Satan's Contract

‘Yet.’

That single word was both a threat and a promise, and she had to turn away quickly, her heartbeat oddly disrupted by the mocking look he had given her. To hide the deep tinge of pink that had coloured her cheeks she bent to examine Fury’s hocks. How dared he speak to her like that, look at her like that? She had never met anyone so downright arrogant in all her life!

‘Your horse appears to have escaped injury—no thanks to you,’ he commented drily. ‘How about you? No bumps or bruises?’

She flashed him an icy blue glare. ‘None at all, thank you.’

His sardonic smile never wavered. ‘I’m glad to hear it. If you’re proposing to remount, I’d better give you a hand.’

Pippa hesitated, caught in an uncomfortable dilemma. She would have dearly liked to disdain his offer, but with nothing convenient to use as a mounting-block she wouldn’t be able to get up on to Fury’s back by herself, and the only alternative was to walk back to the stables. And after all, he would only be touching the sole of her boot, she reflected with acid humour; there seemed to be something quite appropriate in that!

‘Thank you,’ she conceded, at her most haughty.

The provocative glint in his eyes taunted her as he bent and cupped his hands. For a moment she found herself gazing down at those wide, powerful shoulders, that crisp sun-bleached hair, and her mouth felt strangely dry. No one quite like this had ever come into her orbit before. And he was all man...

With an impatient shake of her head she dismissed the uncharacteristic reaction—there was no way she was going to let this...this cowboy think he could have any effect on her. But she had to put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself as he tossed her up into the saddle, and the sensation of powerful male muscle moving beneath her fingers made her feel suddenly hot all over.

‘Nice horse,’ he approved, running his hand down over Fury’s sleek neck. ‘Isn’t he a bit powerful for you?’

‘Not at all,’ she retorted. ‘I can manage him perfectly well. And he jumps beautifully—he’s descended from one of the finest hunters in the county.’

‘A hunter, eh?’ His expression of distaste made his opinion patently clear. ‘I guess I might have expected that you’d enjoy a barbaric pastime like that— “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to retort hotly that he was mistaken; she loathed hunting—it had been one of the first and longest-running quarrels she had had with her parents when she had told them exactly what she thought of them for indulging in such a cruel ‘sport’. But obstinately she wanted no point of agreement with this irritating man, so she merely shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t give a damn for your opinion.’

He chuckled with cynical laughter. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ he countered. ‘After all, you’re a Corbett, aren’t you? I don’t suppose you give a damn for anyone’s opinion.’

She returned him a look of frosty disdain. ‘What would you know about my family?’ she enquired haughtily.

‘Oh, rather a lot,’ he responded with a strange, enigmatic smile. ‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Would I?’ She had deliberately infused a measure of indifference into her voice; if he wasn’t going to volunteer any information about his identity, she was quite sure she wasn’t going to gratify him by appearing curious.

‘Tell me,’ he went on in a conversational tone, ‘is your dislike of me personal, or do you just despise anyone who didn’t go to the right school or have the right accent?’

She slanted him a cool glance from beneath her lashes; evidently he was so arrogant that he assumed her lack of interest was due to snobbery. ‘Why should that concern you?’ she returned, seeing a chance to score a point.

His eyes glinted in sardonic amusement. ‘Oh, I just wouldn’t like to think I was losing my touch.’

‘I’m sure that would be a very novel experience for you,’ she countered, her voice laced with sarcasm. ‘I dare say every other woman you meet falls at your feet on sight.’

‘Oh, not always on sight,’ he drawled. ‘But I can usually get ’em where I want ’em within a little while.’ He was holding Fury’s bridle, preventing her from escaping, and the dark glint in his hazel-brown eyes was having a very peculiar effect on the beat of her heart. ‘I wonder how long it’d take with you?’

‘I...I shouldn’t waste your time, if I were you,’ she forced out, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘You’re really not my type.’

He smiled slowly. ‘You know, a good-looking chick like you ought to know better than to issue a man with a challenge like that,’ he remarked. ‘It could turn out to be well-nigh irresistible.’

Her agitation was sending Fury skittering around, and she was having trouble controlling him. ‘Don’t call me a chick,’ she snapped hotly. ‘And let go of my bridle.’

‘It seems to me that’s just what you need—a hand on your bridle,’ he commented provocatively.

‘Well, it won’t be yours!’

‘We’ll see.’ But to her relief he let her go, the flicker of cynical amusement in his eyes infuriating her, so that she snatched a little at the reins as she turned Fury away, making him jib. Swiftly controlling her rising temper, she eased her grip, and urged the horse into a smart trot, sitting very straight in the saddle, her chin tilted up at a haughty angle.

‘See you later, then,’ he called after her.

‘Not if I see you first,’ she was betrayed into retorting.

He shouted with laughter. ‘Hornet! But I would have thought you could have come up with something a little more original than that.’

Ignoring the provocation, she rode on.

It was some minutes later before she had calmed down sufficiently to remember that he hadn’t actually told her who he was. So far as she knew, Gramps had had only one brother, who had been killed in the First World War, leaving no children. So he must be a pretty distant relative. How many more like him would be descending now, like vultures, to pick over the spoils?

Well, she wasn’t going to let him ruin her ride, she vowed decisively. Turning off the lane into the fields, she gave Fury his head, urging him into a full gallop. The weather had been glorious for the past few weeks, and the ground was firm—just the way he liked it. The countryside was green and open, rolling farmland with hedges that were perfect for the magnificent horse to jump. Only a few sheep and cattle were there to take any notice, and they didn’t care what she did.

She stayed out for over an hour; it was just what she needed to ease the lingering sadness in her heart and help her face Gramps’s funeral. She rubbed Fury down, and then let him out into the paddock again, where he could romp around with Lady for the rest of the day. Then she strode briskly up to the house—she had plenty of time to have a bath and get dressed before they would have to set off for the funeral.

But as she passed the open french windows that led into what had once been Gramps’s study but had been taken over in recent years by her father, the sound of her father’s raised voice caught her attention.

‘No will?’ Major Sir Charles Edmund St John Corbett, Bt, was glaring indignantly at Mr Gibbons, the elderly local solicitor whom Gramps had always preferred to any “fancy city suit.” ‘Don’t be preposterous. He must have made a will.’

Pippa paused, having no compunction about eavesdropping on her father. The solicitor was shaking his head. ‘I’m very much regret, Sir Charles, that he didn’t. I assure you that I did my utmost to persuade him—while he could still be considered to be of sound mind, of course—but he would only fob me off. To be on the safe side, I have checked with the Probate Registry, in case he may have employed the services of another solicitor for the purpose—though I have no idea why he should. But there is no trace of any will. I’m afraid it appears that your stepfather died intestate.’

‘The damned old fool!’ the major exploded. ‘Trust him to leave everything in such an awkward mess. Did it out of spite, I’ll bet! Well, so what happens now, eh? I suppose it’s all going to take much longer than it needed to sort it all out—which will make a nice bit of extra work for you. It doesn’t all go to the Crown, does it?’ he added with a forced jocularity, realising that he had perhaps allowed his natural irritation at this most unfortunate situation to lead him to appear unduly grasping.

‘No...’ The solicitor hesitated, clearing his throat with evident embarrassment. ‘The estate will be disposed of according to the rules of intestacy,’ he went on carefully. ‘The order of distribution is laid down in statute, in quite precise terms.’

As Pippa drew closer, intrigued, she suddenly noticed a familiar pair of tan cowboy boots, negligently crossed at the ankle, protruding from the armchair behind the curtain. How had he managed to force his way into this discussion? She was surprised her father had even admitted him into the house. Holding back so that he wouldn’t see her, she listened carefully to what was being said.

‘You see, where there is no surviving spouse, the estate passes to the children,’ Mr Gibbons was expounding solemnly. ‘As would apply in this case—’

‘Yes? Well?’ demanded Sir Charles impatiently.

‘You see...I’m afraid that, in this context, the word “children” is not taken to include stepchildren, unless there has been a formal order of adoption. But it does include illegitimate children—’

‘What?’ Sir Charles exploded. ‘But that’s ridiculous! I never heard anything so outrageous in all my life!’

Pippa’s eyes widened as she swiftly put two and two together. So that was who the mysterious stranger was—no wonder she had thought he bore a striking resemblance to Gramps! Well, whoever would have thought it of the old man? Had his wife known about it? It served her right if she had! It was probably her spiteful temper that had driven him into the arms of another woman in the first place.

Sir Charles had turned furiously on the man in the armchair. ‘If you think you’re getting one stick of this place, you’ve got another think coming,’ he blustered, dangerously red in the face. ‘I’ll see you in hell first.’

‘You really think it’ll be necessary to go as far as that?’ That mocking voice was implaccably cool. ‘I thought these matters were usually settled in Chancery, but I bow to your superior knowledge of English law.’

Pippa stifled a giggle, but her father was on a very short fuse. ‘Oh, yes—very funny,’ he growled. ‘But you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face before I’ve finished with you. You wait till you try to stake your claim. You’ll have to prove in open court that you’re the old man’s by-blow—and that might not be as easy as you think.’

‘My father acknowledged me from the moment I was born,’ came the icy response. ‘He registered my birth himself—it says so on my birth certificate. He gave me his name.’