Australia: In Bed with Her Groom: Mischief and Marriage / A Marriage Betrayed / Bride of His Choice

‘How long is it since…’ She hesitated, not wanting to sound crassly insensitive to his feelings. ‘Since she was with you?’

‘Pen died of leukaemia three years ago,’ he stated flatly.

Ashley closed her eyes. How awful! Bad enough for death to come suddenly. A long terminal illness had to be grief from start to finish. And afterwards…who could possibly forget it?

‘That must have been very harrowing,’ she said softly, her natural sympathy overriding her own interests. ‘I’m sorry it happened. To both of you.’

He didn’t answer. Ashley was acutely aware she had driven his mind into the past. She could feel a great distance between them that had nothing to do with physical space. She waited, although part of her wanted to tear herself away and leave him to his memories. In some strange way, staying with him was like holding a vigil, paying respect to the dead.

‘It wasn’t like that.’

Ashley barely caught the murmured words.

‘After the initial shock of the diagnosis, Pen refused to allow the situation to become harrowing,’ he went on quietly. ‘She made each day a celebration of life, finding joy and beauty and pleasure in even the smallest things. There were times when the treatment made her very sick, but she bore it so gallantly… .’ He shook his head. ‘I took it harder than she did. I hated feeling helpless.’

‘I’m sure you helped all you could, Harry.’

It wasn’t a platitude. Ashley was certain he would have been a tower of strength, supportive, caring, considerate, willing to do anything to make life as easy and pleasant as he could for her. Yet as much as he might have tried to hold death at bay, it was always going to overtake his efforts. She understood his feelings of helplessness.

‘I guess her going must have left a terrible hole in your life.’

‘She was an adornment to the human race,’ he said softly.

How on earth was she going to compete with that? Ashley thought despondently. ‘Then you were lucky to have known her,’ she said with a burst of envy. ‘Not everyone gets the chance to love and be loved by someone so special. Even if it was only for a short time, at least you’ve experienced it.’

It jolted him out of his reverie. His head turned sharply towards her. Ashley lifted her gaze to his and gave him a full blast of truth. ‘Your Pen made part of your life beautiful, Harry. Maybe that makes the loss hard to bear, but you don’t carry the sense of having missed out on the best, the sense of an emptiness that has never been answered.’

‘Ashley…’ His hand swung out, ready to touch. There was something in his eyes…pity? Anguish? She instinctively backed away.

‘I think I’ll go to bed. I feel cooler now. Good night, Harry. And thank you for making it such a wonderful evening,’ she prattled, carefully skirting any contact with him as she moved to the sliding door.

Somehow he got there ahead of her and pulled the door open. She stepped into the family room, giving him a nod of thanks. He followed closely on her heels. The door clicked shut. Ashley crossed quickly to the staircase. Her eyes blurred with tears as she remembered the bubbling light-heartedness with which she had started the evening. It wasn’t fair, she cried to herself. What hope did she have against a ghost who represented perfection?

She hurried up the stairs, hoping he would stay behind and let her escape to the privacy of the bedroom before he followed to his room. She felt him watching her, but at least his footsteps stopped on the floor below.

‘Good night, Ashley.’ His voice softly floated after her.

She didn’t pause or turn. She had already said good night. Tomorrow was another day, she told herself, brushing the tears from her lashes. And she did have something over a ghost. She was alive. She was warm flesh and blood. And Harry found the arrangement attractive. She wasn’t mistaken about that!

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_fcf5a802-4228-578a-8f04-6940a4f92cde)

WILLIAM WAS UP early the next morning. Like most young boys, William had an inquiring mind. Since Mr. Cliffton’s bedroom adjoined his, it was a simple matter to make enough noise to wake up the new acquisition to the household without disturbing his mother. He figured he could worm more out of Mr. Cliffton if he had him to himself. His mother had a habit of gliding over grownup matters. William wanted the facts.

Harry woke before his watch alarm went off. It suited him to be up early. Last night he had inadvertently ended up stirring feelings that had driven Ashley away from him. That had not been his intention, although he didn’t regret their conversation.

Ashley’s directness had somehow acted as a catharsis for him. She had drawn a perspective he hadn’t considered before, and she was right. He was lucky to have had Pen in his life. The question now was whether he could or should attempt to make Ashley feel lucky to have him in her life.

On sheer impulse he had embarked on a light-hearted game that had promised to be an amusing challenge, a titillating battle of wits and wills with the added interest of considerable sexual attraction. As George had observed, he had been skating along on the surface of life, not caring if the ice beneath his feet broke. Ashley jolted him into the realisation that he was playing with deep waters.

It behove him to tread very carefully with Ashley Harcourt’s feelings. Roger had not been good for her. Harry did not want to inflict any more hurt and disillusionment. He liked her. Very much. She had guts and a firmer grip on self-direction than most of the people he knew. It was wrong to play with the life she had made for herself, yet Harry didn’t want to deal himself out of Ashley Harcourt’s life at this point.

Nevertheless, he was in two minds about the deception he had so frivolously entered into. He pondered whether he should state his real position as he washed and dressed. He heard William go downstairs and followed him, intent on subtly pumping the boy about the more personal side of Ashley’s life.

‘Good morning, William,’ he started, smiling at the huge bowl of breakfast cereal the boy had helped himself to. ‘When does your mother usually wake?’

‘Morning, Mr. Cliffton. Mum sets the alarm for seven,’ he promptly answered.

Harry had twenty minutes up his sleeve. ‘Does she have tea or coffee first thing in the morning?’

‘Coffee.’ William put his spoon down, deciding to tackle the important question without any beating around the bush. ‘Are you going to be my uncle?’

‘That’s a fairly close blood relation, William. I don’t qualify.’

‘I don’t mean that kind of uncle. I know I haven’t got any of those, unless you count step-uncles. Mum’s parents got divorced and married other people with kids who are now mostly grown up but we hardly ever see them. And my dad was an only child. I’m not talking about real uncles.’

William looked at Harry meaningfully as though he should know the correct import of his question now. Harry didn’t care for the flavour of it at all. He found himself recoiling from the idea of joining a queue of live-in relationships that had failed to meet Ashley’s needs, then pulled himself up for making unfounded assumptions.

Ashley hadn’t struck him as a woman who would lightly invite men into her life. But she had struck him as a woman who would kick out anyone who tried to take over.

‘Precisely what kind of uncles are you talking about, William?’ he asked, seeking clarification before making any judgements.

William sighed, suspecting an evasion. He spelled it out so there could be no misunderstanding. ‘Some of the kids at school don’t have their dads living with them. Other men move into their houses and live with their mums. Mostly they call them uncle. Rodney Bixell’s had three different uncles. He’s scored pretty well out of it, too. He got a go-cart from the first, a trampoline from the second and a bike from the third.’

Rodney clearly knew how to play every angle.

‘Mum won’t let me have a bike until I’m ten because we live on this hill and she reckons it’s dangerous,’ William continued with obvious exasperation at his mother’s judgement on this sore point. There was hope and devious calculation in his eyes as he added, ‘Maybe you could talk her into it, Mr. Cliffton. You look as if you could talk Mum into anything.’

Harry had his doubts about that but he hoped it was true. ‘Have you had any uncles?’ he asked, wanting this point settled unequivocally.

‘Nah. No luck yet. That’s why I haven’t got a bike. Mum’s never even gone out with any guys. So I figure since she let you move in, Mr. Cliffton, it has to mean something.’

‘No guys at all, huh?’

William wrinkled his nose. ‘She only has boring old girlfriends who don’t give you anything.’

Ashley was clearly not into sampling whatever was available. Such complete abstinence was, however, a measure of how gun-shy she was of men in general. Which made her acceptance of him highly intriguing. And flattering. It also loaded Harry with a heavy sense of responsibility. He didn’t think Ashley would appreciate the concept of having fun, especially if carried into intimate realms while she was still misled as to who and what he was.

‘You’re a big improvement, Mr. Cliffton,’ William assured him, giving him an encouraging grin. ‘None of Mum’s girlfriends would think of taking me to a test cricket match.’

‘Well, I do happen to like Cricket myself,’ Harry remarked dryly feeling more of a fraud by the minute. George had already fixed a private box for him in the Brewongle Grandstand at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

‘That was a great catch you made yesterday,’ William said admiringly. ‘It saved a window and a bit of Mum’s wrath. She wouldn’t have stood back and thought what a fantastic hook shot it had been. She wouldn’t have thought of anything else but the broken window.’ He paused to let Harry appreciate the different patterns of the male and female mind, then pointedly added, ‘I wouldn’t mind at all having you as an uncle.’

Was Ashley considering the same possibility? Or did being a butler put him in a different category, someone safe, leaving her in control of what did or didn’t happen between them? Would she instantly show him the door if he confessed the truth? He had a strong suspicion she would, despite the attraction he was sure they shared.

‘Thank you, William, but I’m here as a butler, not an uncle,’ Harry said firmly. ‘I think your mother would be very upset if you referred to me as an uncle. It would give people the wrong idea.’

‘Oh!’ William’s face fell. He reconsidered the situation and presented another argument. ‘But you are going to stay here for a while. I mean there’s the cricket and Mrs. Stanton’s party and it would be real good if you took my side on a few things. Like you did yesterday about the photos. Mum gets a bit fussy. Not like Mrs. Stanton. But, you know…she worries about small things that are really okay.’