His Rags-to-Riches Bride: Innocent on Her Wedding Night / Housekeeper at His Beck and Call / The Australian's Housekeeper Bride

‘Elaine has work to do tomorrow.’ Angela’s voice was inimical. ‘Besides, she’ll also be needed to show prospective buyers around.’

‘Use the estate agent,’ Daniel advised with equal coldness. ‘That’s what you’re paying him for. And I’ll get on to an agency and hire someone to take over Laine’s kitchen duties.’ He put his arm round Laine’s waist. ‘Now, come and say goodnight to me, sweetheart.’

The night was warm, but Laine shivered as she stood with him at the main door. ‘That was so horrible.’

‘It could have been worse, believe me.’ His tone was wry.

‘I don’t know how.’ There was a touch of desolation in her own voice. ‘Dan—I could go on doing the housework here. Mother might appreciate it, and I really don’t mind.’

‘But I do. I want your hands beautifully soft for our honeymoon.’ He grinned teasingly as her face warmed, then bent his head and kissed her swiftly and sensuously on the mouth. ‘Sweet dreams,’ he told her, and went.

Laine couldn’t face going back into the drawing room, so she went upstairs to get ready for bed—although she seriously doubted whether sleep would be an option.

She was just about to switch off her lamp when the door opened and her mother came in.

‘Well, you’re certainly a dark horse. Feed him some sob story, did you?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Or is there another reason for this hasty wedding? He hasn’t got you pregnant, by some mischance?’

Laine’s face flamed. ‘You know that’s not true.’

Angela shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any other reason for him to bother with you. Although I suppose young flesh will always have its appeal—even to a sophisticate like Daniel Flynn. But marriage?’ She laughed harshly. ‘Never in this world, my dear.’

Laine sat up very straight, her throat so dry it hurt. ‘It doesn’t occur to you that he might be in love with me?’

‘No, frankly, it doesn’t. Is that what he’s told you?’

‘Of course.’ Surreptitiously Laine crossed her fingers under the covers. Because she suddenly realised that Dan had never mentioned the word ‘love’. Not when he’d proposed. Not in the cab-ride back to Abbotsbrook. Not while they were saying goodnight.

Not once.

And after Angela had finally left, and she was alone, it was a thought that came back to haunt her over and over again throughout the long night.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SO, WHY did I go on with it, as if everything was all right? Laine asked herself wearily. Because our engagement was a pretty muted affair by anyone’s standards. Even with my inexperience I could see that.

Not that he’d been there very much, she reminded herself. And when he had come to see her he’d never stayed at the house, but made Langbow Manor his base again. And, though she’d dined with him there, it had always been in the restaurant. He’d never once suggested that they should be alone together in his suite. And she had been too shy to ask. To tell him how desperately she wanted to go into his arms—to belong to him completely.

‘So, where’s your ardent lover this weekend?’ her mother had once asked witheringly. ‘Conspicuous by his absence yet again.’

‘Wordwide are involved in a takeover bid for a German magazine company,’ Laine had said quietly. ‘It’s—thrown up some problems, and he needs to be there.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Besides, we have the rest of our lives to be together.’

‘If you say so,’ Angela had retorted with a shrug, and left Laine to her own devices.

But even when absent Daniel had been as good as his word on other matters. All the arrangements for the wedding had been in place without fuss or argument, and Laine had found that a bank account had been opened for her, containing more money than she could ever envisage spending.

In addition, a Mrs Goodman had been installed as temporary housekeeper, and had listened patiently to Angela’s orders and counter-orders, then gone her own briskly efficient way.

And Laine had received a phone call from a local driving school, requesting her to obtain a provisional licence as a course of lessons had been booked for her.

Everything I could have wished for, she thought. Except one—the most important—the most crucial of all. The knowledge of his true feelings where I was concerned.

So why didn’t I simply face up to the problem—ask him if he loved me?

Well, she told herself, she knew the answer to that. She’d loved him, and wanted him more than anything in the world. And Daniel’s own restraint—those brief, gentle kisses and fleeting caresses which aroused but did not satisfy—had only served to intensify her longing to fever-pitch.

It was as well, she thought, that she’d had so much to do, or she might have gone a little crazy. As a result, she had just allowed herself to be carried forward on the non-stop tide of activity, and tried not to think too much.

One of her tasks had been to sort through her books and other personal possessions, and transfer those she wished to keep to Daniel’s London flat—something had made the idea of being his wife seem slightly more real. That and the exquisite ruby and diamond cluster that they’d both spotted at the same moment from the myriad brought out for their inspection, smiling at each other and saying in unison, ‘That’s the one.’

The tangible evidence that he truly was going to marry her, she’d often thought, touching it gently.

She’d tried to be ruthless and only take the things that really mattered into her new life, giving the rest to the local charity shop. Nothing could have stayed where it was, anyway, because Abbotsbrook had been sold, and the buyer wanted vacant possession almost immediately.

‘It’s going to be a very expensive care home,’ she’d told Daniel on one of the occasions when they were dining together.

‘Apparently he has a chain of them.’

‘You don’t approve?’

Laine sighed. ‘It’s sold, and my mother is pleased, which has to be a good thing. But I think I always hoped that it would go on being a real home—for a family. That there’d be other children growing up there who’d love it as I did.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘Are your memories of it really so happy? I didn’t realise.’

‘Not all,’ she said. ‘But a great many of them.’ And most of them to do with you, my love—my love …

She forced a smile. ‘Anyway, it’s gone, and as far as Mother’s concerned it’s hasta la vista.’

‘I hope she got a good price,’ Daniel commented caustically. ‘She’ll need it to afford the upkeep on the glamorous Mr Tanfield’s cosmetic dentistry, quite apart from anything else.’

Laine nearly choked on a mouthful of turbot. ‘His smile is—dazzling,’ she admitted, trying not to giggle. ‘But they do seem happy together, I suppose.’

‘Heart-warming,’ Daniel said dryly. ‘And probably temporary. Has she considered drawing up a pre-nuptial agreement?’

Laine looked down at her plate, aware she was flushing. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so.’ But, by a horrible coincidence, that was the exact advice she gave me last night—and one of the reasons we’re barely on speaking terms right now. The other being she’s invited Candida to the wedding.

‘And if he dumps you when the novelty wears off—what then?’ Angela had demanded. ‘He’s a very rich man, my dear—a multimillionaire, no less. He can afford to pay for his pleasures.’

‘If he dumps me,’ Laine had replied, wincing at the crudity, ‘then no amount of money could ever make things better, believe me.’

What neither she nor her mother had foreseen, of course, was that she would be the one who walked away.

It rained on her wedding morning, but the skies brightened just before she set off to the church, and Celia, who was helping her get ready, told her it was a good omen—the best.

‘Do you know where you’re going on honeymoon?’ she asked. ‘Or is it a surprise?’

‘We can’t go too far away while this takeover business is still simmering.’ Laine examined herself from all angles in the mirror, making sure the expensively demure white satin suit she’d chosen hadn’t developed any unsightly wrinkles or bulges overnight. ‘So Daniel’s rented us some secluded hideaway in the depths of the countryside.’

‘Good God,’ Celia said blankly. ‘Does it have plumbing?’