it didn’t seem fair, especially when it eluded him so cruelly. But it had wrapped her in a cloak of complete serenity, so that just looking at her, just watching the lock of bright coppery hair that had fallen across her face stir with each soft, steady breath made him aware of the ache of exhaustion in his own shoulders.
‘Tickets, please.’
The torpor that lay over the warm carriage was disturbed by the arrival of the guard. There was a ripple of activity as people roused themselves to open briefcases and fumble in suit pockets. On the opposite side of the table the girl’s sooty lashes didn’t even flutter.
She was older than he’d first thought, Kit saw now, older than the ridiculous teenage get-up would suggest—in her mid-twenties perhaps? Even so, there was something curiously childlike about her. If you ignored the creamy swell of her cleavage against the laced bodice of her dress, anyway.
And he was doing his best to ignore it.
The guard reached them, his bland expression changing to one of deep discomfort when he looked down and saw her. His tongue flicked nervously across his lips and he raised his hand, shifting from foot to foot as he reached uneasily down to wake her.
‘Don’t.’
The guard looked round, surprised. He wasn’t the only one, Kit thought. Where had that come from? He smiled blandly.
‘It’s OK. She’s with me.’
‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t realise. Do you have your tickets?’
‘No.’ Kit flipped open his wallet. ‘I—we—had been planning to travel north by plane.’
‘Ah, I see, sir. The weather has caused quite a disruption to flights, I understand. That’s why the train is so busy this evening. Is it a single or a return you want?’
‘Return.’ Hopefully the airports would be open again by Sunday, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The thought of being stuck indefinitely at Alnburgh with his family in residence was unbearable.
‘Two returns—to Edinburgh?’
Kit nodded absently and as the guard busied himself with printing out the tickets he looked back at the sleeping girl again. He was damned certain she didn’t have a first-class ticket and that, in spite of the almost-convincing posh-girl accent, she wouldn’t be buying one if she was challenged. So why had he not just let the guard wake her up and move her on? It would have made the rest of the journey better for him. More legroom. More peace of mind.
Kit Fitzroy had an inherent belief in his duty to look out for people who didn’t have the same privileges that he had. It was what had got him through officer training and what kept him going when he was dropping with exhaustion on patrol, or when he was walking along a deserted road to an unexploded bomb. It didn’t usually compel him to buy first-class tickets for strangers on the train. And anyway, this girl looked as if she was more than capable of looking after herself.
But with her outrageous clothes and her fiery hair and her slight air of mischief she had brightened up his journey. She’d jolted him out of the pall of gloom that hung over him after the service he’d just attended, as well as providing a distraction from thinking about the grim weekend ahead.
That had to be worth the price of a first-class ticket from London to Edinburgh. Even without the glimpse of cleavage and the brush of her leg against his, which had reminded him that, while several of the men he’d served with weren’t so lucky, he at least was still alive … That was just a bonus.
CHAPTER TWO
SOPHIE came to with a start, and a horrible sense that something was wrong.
She sat up, blinking beneath the bright lights as she tried to get her bearings. The seat opposite was empty. The man with the silver eyes must have got off while she was sleeping, and she was just asking herself why on earth she should feel disappointed about that when she saw him.
He was standing up, his back towards her as he lifted an expensive-looking leather bag down from the luggage rack, giving her an excellent view of his extremely broad shoulders and narrow hips encased in beautifully tailored black trousers.
Mmm … That was why, she thought drowsily. Because physical perfection like that wasn’t something you came across every day. And although it might come in a package with industrial-strength arrogance, it certainly was nice to look at.
‘I’m sorry—could you tell me where we are, please?’
Damn—she’d forgotten about the posh accent, and after being asleep for so long she sounded more like a barmaid with a sixty-a-day habit than a wholesome society girl. Not that it really mattered now, since she’d never see him again.
He shrugged on the kind of expensive reefer jacket men wore in moody black and white adverts in glossy magazines. ‘Alnburgh.’
The word delivered a jolt of shock to Sophie’s sleepy brain. With an abrupt curse she leapt to her feet, groping frantically for her things, but at that moment the train juddered to an abrupt halt. She lost her balance, falling straight into his arms.
At least that was how it would have happened in any one of the romantic films she’d ever worked on. In reality she didn’t so much fall into his waiting, welcoming arms as against the unyielding, rock-hard wall of his chest. He caught hold of her in the second before she ricocheted off him, one arm circling her waist like a band of steel. Rushing to steady herself, Sophie automatically put the flat of her hand against his chest.
Sexual recognition leapt into life inside her, like an alarm going off in her pelvis. He might look lean, but there was no mistaking the hard, sculpted muscle beneath the Savile Row shirt.
Wide-eyed with shock, she looked up at him, opening her mouth in an attempt to form some sort of apology. But somehow there were blank spaces in her head where the words should be and the only coherent thought in her head was how astonishing his eyes were, close up; the silvery luminescence of the irises ringed with a darker grey …
‘I have to get off—now,’ she croaked.
It wasn’t exactly a line from the romantic epics. He let her go abruptly, turning his head away.
‘It’s OK. We’re not in the station yet.’
As he spoke the train began to move forwards with another jolt that threatened to unbalance her again. As if she weren’t unbalanced enough already, she thought shakily, trying to pull down her bulging bag from where it was wedged in the luggage rack. Glancing anxiously out of the window, she saw the lights of cars waiting at a level crossing slide past the window, a little square signal box, cosily lit inside, with a sign saying ‘Alnburgh’ half covered in snow. She gave another futile tug and heard an impatient sound from behind her.
‘Here, let me.’
In one lithe movement he leaned over her and grasped the handle of her bag.
‘No, wait—the zip—’ Sophie yelped, but it was too late. There was a ripping sound as the cheap zip, already under too much pressure from the sheer volume of stuff bundled up inside, gave way and Sophie watched in frozen horror as a tangle of dresses and tights and shoes tumbled out.
And underwear, of course.
It was terrible. Awful. Like the moment in a nightmare just before you wake up. But it was also pretty funny. Clamping a hand over her open mouth, Sophie couldn’t stop a bubble of hysterical laughter escaping her.
‘You might want to take that back to the shop,’ the man remarked sardonically, reaching up to unhook an emerald-green satin balcony bra that had got stuck on the edge of the luggage rack. ‘I believe Gucci luggage carries a lifetime guarantee?’
Sophie dropped to her knees to retrieve the rest of her things. Possibly it did, but cheap designer fakes certainly didn’t, as he no doubt knew very well. Getting up again, she couldn’t help but be aware of the length of his legs, and had to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing hold of them to steady herself as the train finally came to a shuddering halt in the station.
‘Thanks for your help,’ she said with as much haughtiness as she could muster when her arms were full of knickers and tights. ‘Please, don’t let me hold you up any more.’
‘I wouldn’t, except you’re blocking the way to the door.’
Sophie felt her face turn fiery. Pressing herself as hard as she could against the table, she tried to make enough space for him to pass. But he didn’t. Instead he took hold of the broken bag and lifted it easily, raising one sardonic eyebrow.
‘After you—if you’ve got everything?’
Alnburgh station consisted of a single Victorian building that had once been rather beautiful but which now had its boarded up windows covered with posters advertising family days out at the seaside. It was snowing again as she stepped off the train, and the air felt as if it had swept straight in from Siberia. Oh, dear, she really should have got changed. Not only was her current ensemble hideously unsuitable for meeting Jasper’s family, it was also likely to lead to hypothermia.
‘There.’
Sophie had no choice but to turn and face him. Pulling her collar up around her neck, she aimed for a sort of Julie-Christie-in-Doctor-Zhivago look—determination mixed with dignity.
‘You’ll be OK from here?’
‘Y-yes. Thank you.’ Standing there with the snow settling on his shoulders and in his dark hair he looked more brooding and sexy than Omar Shariff had ever done in the film. ‘And thank you for …’
Jeepers, what was the matter with her? Julie Christie would never have let her lines dry up like that.
‘For what?’
‘Oh, you know, carrying my bag, picking up my … things.’
‘My pleasure.’
His eyes met hers and for a second their gazes held. In spite of the cold stinging her cheeks, Sophie felt a tide of heat rise up inside her.
And then the moment was over and he was turning away, his feet crunching on the gritted paving stones, sliding his hands into the pockets of his coat just as the guard blew the whistle for the train to move out of the station again.
That was what reminded her, like a bolt of lightning in her brain. Clamping her hand to her mouth, she felt horror tingle down her spine at the realisation that she hadn’t bought a ticket. Letting out a yelp of horror, followed by the kind of word Julie Christie would never use, Sophie dashed forwards towards the guard, whose head was sticking out of the window of his van.
‘No—wait. Please! I didn’t—’
But it was too late. The train was gathering pace and her voice was lost beneath the rumble of the engine and the squealing of the metal wheels on the track. As she watched the lights of the train melt back into the winter darkness Sophie’s heart was beating hard, anguish knotting inside her at what she’d inadvertently done.
Stolen something. That was what it amounted to, didn’t it? Travelling on the train without buying a ticket was, in effect, committing a criminal act, as well as a dishonest one.
An act of theft.
And that was one thing she would never, ever do.
The clatter of the train died in the distance and Sophie was aware of the silence folding all around her. Slowly she turned to walk back to pick up her forlorn-looking bag.
‘Is there a problem?’
Her stomach flipped, and then sank like a stone. Great. Captain Disapproval must have heard her shout and come back, thinking she was talking to him. The station light cast dark shadows beneath his cheekbones and made him look more remote than ever. Which was quite something.
‘No, no, not at all,’ she said stiffly. ‘Although before you go perhaps you could tell me where I could find a taxi.’
Kit couldn’t quite stop himself from letting out a bark of laughter. It wasn’t kind, but the idea of a taxi waiting at Alnburgh station was amusingly preposterous.
‘You’re not in London now.’ He glanced down the platform to where the Bentley waited, Jensen sitting impassively behind the wheel. For some reason he felt responsible—touched almost—by this girl in her outrageous clothing with the snowflakes catching in her bright hair. ‘Look, you’d better come with me.’
Her chin shot up half an inch. Her eyes flashed in the station light—the dark green of the stained glass in the Fitzroy family chapel, with the light shining through it.
‘No, thanks,’ she said with brittle courtesy. ‘I think I’d rather walk.’
That really was funny. ‘In those boots?’
‘Yes,’ she said haughtily, setting off quickly, if a little unsteadily, along the icy platform. She looked around, pulling her long army overcoat more tightly across her body.
Catching up with her, Kit arched an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he drawled. ‘You’re going to join your regiment.’
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to stay with my boyfriend, who lives at Alnburgh Castle. So if you could just point me in the right direction …’
Kit stopped. The laughter of a moment ago evaporated in the arctic air, like the plumes of their breaths. In the distance a sheep bleated mournfully.
‘And what is the name of your … boyfriend?’
Something in the tone of his voice made her stop too, the metallic echo of her stiletto heels fading into silence. When she turned to face him her eyes were wide and black-centred.
‘Jasper.’ Her voice was shaky but defiant. ‘Jasper Fitzroy, although I don’t know what it has to do with you.’
Kit smiled again, but this time it had nothing to do with amusement.
‘Well, since Jasper Fitzroy is my brother, I’d say quite a lot,’ he said with sinister softness. ‘You’d better get in the car.’
CHAPTER THREE
INSIDE the chauffeur-driven Bentley Sophie blew her cheeks out in a long, silent whistle.
What was it that horoscope said?
The car was very warm and very comfortable, but no amount of climate control and expensive upholstery could quite thaw the glacial atmosphere. Apart from a respectfully murmured ‘Good evening, Miss,’ the chauffeur kept his attention very firmly focused on the road. Sophie didn’t blame him. You could cut the tension in the back of the car with a knife.
Sophie sat very upright, leaving as much seat as possible between her fishnetted thigh and his long, hard flannel-covered one. She didn’t dare look at Jasper’s brother, but was aware of him staring, tense-jawed, out of the window. The village of Alnburgh looked like a scene from a Christmas card as they drove up the main street, past a row of stone houses with low, gabled roofs covered in a crisp meringue-topping of snow, but he didn’t look very pleased to be home.
Her mind raced as crazily as the white flakes swirling past the car window, the snatches of information Jasper had imparted about his brother over the years whirling through it. Kit Fitzroy was in the army, she knew that much, and he served abroad a lot, which would account for the unseasonal tan. Oh, and Jasper had once described him as having a ‘complete emotion-bypass’. She recalled the closed expression Jasper’s face wore on the rare occasions he mentioned him, the bitter edge his habitual mocking sarcasm took on when he said the words ‘my brother’.
She was beginning to understand why. She had only known him for a little over three hours—and most of that time she’d been asleep—but it was enough to find it impossible to believe that this man could be related to Jasper. Sweet, warm, funny Jasper, who was her best friend in the world and the closest thing she had to family.
But the man beside her was his real flesh and blood, so surely that meant he couldn’t be all bad? It also meant that she should make some kind of effort to get on with him, for Jasper’s sake. And her own, since she had to get through an entire weekend in his company.
‘So, you must be Kit, then?’ she offered. ‘I’m Sophie. Sophie Greenham.’ She laughed—a habit she had when she was nervous. ‘Bizarre, isn’t it? Whoever would have guessed we were going to the same place?’
Kit Fitzroy didn’t bother to look at her. ‘Not you, obviously. Have you known my brother long?’
OK. So she was wrong. He was every bit as bad as she’d first thought. Thinking of the horoscope, she bit back the urge to snap, Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve known your brother for the last seven years, as you would have been very well aware if you took the slightest interest in him, and kept her voice saccharine sweet as she recited the story she and Jasper had hastily come up with last night on the phone when he’d asked her to do this.
‘Just since last summer. We met on a film.’
The last bit at least was true. Jasper was an assistant director and they had met on a dismal film about the Black Death that mercifully had never seen the light of day. Sophie had spent hours in make-up having sores applied to her face and had had one line to say, but had caught Jasper’s eye just as she’d been about to deliver it and noticed that he was shaking with laughter. It had set her off too, and made the next four hours and twenty-two takes extremely challenging, but it had also sealed their friendship, and set its tone. It had been the two of them, united and giggling against the world, ever since.
He turned his head slightly. ‘You’re an actress?’
‘Yes.’
Damn, why did that come out sounding so defensive? Possibly because he said the word ‘actress’ in the same faintly disdainful tone as other people might say ‘lap dancer’ or ‘shoplifter’. What would he make of the fact that even ‘actress’ was stretching it for the bit parts she did in films and TV series? Clamping her teeth together, she looked away—and gasped.
Up ahead, lit up in the darkness, cloaked in swirling white like a fairy castle in a child’s snow globe, was Alnburgh Castle.
She’d seen pictures, obviously. But nothing had prepared her for the scale of the place, or the impact it made on the surrounding landscape. It stood on top of the cliffs, its grey stone walls seeming to rise directly out of them. This was a side of Jasper’s life she knew next to nothing about, and Sophie felt her mouth fall open as she stared in amazement.
‘Bloody hell,’ she breathed.
It was the first genuine reaction he’d seen her display, Kit thought sardonically, watching her. And it spoke volumes.
Sympathy wasn’t an emotion he was used to experiencing in relation to Jasper, but at that moment he certainly felt something like it now. His brother must be pretty keen on this girl to invite her up here for Ralph Fitzroy’s seventieth birthday party, but from what Kit had seen on the train it was obvious the feeling wasn’t remotely mutual.
No prizes for guessing what the attraction was for Sophie Greenham.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he remarked acidly.
In the dimly lit interior of the car her eyes gleamed darkly like moonlit pools as she turned to face him. Her voice was breathless, so that she sounded almost intimidated.
‘It’s incredible. I had no idea …’
‘What, that your boyfriend just happened to be the son of the Earl of Hawksworth?’ Kit murmured sardonically. ‘Of course. You were probably too busy discussing your mutual love of art-house cinema to get round to such mundane subjects as family background.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘Of course I knew about Jasper’s background—and his family.’
She said that last bit with a kind of defiant venom that was clearly meant to let him know that Jasper hadn’t given him a good press. He wondered if she thought for a moment that he’d care. It was hardly a well-kept secret that there was no love lost between him and his brother—the spoiled, pampered golden boy. Ralph’s second and favourite son.
The noise of the Bentley’s engine echoed off the walls of the clock tower as they passed through the arch beneath it. The headlights illuminated the stone walls, dripping with damp, the iron-studded door that led down to the former dungeon that now housed Ralph’s wine cellar. Kit felt the invisible iron-hard bands of tension around his chest and his forehead tighten a couple of notches.
It was funny, he spent much of his time in the most dangerous conflict zones on the globe, but in none of them did he ever feel a fraction as isolated or exposed as he did here. When he was working he had his team behind him. Men he could trust.
Trust wasn’t something he’d ever associated with home life at Alnburgh, where people told lies and kept secrets and made promises they didn’t keep.
He glanced across at the woman sitting beside him, and felt his lip curl. Jasper’s new girlfriend was going to fit in very well.
Sophie didn’t wait until the chauffeur came round to open the door for her. The moment the car came to a standstill she reached for the handle and threw the door open, desperate to be out of the confined space with Kit Fitzroy.
A gust of salt-scented, ice-edged wind cleared her head but nearly knocked her sideways, whipping her hair across her face. Impatiently she brushed it away again. Alnburgh Castle loomed ahead of her. And above her and around her too, she thought weakly, turning to look at the fortress-thick walls that stretched into the darkness all around her, rising into huge, imposing buildings and jagged towers.
There was nothing remotely welcoming or inviting about it. Everything about the place was designed to scare people off and keep them out.
Sophie could see that Jasper’s brother would be right at home here.
‘Thanks, Jensen. I can manage the bags from here.’
‘If you’re sure, sir …’
Sophie turned in time to see Kit take her bag from the open boot of the Bentley and turn to walk in the direction of the castle’s vast, imposing doorway. One strap of the green satin bra he had picked up on the train was hanging out of the top of it.
Hastily she hurried after him, her high heels ringing off the frozen flagstones and echoing around the walls of the castle courtyard.
‘Please,’ Sophie persisted, not wanting him to put himself out on her account any more than he had—so unwillingly—done already. ‘I’d rather take it myself.’
He stopped halfway up the steps. For a split second he paused, as if he was gathering his patience, then turned back to her. His jaw was set but his face was carefully blank.
‘If you insist.’
He held it out to her. He was standing two steps higher than she was, and Sophie had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Thrown for a second by the expression in his hooded eyes, she reached out to take the bag from him but, instead of the strap, found herself grasping his hand. She snatched hers away quickly, at exactly the same time he did, and the bag fell, tumbling down the steps, scattering all her clothes into the snow.
‘Oh, knickers,’ she muttered, dropping to her knees as yet another giggle of horrified, slightly hysterical amusement rose up inside her. Her heart was thumping madly from the accidental contact with him. His hand had felt warm, she thought irrationally. She’d expected it to be as cold as his personality.
‘Hardly,’ he remarked acidly, stooping to pick up a pink thong and tossing it back into the bag. ‘But clearly what passes for them in your wardrobe. You seem to have a lot of underwear and not many clothes.’
The way he said it suggested he didn’t think this was a good thing.
‘Yes, well,’ she said loftily, ‘what’s the point of spending money on clothes that I’m going to get bored of after I’ve worn them once? Underwear is a good investment. Because it’s practical,’ she added defensively, seeing the faint look of scorn on his face. ‘God,’ she muttered crossly, grabbing a handful of clothes back from him. ‘This journey’s turning into one of those awful drawing-room farces.’
Straightening up, he raised an eyebrow. ‘The entire weekend is a bit of a farce, wouldn’t you say?’
He went up the remainder of the steps to the door. Shoving the escaped clothes back into her bag with unnecessary force, Sophie followed him and was about to apologise for having the wrong underwear and the wrong clothes and the wrong accent and occupation and attitude when she found herself inside the castle and her defiance crumbled into dust.
The stone walls rose to a vaulted ceiling what seemed like miles above her head, and every inch was covered with muskets, swords, pikes and other items of barbaric medieval weaponry that Sophie recognised from men-in-tights-with-swords films she’d worked on, but couldn’t begin to name. They were arranged into intricate patterns around helmets and pieces of armour, and the light from a huge wrought-iron lantern that hung on a chain in the centre of the room glinted dully on their silvery surfaces.
‘What a cosy and welcoming entrance,’ she said faintly, walking over to a silver breastplate hanging in front of a pair of crossed swords. ‘I bet you’re not troubled by persistent double-glazing salesmen.’
He didn’t smile. His eyes, she noticed, held the same dull metallic gleam as the armour. ‘They’re seventeenth century. Intended for invading enemies rather than double-glazing salesmen.’
‘Gosh.’ Sophie looked away, trailing a finger down the hammered silver of the breastplate, noticing the shining path it left through the dust. ‘You Fitzroys must have a lot of enemies.’
She was aware of his eyes upon her. Who would have thought that such a cool stare could make her skin feel as if it were burning? Somewhere a clock was ticking loudly, marking out the seconds before he replied, ‘Let’s just say we protect our interests.’
His voice was dangerously soft. Sophie’s heart gave a kick, as if the armour had given her an electric shock. Withdrawing her hand sharply, she jerked her head up to look at him. A faint, sardonic smile touched the corner of his mouth. ‘And it’s not just invading armies that threaten those.’
His meaning was clear, and so was the thinly veiled warning behind the words. Sophie opened her mouth to protest, but no words came—none that would be any use in defending herself against the accusation he was making anyway, and certainly none that would be acceptable to use to a man with whose family she was going to be a guest for the weekend.
‘I-I’d better find Jasper,’ she stammered. ‘He’ll be wondering where I am.’
He turned on his heel and she followed him through another huge hallway panelled in oak, her footsteps making a deafening racket on the stone-flagged floor. There were vast fireplaces at each end of the room, but both were empty, and Sophie noticed her breath made faint plumes in the icy air. This time, instead of weapons, the walls were hung with the glassy-eyed heads of various large and hapless animals. They seemed to stare balefully at Sophie as she passed, as if in warning.
This is what happens if you cross the Fitzroys.
Sophie straightened her shoulders and quickened her pace. She mustn’t let Kit Fitzroy get to her. He had got entirely the wrong end of the stick. She was Jasper’s friend and she’d come as a favour to him precisely because his family were too bigoted to accept him as he really was.
She would have loved to confront Kit Superior Fitzroy with that, but of course it was impossible. For Jasper’s sake, and also because there was something about Kit that made her lose the ability to think logically and speak articulately, damn him.
A set of double doors opened at the far end of the hallway and Jasper appeared.
‘Soph! You’re here!’
At least she thought it was Jasper. Gone were the layers of eccentric vintage clothing, the tattered silk-faced dinner jackets he habitually wore over T-shirts and torn drainpipe jeans. The man who came towards her, his arms outstretched, was wearing well-ironed chinos and a V-necked jumper over a button-down shirt and—Sophie’s incredulous gaze moved downwards—what looked suspiciously like brogues.
Reaching her, this new Jasper took her face between his hands and kissed her far more tenderly than normal. Caught off guard by the bewildering change in him, Sophie was just about to push him away and ask what he was playing at when she remembered what she was there for. Dropping her poor, battered bag again, she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Over Jasper’s shoulder, through the curtain of her hair, she was aware of Kit Fitzroy standing like some dark sentinel, watching her. The knowledge stole down inside her, making her feel hot, tingling, restless, and before she knew it she was arching her body into Jasper’s, sliding her fingers into his hair.
Sophie had done enough screen and stage kisses to have mastered the art of making something completely chaste look a whole lot more X-rated than it really was. When Jasper pulled back a little a few seconds later she caught the gleam of laughter in his eyes as he leaned his forehead briefly against hers, then, stepping away, he spoke in a tone of rather forced warmth.
‘You’ve met my big brother, Kit. I hope he’s been looking after you.’
That was rather an unfortunate way of putting it, Sophie thought, an image of Kit Fitzroy, his strong hands full of her silliest knickers and bras flashing up inside her head. Oh, hell, why did she always smirk when she was embarrassed? Biting her lip, she stared down at the stone floor.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ she said, nodding furiously. ‘And I’m afraid I needed quite a lot of looking after. If it wasn’t for Kit I’d be halfway to Edinburgh now. Or at least, my underwear would.’
It might be only a few degrees warmer than the arctic, but beneath her coat Sophie could feel the heat creeping up her cleavage and into her cheeks. The nervous smile she’d been struggling to suppress broke through as she said the word ‘underwear’, but one glance at Kit’s glacial expression killed it instantly.
‘It was a lucky coincidence that we were sitting in the same carriage. It gave us a chance to … get to know each other a little before we got here.’
Ouch.
Only Sophie could have understood the meaning behind the polite words or picked up the faint note of menace beneath the blandness of his tone.
He’s really got it in for me, she realised with a shiver. Suddenly she felt very tired, very alone, and even Jasper’s hand around hers couldn’t dispel the chilly unease that had settled in the pit of her stomach.
‘Great.’ Oblivious to the tension that crackled like static in the air, Jasper pulled her impatiently forwards. ‘Come and meet Ma and Pa. I haven’t stopped talking about you since I got here yesterday, so they’re dying to see what all the fuss is about.’
And suddenly panic swelled inside her—churning, black and horribly familiar. The fear of being looked at. Scrutinised. Judged. That people would see through the layers of her disguise, the veils of evasion, to the real girl beneath. As Jasper led her towards the doors at the far end of the hall she was shaking, assailed by the same doubts and insecurities that had paralysed her the only time she’d done live theatre, in the seconds before she went onstage. What if she couldn’t do it? What if the lines wouldn’t come and she was left just being herself? Acting had been a way of life long before it became a way of making a living, and playing a part was second nature to her. But now … here …
‘Jasper,’ she croaked, pulling back. ‘Please—wait.’
‘Sophie? What’s the matter?’
His kind face was a picture of concern. The animal heads glared down at her, as well as a puffy-eyed Fitzroy ancestor with a froth of white lace around his neck.
And that was the problem. Jasper was her closest friend and she would do anything for him, but when she’d offered to help him out she hadn’t reckoned on all this. Alnburgh Castle, with its history and its million symbols of wealth and status and belonging, was exactly the kind of place that unnerved her most.
‘I can’t go in there. Not dressed like this, I mean. I—I came straight from the casting for the vampire thing and I meant to get changed on the train, but I …’
She opened her coat and Jasper gave a low whistle.
‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed. ‘Here, let me take your coat and you can put this on, otherwise you’ll freeze.’ Quickly he peeled off the black cashmere jumper and handed it to her, then tossed her coat over the horns of a nearby stuffed stag. ‘They’re going to love you whatever you’re wearing. Particularly Pa—you’re the perfect birthday present. Come on, they’re waiting in the drawing room. At least it’s warm in there.’
With Kit’s eyes boring into her back Sophie had no choice but to let Jasper lead her towards the huge double doors at the far end of the hall.
Vampire thing, Kit thought scornfully. Since when had the legend of the undead mentioned dressing like an escort in some private men’s club? He wondered if it was going to be the kind of film the boys in his unit sometimes brought back from leave to enjoy with a lot of beer in rest periods in camp.
The thought was oddly unsettling.
Tiredness pulled at him like lead weights. He couldn’t face seeing his father and stepmother just yet. Going through the hallway in the direction of the stairs, he passed the place where the portrait of his mother used to hang, before Ralph had replaced it, appropriately, with a seven-foot-high oil of Tatiana in plunging blue satin and the Cartier diamonds he had given her on their wedding day.
Jasper was right, Kit mused. If there was anyone who would appreciate Sophie Greenham’s get-up it was Ralph Fitzroy. Like vampires, his father’s enthusiasm for obvious women was legendary.
Jasper’s, however, was not. And that was what worried him. Even if he hadn’t overheard her conversation on the phone, even if he hadn’t felt himself the white-hot sexuality she exuded, you only had to look at the two of them together to know that, vampire or not, the girl was going to break the poor bastard’s heart and eat it for breakfast.
The room Jasper led her into was as big as the last, but stuffed with furniture and blazing with light from silk-shaded lamps on every table, a chandelier the size of a spaceship hovering above a pair of gargantuan sofas and a fire roaring in the fireplace.
It was Ralph Fitzroy who stepped forwards first. Sophie was surprised by how old he was, which she realised was ridiculous considering the reason she had come up this weekend was to attend his seventieth birthday party. His grey hair was brushed back from a florid, fleshy face and as he took Sophie’s hand his eyes almost disappeared in a fan of laughter lines as they travelled down her body. And up again, but only as far as her chest.
‘Sophie. Marvellous to meet you,’ he said, in the kind of upper-class accent that Sophie had thought had become extinct after the war.
‘And you, sir.’
Oh, for God’s sake—sir? Where had that come from? She’d be bobbing curtsies next. She was supposed to be playing the part of Jasper’s girlfriend, not the parlourmaid in some nineteen-thirties below-stairs drama. Not that Ralph seemed to mind. He was still clasping her hand, looking at her with a kind of speculative interest, as if she were a piece of art he was thinking of buying.
Suddenly she remembered Jean-Claude’s ‘Nude with Lilies’ and felt pins and needles of embarrassment prickle her whole body. Luckily distraction came in the form of a woman unfolding herself from one of the overstuffed sofas and coming forwards. She was dressed immaculately in a clinging off-white angora dress that was cleverly designed to showcase her blonde hair and peachy skin, as well as her enviable figure and the triple string of pearls around her neck. Taking hold of Sophie’s shoulders, she leaned forwards in a waft of expensive perfume and, in a silent and elaborate pantomime, kissed the air beside first one cheek and then the other.
‘Sophie, how good of you to come all this way to join us. Did you have a dreadful journey?’
Her voice still bore the unmistakable traces of a Russian accent, but her English was so precise that Sophie felt more than ever that they were onstage and reciting lines from a script. Tatiana Fitzroy was playing the part of the gracious hostess, thrilled to be meeting her adored son’s girlfriend for the first time. The problem was she wasn’t that great at acting.
‘No, not at all.’
‘But you came by train?’ Tatiana shuddered slightly. ‘Trains are always so overcrowded these days. They make one feel slightly grubby, don’t you think?’
No, Sophie wanted to say. Trains didn’t make her feel remotely grubby. However, the blatant disapproval in Kit Fitzroy’s cool glare—now that had definitely left her feeling in need of a scrub down in a hot shower.
‘Come on, darling,’ Ralph joked. ‘When was the last time you went on a train?’
‘First Class isn’t too bad,’ Sophie said, attempting to sound as if she would never consider venturing into standard.
‘Not really enough legroom,’ said a grave voice behind her. Sophie whipped her head round. Kit was standing in the doorway, holding a bundle of envelopes, which he was scanning through as he spoke.
The fire crackled merrily away, but Sophie was aware that the temperature seemed to have fallen a couple of degrees. For a split second no one moved, but then Tatiana was moving forwards, as if the offstage prompt had just reminded her of her cue.
‘Kit. Welcome back to Alnburgh.’
So, she wasn’t the only one who found him impossible, Sophie thought, noticing the distinct coolness in Tatiana’s tone. As she reached up to kiss his cheek Kit didn’t incline his head even a fraction to make it easier for her to reach, and his inscrutable expression didn’t alter at all.
‘Tatiana. You’re looking well,’ Kit drawled, barely glancing at her as he continued to look through the sheaf of letters in his hand. He seemed to have been built on a different scale from Jasper and Ralph, Sophie thought, taking in his height and the breadth of his chest. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled back to reveal tanned forearms, corded with muscle.
She looked resolutely away.
Ralph went over to a tray crowded with cut-glass decanters on a nearby table and sloshed some more whisky into a glass that wasn’t quite empty. Sophie heard the rattle of glass against glass, but when he turned round to face his eldest son his bland smile was perfectly in place.
‘Kit.’
‘Father.’
Kit’s voice was perfectly neutral, but Ralph seemed to flinch slightly. He covered it by taking a large slug of whisky. ‘Good of you to come, what with flights being cancelled and so on. The invitation was …’ he hesitated ‘… a courtesy. I know how busy you are. Hope you didn’t feel obliged to accept.’
‘Not at all.’ Kit’s eyes glittered, as cold as moonlight on frost. ‘I’ve been away too long. And there are things we need to discuss.’
Ralph laughed, but Sophie could see the colour rising in his florid cheeks. It was fascinating—like being at a particularly tense tennis match.
‘For God’s sake, Kit, you’re not still persisting with that—’
As he spoke the double doors opened and a thin, elderly man appeared between them and nodded, almost imperceptibly, at Tatiana. Swiftly she crossed the Turkish silk rug in a waft of Chanel No 5 and slipped a hand through her husband’s arm, cutting him off mid-sentence.
‘Thank you, Thomas. Dinner is ready. Now that everyone’s here, shall we go through?’
CHAPTER FOUR
DINNER was about as enjoyable and relaxing as being stripped naked and whipped with birch twigs.
When she was little, Sophie had dreamed wistfully about being part of the kind of family who gathered around a big table to eat together every evening. If she’d known this was what it was like she would have stuck to the fantasies about having a pony or being picked to star in a new film version of The Little House on the Prairie.
The dining room was huge and gloomy, its high, green damask-covered walls hung with yet more Fitzroy ancestors. They were an unattractive bunch, Sophie thought with a shiver. The handsomeness so generously bestowed on Jasper and Kit must be a relatively recent addition to the gene pool. Only one—a woman in blush-pink silk with roses woven into her extravagantly piled up hair and a secretive smile on her lips—held any indication of the good looks that were the Fitzroy hallmark now.
Thomas, the butler who had announced dinner, dished up watery consommé, followed by tiny rectangles of grey fish on something that looked like spinach and smelled like boiled socks. No wonder Tatiana was so thin.
‘This looks delicious,’ Sophie lied brightly.
‘Thank you,’ Tatiana cooed, in a way that suggested she’d cooked it herself. ‘It has taken years to get Mrs Daniels to cook things other than steak and kidney pudding and roast beef, but finally she seems to understand the meaning of low-fat.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Kit murmured.
Ignoring him, Ralph reached for the dusty bottle of Chateau Marbuzet and splashed a liberal amount into his glass before turning to fill up Sophie’s.
‘So, Jasper said you’ve been in Paris? Acting in some film or other?’
Sophie, who had just taken a mouthful of fish, could only nod.
‘Fascinating,’ said Tatiana doubtfully. ‘What was it about?’
Sophie covered her mouth with her hand to hide the grimace as she swallowed the fish. ‘It’s about British Special Agents and the French Resistance in the Second World War,’ she said, wondering if she could hide the rest of the fish under the spinach as she used to do at boarding school. ‘It’s set in Montmartre, against a community of painters and poets.’
‘And what part did you play?’
Sophie groaned inwardly. It would have to be Kit who asked that. Ever since she sat down she’d been aware of his eyes on her. More than aware of it—it felt as if there were a laser trained on her skin.
She cleared her throat. ‘Just a tiny role, really,’ she said with an air of finality.
‘As?’
He didn’t give up, did he? Why didn’t he just go the whole hog and whip out a megawatt torch to shine in her face while he interrogated her? Not that those silvery eyes weren’t hard enough to look into already.
‘A prostitute called Claudine who inadvertently betrays her Resistance lover to the SS.’
Kit’s smile was as faint as it was fleeting. He had a way of making her feel like a third year who’d been caught showing her knickers behind the bike sheds and hauled into the headmaster’s office. She took a swig of wine.
‘You must meet such fascinating people,’ Tatiana said.
‘Oh, yes. Well, I mean, sometimes. Actors can be a pretty self-obsessed bunch. They’re not always a laugh a minute to be around.’
‘Not as bad as artists,’ Jasper chipped in absently as he concentrated on extracting a bone from his fish. ‘They hired a few painters to produce the pictures that featured in the film, and they turned out to be such prima donnas they made the actors look very down-to-earth, didn’t they, Soph?’
Somewhere in the back of Sophie’s mind an alarm bell had started drilling. She looked up, desperately trying to telegraph warning signals across the table to Jasper, but he was still absorbed in exhuming the skeleton of the poor fish. Sophie’s lips parted in wordless panic as she desperately tried to think of something to say to steer the subject onto safer ground …
Too late.
‘One of them became completely obsessed with painting Sophie,’ Jasper continued. ‘He came over to her in the bar one evening when I was there and spent about two hours gazing at her with his eyes narrowed as he muttered about lilies.’
Sophie felt as if she’d been struck by lightning, a terrible rictus smile still fixed to her face. She didn’t dare look at Kit. She didn’t need to—she could feel the disapproval and hostility radiating from him like a force field. Through her despair she was aware of the woman with the roses in her hair staring down at her from the portrait. Now the smile didn’t look secretive so much as if she was trying not to laugh.
‘If I thought the result would have been as lovely as that I would have accepted like a shot,’ she said in a strangled voice, gesturing up at the portrait. ‘Who is she?’
Ralph followed her gaze. ‘Ah—that’s Lady Caroline, wife of the fourth Earl and one of the more flamboyant Fitzroys. She was a girl of somewhat uncertain provenance who had been a music hall singer—definitely not countess material. Christopher Fitzroy was twenty years younger than her, but from the moment he met her he was quite besotted and, much to the horror of polite society, married her.’
‘That was pretty brave of him,’ Sophie said, relief at having successfully moved the conversation on clearly audible in her voice.
The sound Kit made was unmistakably derisive. ‘Brave, or stupid?’
Their eyes met. Suddenly the room seemed very quiet. The arctic air was charged with electricity, so that the candle flames flickered for a second.
‘Brave,’ she retorted, raising her chin a little. ‘It can’t have been easy, going against his family and society, but if he loved her it would have been worth the sacrifice.’
‘Not if she wasn’t worth the sacrifice.’
The candle flames danced in a halo of red mist before Sophie’s eyes, and before she could stop herself she heard herself give a taut, brittle laugh and say, ‘Why? Because she was too common?’
‘Not at all.’ Kit looked at her steadily, his haughty face impassive. ‘She wasn’t worth it because she didn’t love him back.’
‘How do you know she didn’t?’
Oh, jeez, what was she doing? She was supposed to be here to impress Jasper’s family, not pick fights with them. No matter how insufferable they were.
‘Well …’ Kit said thoughtfully. ‘The fact that she slept with countless other men during their marriage is a bit of a clue, wouldn’t you say? Her lovers included several footmen and stable lads and even the French artist who painted that portrait.’
He was still looking at her. His voice held that now-familiar note of scorn, but was so soft that for a moment Sophie was hypnotised. The candlelight cast shadows under his angular cheekbones and brought warmth to his skin, but nothing could melt the ice chips in his eyes.
Sophie jumped slightly as Ralph cut in.
‘French? Thought the chap was Italian?’
Kit looked away. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said blandly. ‘I must be getting my facts mixed up.’
Bastard, thought Sophie. He knew that all along, and he was just trying to wind her up. Raising her chin and summoning a smile to show she wouldn’t be wound, she said, ‘So—what happened to her?’
‘She came to a sticky end, I’m afraid. Not nice,’ Ralph answered, topping up his glass again and emptying the remains of the bottle into Sophie’s. Despite the cold his cheeks were flushed a deep, mottled purple.
‘How?’ Her mind flashed back to the swords and muskets in the entrance hall, the animal heads on the wall. You messed with a Fitzroy—or his brother—and a sticky end was pretty inevitable.
‘She got pregnant,’ Kit said matter-of-factly, picking up the knife on his side-plate and examining the tarnished silver blade for a second before polishing it with his damask napkin. ‘The Earl, poor bastard, was delighted. At last, a long-awaited heir for Alnburgh.’
Sophie took another mouthful of velvety wine, watching his mouth as he spoke. And then found that she couldn’t stop watching it. And wondering what it would look like if he smiled—really smiled. Or laughed. What it would feel like if he kissed her—
No. Stop. She shouldn’t have let Ralph give her the rest of that wine. Hastily she put her glass down and tucked her hands under her thighs.
‘But of course, she knew that it was extremely unlikely the kid was his,’ Kit was saying in his low, slightly scornful voice. ‘And though he was too besotted to see what was going on, the rest of his family certainly weren’t. She must have realised that she’d reached a dead end, and also that the child was likely to be born with the rampant syphilis that was already devouring her.’
Sophie swallowed. ‘What did she do?’
Kit laid the knife down and looked straight at her. ‘In the last few weeks of her pregnancy, she threw herself off the battlements in the East Tower.’
She wouldn’t let him see that he’d shocked her. Wouldn’t let the sickening feeling she had in the pit of her stomach show on her face. Luckily at that moment Jasper spoke, his cheerful voice breaking the tension that seemed to shiver in the icy air.
‘Poor old Caroline, eh? What a price to pay for all that fun.’ He leaned forwards, dropping his voice theatrically. ‘It’s said that on cold winter nights her ghost walks the walls, half mad with guilt. Or maybe it’s the syphilis—that’s supposed to make you go mad, isn’t it?’
‘Really, Jasper. I think we’ve heard enough about Fitzroys.’ Tatiana laid down her napkin with a little pout as Thomas reappeared to collect up the plates. ‘So, Sophie—tell us about your family. Where do your people come from?’
People? Her people? She made it sound as if everyone had estates and villages and hordes of peasants at their command. From behind Tatiana’s head Caroline the feckless countess looked at Sophie with amused pity. Get yourself out of this one, she seemed to say.
‘Oh. Um, down in the south of England,’ Sophie muttered vaguely, glancing at Jasper for help. ‘We travelled around a lot, actually.’
‘And your parents—what do they do?’
‘My mother is an astronomer.’
It was hardly a lie, more a slip of the tongue. Astronomy/astrology … people got them mixed up all the time anyway.
‘And your—’
Jasper came swiftly to the rescue.
‘Talking of stars, how did your big charity auction go last week, Ma? I keep meaning to ask you who won the premiere tickets I donated.’
It wasn’t the most subtle of conversational diversions, but it did the trick so Sophie was too relieved to care. As the discussion moved on and Thomas reappeared to clear the table she slumped back in her chair and breathed out slowly, waiting for her heartbeat to steady and her fight-or-flight response to subside. With any luck that was the subject of her family dealt with and now she could relax for the rest of the weekend.
If it were possible to relax with Kit Fitzroy around.
Before she was aware it was happening or could stop it her gaze had slid back to where he sat, leaning back in his chair, his broad shoulders and long body making the antique rosewood look as fussy and flimsy as doll’s-house furniture. His face was shuttered, his hooded eyes downcast, so that for the first time since the train she was able to look at him properly.
A shiver of sexual awareness shimmered down her spine and spread heat into her pelvis.
Sophie had an unfortunate attraction to men who were bad news. Men who didn’t roll over and beg to be patted. But even she had to draw a line somewhere, and ‘emotion-bypass’ was probably a good place. And after the carnage of her so-called casual fling with Jean-Claude, this was probably a good time.
‘ … really fabulous turnout. People were so generous,’ Tatiana was saying in her guttural purr, the diamonds in her rings glittering in the candlelight as she folded her hands together and rested her chin on them. ‘And so good to catch up with all the people I don’t see, stuck out here. As a matter of fact, Kit—your name came up over dinner. A girlfriend of mine said you have broken the heart of a friend of her daughter’s.’
Kit looked up.
‘Without the name of the friend, her daughter or her daughter’s friend I can’t really confirm or deny that.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Tatiana said with a brittle, tinkling laugh. ‘How many hearts have you broken recently? I’m talking about Alexia. According to Sally Rothwell-Hyde, the poor girl is terribly upset.’
‘I’m sure Sally Rothwell-Hyde is exaggerating,’ Kit said in a bored voice. ‘Alexia was well aware from the start it was nothing serious. It seems that Jasper will be providing Alnburgh heirs a lot sooner than I will.’
He looked across at Sophie, wondering what smart response she would think up to that, but she said nothing. She was sitting very straight, very still. Against the vivid red of her hair, her face was the same colour as the wax that had dripped onto the table in front of her.
‘Something wrong?’ he challenged quietly.
She looked at him, and for a second the expression in her eyes was one of blank horror. But then she blinked, and seemed to rouse herself.
‘I’m sorry. What was that?’ With an unsteady hand she stroked her hair back from her face. It was still as pale as milk, apart from a blossoming of red on each cheekbone.
‘Soph?’ Jasper got to his feet. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. I’m absolutely fine.’ She made an attempt at a laugh, but Kit could hear the raw edge in it. ‘Just tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.’
‘Then you must get to bed,’ Tatiana spoke with an air of finality, as if she was dismissing her. ‘Jasper, show Sophie to her room. I’m sure she’ll feel much better after a good night’s sleep.’
Kit watched Jasper put his arm round her and lead her to the door, remembering the two hours of catatonic sleep she’d had on the train. Picking up his wine glass, he drained it thoughtfully.
It certainly wasn’t tiredness that had drained her face of colour like that, which meant it must have been the idea of producing heirs.
It looked as if she was beginning to get an idea of what she’d got herself into. And she was even flakier than he’d first thought.
CHAPTER FIVE
ROTHWELL-HYDE.
Wordlessly Sophie let Jasper lead her up the widest staircase she’d ever seen. It was probably a really common surname, she thought numbly. The phone book must contain millions of Rothwell-Hydes. Or several anyway, in smart places all over the country. Because surely no one who lived up here would send their daughter to school down in Kent?
It was a second before she realised Jasper had stopped at the foot of another small flight of stairs leading to a gloomy wood-panelled corridor with a single door at the end.
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