CHAPTER TWO

      SILENCE. Shock clamped Claudia into a small, dark, very tight corn. Clamped her in so tightly she could barely breathe, let alone speak.

      How dared he show his face here? Oh, how dared he?

      Then the thick silence eased just a little, slowly nudged away by the inevitable impingement of ordinary, everyday sounds. The sonorous, echoey ticking of the longcase clock; the stutter and grumble of machinery from directly outside as Bill, the new groundsman, tried to start the ride-on mower; Amy’s voice—the sound of the words she spoke as they fell on the still air, but not the sense of them—and the sound of the housekeeper’s feet on the polished wood floor blocks as she walked away; the thump of her own, wild heartbeats.

      He’d changed, and yet he hadn’t. That was the first coherent thought she had. Though how a thought could be coherent and contradictory was a total mystery.

      At thirty, Adam Weston was a spectacularly attractive man. The once over-long, soft black hair was expertly cut and those pagan-god features were tougher now, more forceful than they’d been six years ago. That superbly fit body was clothed in a silky dark grey suit, crafted by a master tailor, instead of the scruffy cut-offs and washed-out T-shirts that had been his habitual wear during that long, hot summer when she had loved him so.

      A man with those looks, that kind of honed physique, would always land on his feet, especially if he still possessed that laid-back, lazy charm, the charm that had had her swooning at his feet from that first unforgettable smile.

      Obviously, he’d finally married an heiress. Well, bully for him! she thought cynically, wondering if he’d come here to gloat because he’d done very well, thank you, for himself and she was practically bankrupt.

      ‘What do you want, Adam?’ Her voice was tight, quaky, like an old woman’s. And she knew she didn’t look anything like the lushly curvaceous, fresh-faced and dewy-eyed eighteen-year-old he’d sweet-talked into his bed all those years ago. She didn’t need that look of distaste he was giving her to tell her that, while he’d been able to bring himself to the point of actually making love to her six years ago, he found her a total turn-off now.

      Claudia lifted her chin and told herself she didn’t care, in either event. ‘I’m expecting someone. Can you see yourself out?’

      She knew she sounded like a snob of the first water, the lady of the manor ordering the boot boy out of her rarefied presence, and saw his eyes narrow and harden. Those smoky grey eyes that didn’t smile any more.

      ‘You’re expecting me, Mrs Favel.’ His voice was clipped. Hard. As hard as his eyes. ‘The Hallam Group,’ he reminded her, as if, Claudia thought resentfully, he thought she was completely stupid.

      But hadn’t he always thought that? That she had rampaging hormones where other people had brains. That she’d be a pushover, blindly and ecstatically rushing into marriage with a drifter who was only interested in getting his hands on her assets, which, in those days, had been considerable.

      Within a few short weeks he’d had her besotted, head over heels in love and so eager to accept his proposal of marriage she’d practically fallen over herself. And the only thing that had stopped her dragging him down the aisle had been the evidence of her own eyes...

      Adam walking out of Helen’s bedroom, his face tight and furious. He’d been so furious he hadn’t seen her at the top of the service stairs, her arms full of freshly laundered bed-linen.

      Helen. Helen sitting on the edge of her bed, clad only in those wisps of underwear. Furious, too, spitting out that poison about him only being interested in her, Claudia’s future financial prospects, ramming home the final nail in the coffin of her love for him with, ‘He must have seen me come up here—he knows your father’s out I was getting ready to have a shower before changing. He just walked in and started on about the way he’d always fancied me. He said we could have fun—adult fun. He was sick of playing with a child, only the child, as it happened, would one day come into a fortune. He meant you, my poor sweet! And then...heaven help me...I told him to pack his bags and get off Farthings Hall property. I said if he was still around when your father got back he’d regret it.’

      ‘I was told to expect the late Mr Hallam’s heir,’ she said now, her voice stiff with remembered outrage and pain. Then added insultingly, ‘Not the tea boy.’

      His smile was wintry. ‘And I always thought you had such lovely manners.’ He turned, walked away, moving over the huge, raftered hall back towards the library. ‘Harold Hallam was my mother’s brother. He didn’t marry and, as far as anyone knows, he had no issue. I inherited his holding in the Group. Perhaps now we might begin our discussions, provided you’re satisfied with my credentials. Unless, of course, you’re no longer interested in any offer my company might be prepared to come up with.’

      Disorientated, Claudia stared at his retreating back. Such wide, spare shoulders tapering down to that narrow, flat waist, such long, long legs, and all of him so elegantly packaged in a suit so beautifully cut it could only have come from Savile Row.

      ‘So you finally fell on your feet.’ She truly hadn’t realised she’d spoken the thought aloud until he turned at the door to the library, grey eyes chilling, that utterly sensual, boldly defined mouth contemptuous.

      ‘So it would seem.’

      She tilted her chin in challenging defiance, her blue eyes cool. After what he’d done to her, did he really expect to make her feel ashamed of her lack of manners? Did he seriously expect her to apologise?

      It would give her enormous satisfaction to ask him to leave.

      But he’d disappeared into the library—as if he already owned the place—and she pulled in a deep breath, drew back her shoulders and followed.

      She found Amy practically on her heels, the delicate china coffee cups rattling companionably on the tray she carried.

      Claudia stepped aside at the doorway to allow the housekeeper passage, wincing as the older woman put the tray down on the long, polished table, a huge smile splitting her rosy face as she marvelled, ‘Well, and isn’t this a turn up for the books, young Adam? Who’d have thought—?’

      ‘Thank you, Amy,’ Claudia interrupted smoothly. Amy had had a soft spot for the young Adam Weston all those years ago, making sure