The Marriage Demand. PENNY JORDAN
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themselves…Nash, in whose eyes she was a thief and a murderer…
Angrily Nash headed towards the house. Just for a heartbeat then, seeing Faith standing at the window, the sunlight dancing on her hair, lingering on its stunning and unique mixture of differing shades of blonde, from purest silver to warmest gold, he had been inexorably swept back in time.
He had known right from the moment his godfather had announced that he intended to invite her to spend the summer at Hatton that she spelled trouble, but he hadn’t imagined then just how fatally accurate his prediction was going to be. The kind of trouble he had anticipated had had nothing to do with theft and…and murder.
His mouth hardened, the expression in his eyes bleak. Like his godfather, he had been totally taken in by Faith, believing her to be a naïve young girl, never imagining…Bitterness joined the bleakness in his eyes. Hell, he had even wanted to protect her, believing then that her advances to him were totally innocent and that she’d had no idea of what she was really inviting when she’d looked at him, her face burning hot with the thoughts he could see so plainly in those limpid dark blue eyes.
He had even derived a certain amount of painful amusement from the way she’d looked at his mouth, semi-boldly, semi-shyly, but wholly provocatively, wondering just what she would do if he actually responded to her invitation and gave in to the fierce heat of desire she was creating inside him.
But she had been fifteen, a child, as he had sternly and furiously reminded himself more times than he cared to count during that brief summer, and no matter how much his body might have reacted, telling him in increasingly urgent and physical terms just how it viewed her, his mind had known that to give in to what he was feeling would have been dishonourable and wrong.
She would not always be fifteen, he had told himself. One day she would be adult, and then…Then he would make her pay over and over again for every one of those naïvely tormenting looks she had given him, pay in kiss after kiss for all those kisses he had ached to steal from her but had known he must not.
How many nights had he lain awake, tormented by the heat of his own need, virtually unable to stop himself from groaning out aloud at the thought of how she would feel lying against him? Her skin silken soft, her mouth as perfect and perfumed as Gertrude Jekyll’s warmly scented roses, her eyes as blue as the campanula that grew amongst them. God, but he had wanted her, ached for her, longed for her. Hell, he had even been stupid enough to make plans for his future that had included her…for their future…
Initially not even to himself had he dared to acknowledge just how much he’d looked forward to seeing her waiting for him, standing at her turret window, a modern-day Rapunzel imprisoned away from him, not by her father but by her age and his own moral convictions.
It had left a residue of bitterness to be forced to recognise that the innocence he had striven so hard to protect from his own desire had been little more than a fiction created to conceal the real Faith. But his personal bitterness was nothing to the anguish and the anger he felt on behalf of his godfather. The anguish, the anger and the guilt. If he had not been so bemused by Faith, nor so wrapped up in the excitement of beginning the property empire that had now made him such a wealthy man, he might have seen more clearly what was happening and what Faith really was.
But there was no way he was going to fall into that same trap a second time.
The shock of discovering that she was working for the very foundation he had chosen to benefit from his godfather’s bequest had caused him to take the first flight from New York to London, despite the fact that he had been in the middle of lengthy discussions involving the sale of leases on some of his most expensive properties. His initial intention had been to warn Robert Ferndown of just what Faith was, but then he had heard Robert eulogising about her abilities, and Faith herself, and he had been caught up in a flood of savage anger against her.
It had been then that he had decided to punish her for the crime she had committed, to punish her not swiftly and immediately, with a clean, sharp cut, but to give her a taste of what his godfather had suffered…to keep her on a knife-edge of fear and dread, never knowing when the final blow was going to fall.
He let himself into the house and paused as he walked past the open study door. He could still taste Faith’s kiss on his lips, still almost feel her against his body, feel his own unwanted reaction to her. Angrily he turned on his heel. What the hell was he trying to do to himself?
CHAPTER THREE
FAITH flexed her fingers and moved tiredly away from her laptop. It was still far too early for her to begin her preliminary report on the house, but looking down into the garden had reminded her not just of the pretty little summer house but of the many statues in the garden as well, some of which she knew were extremely valuable.
She would have to check with Robert to see whether or not they were to remain in the garden, and if they were how best they could be protected from damage and theft. Tomorrow she would list them all properly and contact Robert to get his advice.
She tensed as she heard a knock on her door, knowing who it would be and hesitating warily before going to answer it.
‘Yes?’ she questioned Nash hardly as she saw him standing outside the door.
He had changed his clothes since she had seen him getting out of his car and was now wearing a white tee shirt that clung to his torso in a way that suddenly made her feel far too hot. She could almost feel her face burning as her senses reacted to the maleness of him. As a girl she had adored him, longed for him, worshipped him almost, but now, as a woman, she was aware of the air of raw sexuality that clung to him—aware of it and resentful of it too.
‘The supper Mrs Jenson left is still in the fridge. She’ll be offended if we don’t eat it,’ Nash told her abruptly.
The words ‘I’m not hungry’ were burning on the tip of Faith’s tongue, but before she could say them her traitorous tummy gave a very audible and very hungry gurgle.
Unable to meet Nash’s eyes, Faith told him tersely, ‘I’ll be down shortly. I’m just finishing something.’
Faith waited until she was sure he had gone before racing to close her bedroom door. Her hands were trembling violently. Was she imagining it or could she really scent danger in the air? Danger and something else—something that was wholly and hormone-activatingly Nash.
She quickly sluiced her hot face in the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom, brushed her hair and reapplied the minimal amount of make-up she favoured. After what he had said to her she could scarcely believe that Nash had actually bothered to concern himself about the fact that she had not had any supper. Or perhaps he wanted to make sure she ate it where he could ensure that she didn’t make off with the cutlery and crockery, she told herself cynically.
And yet when she walked into the kitchen and discovered that it was empty of Nash’s presence her predominant feeling was one of…of what? she asked herself sharply. Not disappointment…no way. No, she was glad he was at least giving her the privacy to eat alone, without his tormenting presence.
But as she opened the fridge she realised she was wrong, because Nash was walking into the kitchen.
‘Asparagus and salmon,’ Faith murmured as she saw the food that had been left for them. Her eyes filmed with tears, forcing her to keep her head down so that Nash couldn’t see them whilst she blinked fiercely to disperse them.
Philip’s favourites.
Suddenly Faith knew that despite her hunger the food would taste like sawdust to her.
Shakily she closed the fridge door.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she told Nash. ‘I’m not hungry.’
The look of male incomprehension he gave her might have amused her under different circumstances, but when she headed for the kitchen door she saw it change to frowning anger as Nash moved lithely past her to stand between her and her exit.
‘I don’t