Ruthless Lover. Sarah Holland
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her initials carved over the doors, and the Tudor rose laced through every oak-panelled room in the house. Robert Flaxton had managed to escape execution in 1536 by disappearing to France when Anne Boleyn was executed, and not returning until Henry VIII died. With his red hair and flashing green eyes, Robert had always had what was known as the Flaxton Luck.
When, over four hundred years later, the Manor fell to the edge of bankruptcy, Serena’s parents’ first thought was to open it to the public. But that would cost even more money. They would have to employ guides, build car parks, print guide-books, make extensive repairs—and the bank was already foreclosing on them.
‘I know someone who might agree to bankroll you out of this,’ the family accountant told them. ‘An American multi-millionaire. Nick Colterne. He’s rich, powerful and bored.’
‘How can anyone be bored if they’re rich and powerful?’ Lord Archallagen commented drily.
‘Because Nick Colterne is a living piece of dynamite! He reorganises companies for fun. Turns everything he touches to gold. He owns about seventy different corporations, and is always on the look-out for something new.’
‘But would he be interested in saving a country estate in an English backwater?’ her father sighed, running a gnarled hand over his eyes.
‘I’ll send him a fax,’ the accountant promised. ‘Outline the details, the financial angle, and see what he says.’
‘Let’s hope it’s yes,’ her father said grimly, ‘or our home will be turned into a hotel or conference centre.’
Serena winced at the thought, her green eyes resting on her father with love. He was too old for this. At sixty, he was close to retirement age, and it showed in the weary droop of his shoulders, the silver eyebrows and old, gardening hands.
Her parents had had Serena late in life. ‘Our little surprise,’ they had always called her. She had been born when they were both in their forties, and her mother had had a traumatic confinement at the age of forty-two.
With her red-gold hair, slanting green eyes and full sensual mouth, Serena had been a surprise in more ways than one. Her mother was blonde, her father dark. The red hair was a throwback to Robert Flaxton, who had caught the heart and attention of Anne Boleyn for such a brief, golden moment.
Serena’s looks were also distinctly at odds with her pedigree. As Lady Serena Flaxton, she was a ‘surprise’ to everyone who met her, because that flaming hair and the sensual curves of her slender body were completely unexpected in a young aristocrat.
Nick Colterne replied within twenty-four hours. He was interested, and would arrive to view the property in three days.
Flaxton Manor went into an uproar. The handful of old faithful staff still working there out of love for the Flaxton family were in a dither of excitement, dusting and polishing along with the rest of the family, desperate to save the estate from bankruptcy.
Nick Colterne arrived in a long black Cadillac limousine.
Serena watched from an upstairs window as he stepped out, dark and dynamic with flashing blue eyes that ran over the Tudor walls with a look of narrowed interest.
Wow! she thought, feeling her heart quickening and her eyes flashing over him, seeing the hard-muscled shoulders, the ruthless mouth and the arrogant stride of his long muscular legs. Nick Colterne looked every inch a man; and fire flashed along her veins as her green eyes moved restlessly over him, wide and admiring.
Suddenly, he looked up and saw her. He stopped dead, staring at her. A powerful crackle of electricity ran through her, making her heart stop, breath cease…
She flushed to her hairline at the penetrating sexual insolence of his gaze as it flashed over her innocent young face, waist-length red hair falling across one eye.
Stepping back with a gasp, she slammed the window shut, trembling.
Downstairs, she heard him striding into the main hall, surrounded by henchmen, biting out instructions, sending them off to investigate while he spoke to her parents in the drawing-room.
He was obviously a whirlwind, Serena thought with a stab of excitement, and waited in her room to hear the outcome of the visit.
‘I’ve never seen him so animated!’ their accountant enthused that night ‘He’s definitely interested.’
‘Do you think he’ll want to buy it from us, though?’ her father said anxiously. ‘We want to try and keep it in the family, you see.’
‘That depends on whether it makes financial sense to him,’ the accountant said with a sigh. ‘He’ll take the biggest money-making option.’
‘Even if it means we lose everything?’ Serena asked passionately. ‘Surely it would be kinder to loan us money and let us repay it over a period of years?’
The accountant laughed. ‘Don’t expect kindness from a man like Nick Colterne. He’s a cynical cutthroat shark, swimming in the most dangerous financial waters of the world. He’ll make you an offer of some sort—but whatever it is, you can be sure he’ll be the one to benefit.’
Serena shuddered. ‘He sounds ruthless…’
‘He’s not a charity, darling.’ The Earl sighed, his face lined with strain. ‘And we’re not in a position to argue. We’ll just have to take whatever he offers us.’
It was an appalling situation to be in, and Serena was frantic over the next twenty-four hours as they waited for Nick Colterne’s decision.
He returned a day later with his Cadillac and his henchmen. In a black business suit he looked the epitome of the cynical business shark, a gold watch-chain glittering across his taut black waistcoat. He moved with all the arrogance of American money, his face tough, cynical and determined.
Serena watched him arrive, keeping herself carefully hidden. He glanced up at her bedroom window, and although she knew he could not possibly see her she felt his eyes narrow on her mouth, and a tremor went through her. Did he have X-ray vision?
The meeting with her parents went on and on. Serena waited in an agony of tension.
At six o’clock, Mottram, the maid, tapped on her bedroom door. ‘His lordship requests that you join him in the drawing-room,’ she said primly, then gave a little cry of worry. ‘Oh, Lady Serena! What’s to become of us…?’
Serena tried to comfort the young girl, patting her shoulder. ‘I don’t know, Mottram. We can only pray…’
When she opened the drawing-room door, the first person she saw was Nick Colterne whirling to face her, his eyes racing over her body with that insolent sexual appraisal, and Serena felt breathless, closing the door shakily behind her.
‘Ah! There you are, my dear!’ Her father got up from one of the worn, patched armchairs and strolled towards her in his English tweeds. ‘Mr Colterne wanted to meet you.’
He introduced Serena to Nick Colterne formally, and she stared at him through her gold lashes, pulses thudding as his powerful tanned hand closed over hers in a formidable grip.
‘So what do I call you?’ Nick drawled softly, blue eyes sliding to burn on her full mouth. ‘Your ladyship?’
‘That’s rather complicated,’ she replied huskily, unable to take her eyes off his powerful face and that hard, ruthless mouth.
‘Oh, I love complications.’ His cool Boston drawl was as dynamic as the rest of him. ‘They make me want to sort them out, pronto.’
‘British peerage is a minefield of protocol,’ her father said with a vague smile. ‘My daughter is an only child, and therefore will inherit my title.’
Her mother smiled. ‘Not in a manner of speaking, darling. She’ll inherit mine.’
‘Of course, of course!’ The earl rubbed his forehead. ‘Serena will eventually become Countess of Archal-lagen.’