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      MILLS & BOON

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      To Evelyn, John and Stephen with all my love

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT HAD been a long, seemingly endless journey—the most ambitious drive Georgia had undertaken in ages. Her saving grace was that she adored driving and prided herself at being quite good at it. With her Labrador Hamish in the back behind her she had the best companion she could wish for, next to her brother Noah. Now, well into the summer evening, she drove silently, with the radio off, her gaze lapping up the extraordinarily beautiful landscape of the Scottish Glens, tiredness banished by what had to be one of the most heavenly sights on earth.

      Everywhere she looked she was treated to the most incredible beauty—sunlit lochs, mountain peaks and shimmering green fields. Even Hamish seemed to perk up as he looked out of the window, as if silently contemplating the large open spaces in which to romp and run free with eager relish. It was a far cry from the overcrowded London suburb where Georgia lived.

      Already she sensed the accumulated knots and kinks of tension in her back start to unravel a little.

      They had made quite a few stops during the long journey, for food and drink, but they had still made very good time. Now, Georgia knew, by the map opened on the seat beside her, as well as her new boss’s very precise e-mail directions, that there was not too much further to go before they reached Glenteign—the large country estate of which he was Laird.

      ‘No wonder Noah loved working here!’ she declared out loud, and Hamish wagged his tail enthusiastically as if to agree.

      Her brother had assured her that she would grow to love Glenteign too. He’d recently spent six months there, in his capacity as a freelance garden designer hired to help work on the formal gardens. It was a place where a person could really breathe, he’d told her, his passion for nature and beauty spilling over into his voice. And in his opinion Georgia wouldn’t regret leaving London behind for a while, with its continual gridlocked traffic and polluted air. Working as the Laird’s temporary secretary, while his permanent secretary recovered from a bad fall, she would have some breathing space from the grinding commute into the City every day. She would find out what a different way of life it was up here—a much more relaxed, ‘sane’ way of life.

      She had accepted the job because she wanted so much to believe him, but Georgia still had some reservations about her decision. What would it be like working for a man who had probably never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from in his life? A man who, because of his status, epitomised the old feudal system of ‘Lord of the Manor’ while those around him were mere serfs?

      She didn’t exactly have a problem with the concept of inherited wealth—she begrudged nobody their comfortable circumstances—it was just that she was so weary sometimes of her own struggle to keep the wolf from the door, and the idea that somebody could just be born into such good fortune and not have to do anything to earn it was apt to rub salt into the wound. Still, no doubt the wealthy Laird of Glenteign had his own problems…they just didn’t come in the same shape as Georgia’s. But—problems or no—surely he couldn’t fail to take solace in so much wonderful scenery?

      When her reliable but old Renault finally drew into the grounds of Glenteign, Georgia switched off the engine, leaned her elbow on the window’s ledge and considered her surroundings with a flare of wonderment in the pit of her stomach.

      The house immediately proclaimed its historic past—its impressive edifice of Pictish stone, with its turrets reaching towards the presently cloudless azure sky, reminding Georgia of an ancient impenetrable fortress that had survived every onslaught both nature and man could throw at it and still there it stood, proud and inviolable, with an almost defiant grace. Turning her head, Georgia viewed the lushness of emerald lawns rolling out into the distance like an expansive glittering carpet, and over to the right a high stone wall that perhaps led to the formal gardens that her brother had been working on for the past half-year.

      She couldn’t deny she was eager to see them—not just because of the work Noah had done there, but because he’d told her they were incredibly beautiful. Moving her gaze further afield, a grove of tall firs captured her attention, stretching endlessly beyond the exquisite perfection of the immaculate lawns. There was just so much land! It didn’t seem feasible that one person could own all of this. She began to realise what a prestigious opportunity this was for Noah, coming to work here. And now, because of the success he had achieved, he was working at another large estate in the Highlands—a commission he had secured on the Laird’s recommendation because he had been so impressed with what he’d done at Glenteign.

      She felt a flicker of love and pride. Every sacrifice she’d made to help Noah get his business off the ground had been worth it…

      ‘You found us, then?’

      Abruptly lured away from her reverie, Georgia found her glance commanded by a pair of eyes that were so faultlessly, intensely blue that for a moment no speech was possible on her part. The rest of the features in the masculine face before here were not exactly difficult to look at either. It was as if they might have been sculpted—the planes and angles so strongly delineated that they were surely the loving work of an artist’s reverent hand? But Georgia wasn’t the only one who was transfixed…The man’s unflinching perusal of her own face came as a shock.

      She wasn’t used to being regarded with such uncommon directness and everything inside her clenched hard in sudden self-consciousness. But before she could find her voice, he was opening the driver’s door and standing aside for her to step out onto the gravel.

      ‘Yes…hello.’ She held out her hand, then awkwardly withdrew it almost as soon as her skin came into contact with his. Such an acceptably polite gesture shouldn’t feel as if it was bordering on intimacy but somehow it did. As he considered her further, his gaze no less direct, Georgia silently bemoaned her travel-worn appearance. After several hours’ travelling her clothes must resemble unironed laundry, she was sure. The cream linen shift dress she wore, with its scooped neckline, had been cool and fresh when she’d donned it early this morning, but it definitely didn’t look like that now.

      ‘Did you have a good journey?’

      Beneath the polite questioning Georgia thought she detected a slight strain—as though he neither