CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HE WAS——’

      Martha Winters paused for two reasons: because she’d been about to describe Simon Macquarie as beautiful and because she was about to confide things she’d never told anyone before. But as she glanced at her friend Jane’s woeful, tear-drenched face she sighed inwardly, and continued, although on a slightly different tack. ‘He was extremely arrogant as a matter of fact. We didn’t like each other much at all. Well...’ She shrugged her slim shoulders and reflected that it was almost impossible to explain what had happened between her and Simon Macquarie, and that if Jane hadn’t just been painfully ditched by her boyfriend she wouldn’t even be trying to, in an effort to offer some consolation.

      To make matters worse, Martha and Jane had shared a flat for two years and had become really close, but Martha was leaving for London in the morning and Jane, who was as tender-hearted as she was often gullible, was in a bad way about that as well.

      ‘And he ditched you, Martha?’ Fresh tears slid down Jane’s face. ‘You poor thing.’

      Martha smiled slightly. ‘It was three years ago, Jane. Do I look like a poor, abandoned thing?’

      ‘No,’ Jane replied consideringly. ‘You always look wonderful and I know you’ll be a sensation in London but I also happen to know there hasn’t been a serious man in your life for the last two years, which is a bit incredible for a girl like you. Do you still love him or have you sworn never to be taken for a ride by any man again?’ she asked dramatically.

      Martha hesitated because despite stringent denials to herself over the years she still couldn’t be sure that there mightn’t be a grain of truth in both those propositions. So finally she said rather drily, ‘If it was love it was also highly uncomfortable and the kind of love you’re probably better off without; it was certainly one-sided and yes, you’re right, I’ve been a bit wary ever since. But that’s not to say,’ she added briskly, ‘that I’ve lost all faith in the right man coming along one day—and neither should you.’

      Jane sniffed and blew her nose. ‘But that’s what I keep thinking. I was really sure about Stuart!’

      Martha grimaced. She’d privately thought Stuart was painfully pompous and overbearing and that Jane was much better off without him, but all she said gently was, ‘Chin up, love. You will make some man a wonderful wife one day.’

      Which set Jane into a fresh paroxysm of tears for several minutes and it was awfully hard to resist when she got over it bravely but said, ‘Tell me more about this man you can’t forget, Martha.’

      Martha winced inwardly but her voice was quite normal, even casual as she said, ‘He was from the UK and out here on promotional tour. His family has produced a very famous liqueur—in France as a matter of fact—for centuries.’

      ‘So was he one of those frightfully upper-crust Englishmen? Or a French Don Juan?’

      Martha laughed. ‘As a matter of fact he was a Scot, although you wouldn’t have known it from his accent. And he wasn’t frightfully posh, although...’ she paused ‘...well, you could tell straight away he was very upper crust but not because he talked loudly or sounded as if he had a plum in his mouth.’

      ‘I know what you mean,’ Jane agreed knowledgeably. ‘It’s more of an aura, isn’t it?’

      ‘Exactly.’ Martha glanced at her wryly.

      ‘So what did he look like? Was he wildly handsome? Was he Gallic? I presume if they’ve been making this stuff in France for centuries there has to be some French connection. Was he dark and dangerous or red-headed and given to wearing kilts?’

      Martha laughed. ‘No. And yes, there is a lot of French blood in the family apparently but he wasn’t dark and dangerous to look at——’ She stopped a bit abruptly.

      ‘Well, then—fair but still dangerous?’ Jane ventured.

      ‘Not fair either,’ Martha said slowly. ‘Light brown hair, grey-green eyes, big and tall, thirty-two then——’ Again she stopped.

      ‘And devastatingly handsome.’ Jane grimaced.

      ‘No. It’s hard to pin-point it with some men, isn’t it?’ Martha mused. ‘Some of them seem to have it all without being devastatingly or pin-up handsome. It’s something to do with their eyes, I think, and their hands and what they say and how they say it. It’s to do with being grown-up and relaxed, yet in command when they need to be—all those things. But he was quite capable of being damning and dangerous.’ Yet his body was beautiful, she thought with an odd little wrench of her heart. Strong and fit, wide shoulders...

      ‘So, arrogant but nice in between times? Good-looking without being embarrassingly so? Wealthy and assured—definitely dangerous for a nineteen-year-old girl almost straight from the bush,’ Jane said softly with such a look of heartfelt concern in her eyes that Martha moved uncomfortably. ‘How far did it go and how did it start?’ Jane added.

      Martha thought ruefully, I’m not going to get away without spilling most of the beans to Jane, having come this far...

      ‘How did it start?’ she said slowly—and it was suddenly like being transported back in time...