Marrying The Enemy!

He was dangerously attractive, a threat to any healthy woman’s equilibrium, but she just had to make sure that she didn’t fall into the trap of succumbing to any tricks he might try and use to get her to weaken before that devastating and shockingly confident sexuality. If she did, she’d be courting trouble, she assured herself chasteningly, reminding herself of how York and his uncle had both played their part in driving Shirley away.

Well, she wasn’t going to let a Masterton man drive her away until she was good and ready! she resolved, with such vehemence that she scarcely noticed the jaded practicality of the en suite bathroom she finally found, or the lack of any really homely touches in this late millionaire’s home.

The red stone of the quarry gaped like an ugly mouth on the undulating Somerset landscape.

‘When my step-grandfather—Page’s father—started the company this was where it grew from,’ York stated, bringing the car to a standstill outside one of the Portakabins where all the site’s immediate administration was obviously carried out. ‘Just a small, family-run business he’d mortgaged to the hilt, supplying raw material to equally small local builders wherever he could.’

‘And from this he went into construction.’ Small office units at first, Alex remembered Shirley telling her, and, in Page’s time, larger, industrial sites, but only York had given the company the real hard-nosed drive and motivation that had made Mastertons the first name in multimillion-pound developments: sports complexes, inner city expansion, whole housing estates—the best in architectural design. She had found all that out herself. ‘Quite a success story,’ she couldn’t help saying appreciatively, with a little shiver of resentment as she pushed back a thick silver wave behind her ear.

York made a cynical sound down his nostrils. ‘And one that isn’t going to end with Little Red Riding Hood getting a bite-sized chunk of the apple,’ he promised, with sudden, soft vehemence.

She grimaced, glancing down at the redundant hood falling softly across her shoulder. ‘I thought that was Snow White—who ate the apple,’ she enlarged, with a tartness nonetheless, as if she had just bitten into some acrid fruit. ‘And my hood’s black. I’m afraid this little heroine isn’t afraid of the big, bad wolf. You’d still despise me, wouldn’t you, York, even if you were sure about me—for refusing to knuckle under to your demands and come back here like the dutiful granddaughter after Shirley died? For not bowing down to you and Page like you both expected me to?’

He didn’t answer, and, getting out, said only, ‘Wait here,’ his expression as cold as the icy draught through the car that persuaded him to shrug into his thick dark coat before throwing the door closed after him.

Tight-lipped, Alex watched him, her gaze reluctantly following his hard, arrogant physique as he mounted the steps to the Portakabin and disappeared inside.

Way down in the quarry she could hear the continual drone of heavy equipment, male voices shouting, could see the red dust cloud as the machinery ate into the hard rock.

After a while, restless from sitting doing nothing, she stepped out of the car, pulling up her hood and stuffing her hands deep into her pockets to protect them from the freezing air.

She was attracting a lot of looks from men coming in and out of another Portakabin, she realised after a few moments of pacing up and down, although she was used to being the object of men’s interest. It was fascination, she had convinced herself over the years, because of the uniqueness of her colouring, but in this instance she knew that a lot of the attention was generated by her having been seen arriving with York.

‘Hey, that’s nice, isn’t it?’

‘Um, very tasty.’

A soft wolf-whistle followed the rather sexist remarks she knew she had been intended to hear.

‘Cut it out, lads.’ It was an older man’s voice this time. A surreptitious glance from under her lashes showed that the ‘lads’ to whom he had spoken were barely out of their teens. ‘We don’t allow that sort of thing on site, and if we did we’d be a bit more particular about who we whistled at. Do you know who that is?’ A moment’s silence. ‘That’s Alexia Masterton. The old man’s granddaughter.’

‘Yikes!’

As surprised as the embarrassed-sounding youth, Alex caught her breath, and over the other sounds rising up into the Somerset hills heard the first youth utter, ‘You’re kidding! I thought she was dead.’

That carelessly uttered statement sent a cold emotion shivering through Alex.

She must have been mad to come here, she thought, her feet carrying her swiftly over the dusty ground back towards the car. Alexia Masterton had been dead and buried and she’d been a fool to resurrect her. But news certainly travelled fast! How could anyone have known?

‘Miss Masterton?’ She was so lost in thought that the man had to call the name again before she realised that someone was speaking to her. And as she turned he added, ‘Would you like a coffee while you’re waiting?’

‘N-no…thanks.’ She offered him a rather wan smile, still regretting what she couldn’t help deciding was a total lack of common sense on her part in coming here at all.

‘Come on. He could be some time,’ the man informed her, with a jerk of his chin towards the cabin where York had gone. He was fiftyish, with smiling, weather-worn features, and as she mentally replaced his thick donkey jacket with the suit in which she now vaguely remembered seeing him that morning it dawned on Alex that he must have overheard someone speak her name outside the church. ‘The lads won’t eat you. They might look vicious, but one smile from a pretty girl and they’d probably both run a mile.’

A harmony of guffaws rang out from what were now two very red-faced young men. They had been drinking out of tin mugs, but from somewhere had managed to produce a ceramic one for Alex.

The coffee was hot and tasted good, and she was glad the man, who introduced himself as Ron, had talked her into it.

‘I hope you’re going to be a regular visitor here. This place could do with brightening up a bit’ The man winked at the two youths, whose boldness had disintegrated and who were both totally dumbstruck now that Alex had moved into their sphere, but a small pang of guilt assailed her. She was misleading them—all of them—she thought. Ron was basically a nice man, and how could she explain that she had no intention of staying any longer than she could help, that really she had no right—no right at all—even being here?

‘Your grandfather always found time to look in to see how things were doing—when he was able to get about, that was. But then when Mr York—I mean Mr Masterton—took things over—and it’s been quite a time now—he never let things slide. He’s always kept up the family tradition in keeping himself aware of what’s going on here, big as he’s become. Even though quarrying—and this quarry in particular—is just a small part of what he’s involved with nowadays, he hasn’t forgotten those who’ve been loyal to him and his uncle—and even his father before him. He still likes to keep himself involved with any problems or difficulties the men might be facing down here.’

Which was one thing to be said for him, if nothing else! Alex conceded rather begrudgingly.

‘My…grandfather…’ She felt awkward even using that title to describe Page Masterton. ‘He was ill for a long time?’ She hadn’t got round to asking York just how long it had been.

‘Well…’ Ron pursed his lips, considering. ‘Probably about two or three months.’

She frowned, warming her hands around the hot mug, watching the steam rise, warm and aromatic on the air. ‘But I thought you said…’

‘Oh, because I said about him getting about?’ Ron grimaced. ‘Sorry to confuse you. No, I meant because of his wheelchair.’

‘His wheelchair?’ Alex’s frown deepened. She felt utterly flummoxed. ‘Oh—oh, of course,’ she said. How could she let these people—people who surprisingly but clearly had loved and respected Page Masterton—know that she, apparent claimant to much of his estate, didn’t know that he’d been disabled, a cripple? She felt a dryness in her throat that didn’t ease even when she swallowed. There was too much she didn’t know. Too much, she was gradually realising, that she hadn’t taken enough trouble to find out.

‘Didn’t you find him even a little bit difficult at times?’ She smiled, hoping she’d sounded blithe.

‘Not at all.’ Ron’s tone denied any suggestion of it. ‘He was the best employer any man could hope to work for. With some…’ his shoulders lifted, his mouth pulling down derogatorily into even deeper lines ‘…wealth goes to their heads and they won’t talk to the likes of us. ‘Course we always knew he was in charge. There wasn’t any questioning his authority. But he was a decent bloke. And I’m pleased to say Mr York—er—Masterton—is carrying on in the same way, although he’s got double the energy and the authority. ‘Course, he’s younger. But it’s a good thing with this lot if you ask me.’

Alex sipped the steaming coffee, her smile ruminative as she followed Ron’s gesture towards the two bashfullooking youths. It wasn’t the picture Shirley had painted of her father—or even of York.

‘So how long has it been exactly since Mr Mast—I mean Mr York,’ she corrected herself, ‘took over the running of things?’ Obviously it was a name used privately between the men, she realised, to distinguish between uncle and nephew. She had to find out, acquaint herself with facts she hadn’t gleaned simply from Shirley and the newspapers.

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’

Hearing the deep, familiar voice, she whirled around, wincing as hot coffee slopped over her hand.

‘That was rather careless.’

Of course he’d noticed, and before she had realised it he was pressing a clean white handkerchief into her hand. It was slightly warm from his body heat and she knew that it would smell of his own personal scent. The scent that had lingered on her skin after he had kissed her…

‘Th-thanks,’ she stammered, feeling awkward, wishing he hadn’t, unable to look at him as he addressed the others.

‘Gary, Jason, I don’t pay you to stand around all day drinking coffee with the first nubile female that breezes in here.’ Like magic, his unquestionable authority had the two teenagers scuttling back to work. ‘Thanks for keeping her out of mischief, Ron.’ His tone held deep respect for the older man.

When they were back in the car, however, his coat discarded on the back seat, he said scathingly, ‘Asking a lot of questions, weren’t you?’ Suspicion burned in his eyes as he pulled away with more than a fair amount of aggression, the spinning wheels kicking up dust.

‘Why shouldn’t I ask questions about my family if I want to?’ Alex challenged indignantly.

He cast a sidelong glance across the car. ‘Your family?’ he sneered. ‘I don’t think there’s any way that I can be fooled into imagining that you have any right here.’ And before she could respond he said harshly, ‘And did you have to aim your questions at my employees?’

Perhaps I shouldn’t have, she thought, studying the nails of one hand which was resting in her lap. They were filed to their usual moderate length, enhanced only by a clear, protective lacquer. Edgily, though, she said, ‘Well, I knew the sort of response I’d have got if I’d asked you.’

He didn’t look at her as the car climbed the long road out of the quarry.

‘That doesn’t give you any right to go fraternising with them,’ he said. ‘Sharing their coffee-breaks, laughing and joking with them as if you were on their level. Familiarising yourself with my workforce, Alex, is, from now on, strictly taboo.’

Alex’s nostrils flared as she watched him stop at a junction. The lush Somerset valley dropped away below them, stretching for miles, green touched with silver, from the sparkling lower fields to the thick white caps over the surrounding hills.

‘You hypocrite,’ she murmured under her breath.

‘Hypocrite?’ Now, as he pulled away, he sent a questioning glance in her direction.

‘Ron said what a decent guy you were. That your position hasn’t made you put yourself above them—probably because of the act you put on in trying to convince them it hasn’t,’ she couldn’t refrain from adding, although, strangely, she didn’t really believe that. Instinctively she knew that York Masterton wouldn’t ever try to be anything but the man he was. ‘Now you’re implying I shouldn’t stoop even to talking to them.’

‘Corrupting is the word I’d use,’ he delivered with smooth precision. ‘And I was thinking more of them—not you.’

‘Thanks,’ she breathed, and stared belligerently at the road. Well, what could she expect from him? she thought. He didn’t trust her. And, even if he did eventually accept her as his long-lost cousin, because of his low opinion of Shirley and the gold-digger he obviously thought she, Alex, was he’d still continue to flay her verbally at the least opportunity.

‘I never knew Page was in a wheelchair,’ she said tentatively.

‘No? Didn’t you read it somewhere?’ he muttered with scathing emphasis.

Alex swallowed, trying not to be put off. ‘No.’

‘He was in it long enough,’ he rasped.

She took a deep breath, trying again. ‘How long?’

Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Nine—ten years.’ ‘Ten years!’ Shock made a squeak out of her voice. ‘Did—did Shirley know?’ she ventured, puzzled, after a moment.

The striking contours of his profile hardened as he made some derisive sound through his nose. ‘I doubt very much, pretty…cousin…if the woman you claim was your mother ever actually knew. Or cared,’ he appended roughly.

The bitterness in him was tangible enough to make her recoil in her seat. He had been close to Page—far closer than she had ever begun to imagine, she was surprised to realise, sensing the deeply personal grief beneath that tough, impenetrable exterior.

‘What happened to him?’ she found enough courage to ask at length.

‘Do you really care?’

He looked so savage, gripping the wheel with those long dark hands whitening at the knuckles, that she was almost intimidated into silence. But if she wanted him to accept her claim to being a Masterton then she had to start acting like one, she told herself firmly, from somewhere finding the confidence to utter, ‘He was my grandfather. I’m interested, that’s all.’

‘Yes, and that’s about the size of it, isn’t it?’ he tossed angrily back at her. ‘Which is why you can sit there nonchalantly talking about a man you never knew without the first bloody idea of the pain he went through—what it’s like to suffer!’

His outburst made her flinch. Then she wanted to hurl at him that she knew enough about pain and suffering to last her a lifetime, but that would have revealed too much about herself, so she didn’t dare.

‘He had a stroke. Now let’s forget it,’ he said eventually, plunging them both into silence and driving the luxurious car with barely restrained vehemence for the rest of the journey home.

CHAPTER THREE

OVER the next couple of days Alex kept herself occupied by discovering her surroundings. She explored the town, reached from the long road that ran downhill from the house to the quaint and historic seafront which in summer, she knew, would be crowded because of the modern holiday centre with its fun-filled watershoots and garish colours. On the far side of the town, it was, she decided, the only thing to detract from the resort’s beauty. Now, though, while waiting for spring to arrive, the town still possessed a sleepy charm, although the waters washing its sandy beach were murky from the silt on this part of the coast, and nothing like the deep blue of the ocean she had become accustomed to in New Zealand.

The Somerset countryside, however, could not be equalled, and, wrapped up in a warm anorak, scarf and gloves, Alex enjoyed ambling alone along the quiet rural lanes and through the silent woods adjacent to Moorlands on tranquillity-restoring walks she remembered Shirley telling her about more than a decade before.

Enjoying herself, though, wasn’t the reason for her being here, she reminded herself firmly, no matter how much the moor beckoned or the country lanes offered a diversion from the house and her reluctant awareness of a man she despised and yet who, contrarily, could make her pulses throb with more than just angry resentment whenever she was in his company.

As had happened that morning, when he had left her, to all intents and purposes, browsing through the books in Page’s study.

Having caught sight of a photograph sticking out of one of the pigeon-holes in the bureau, she had been so absorbed by other things the bureau had to offer, which included more old photos—mainly of the family, she presumed—as well as some interesting postcards, that she hadn’t heard anyone come in until York’s voice had cut startlingly through the silence.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Alex started, knocking something off the blotter as she swivelled round on her chair.

‘N-nothing,’ she uttered inanely. ‘I—I saw a photograph I thought was of Shirley and I suppose I just got carried away.’

From the hard cast of his features, he clearly didn’t believe her.

‘Were you looking for something in particular?’

Alex swallowed, wondering if the dryness in her throat stemmed from guilt or just from his sheer vitality as he stood there in that immaculate grey suit. It was a hard, restless vitality that seemed at odds with the bleak austerity of the room, with its tall mahogany clock and bookcases and the imposing ambience of what had once been his uncle’s very private sanctum. But wouldn’t he enjoy hurting her if he knew!

‘Nothing in particular…’

‘Then what were you doing in here under the pretext of looking at books? And what’s this?’ Casually he fingered the pointed leaf of a potted miniature daffodil she hadn’t been able to resist in town the previous afternoon, and which she had placed on a low-standing bookcase just inside the door.

‘This place seems so cold. I was just trying to brighten it up a bit,’ she defended firmly, and guessed from the way he grimaced as his grey-green eyes scanned the room that he probably agreed with her. But he wouldn’t have admitted it in a thousand years, she thought grudgingly, before enquiring with a boldness that refused to be dampened, ‘My mother’s things…what happened to them?’

An eyebrow lifted sceptically as he came towards her and with one fluid movement picked up the little gold dagger letter-opener that was lying on the rug, placing it back on the desk. ‘Do we have them?’

She tried not to breathe, tried not to acknowledge that subtle masculine scent of him that played on her reluctant senses.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, York!’ She wasn’t going to let him wear her down with suspicion, no matter how much he might try to use that daunting, tyrannical streak to intimidate her. She had come for the letters which Shirley had once told her about in one of her weaker, more confiding moments, and until she found them—if they were here—he could go to hell!

‘What sort of things?’ he asked then, almost disinterestedly.

Now she had to think quickly. ‘Anything. Books. Old toys. Teenage scribblings. You know, girlhood things.’

The clock, indicating the quarter hour, made her jump as it suddenly whirred into motion, as though it were in conspiracy with him to make her more edgy, though she was determined not to let her tension show.

‘You’re not likely to find anything like that ransacking my uncle’s bureau.’

‘I hardly expected to! And I wasn’t ransacking!’ she threw back heatedly, her nerves stretched to the limit because of his disturbing proximity. He was standing too close, one immaculately clad arm outstretched, hard knuckles on the edge of the desk.

‘As far as I know, my cousin took everything with her when she left, and what she didn’t take I would hope Page would have happily burned long ago.’ There was nothing but hatred in his voice for his unfortunate cousin—a hatred so intense that it made Alex shudder.

‘And to me it looks pretty much as if that’s what happened!’

Unconsciously, Alex’s fingers gripped the leather cushion under her legs as he made one purposeful move to come and stand, tall and imposing, in front of her.

‘What exactly is it you’re looking for, Alex?’

‘I told you.’ She could hear her own voice starting to quiver, and not so much from the threatening quality of his but because she couldn’t move, couldn’t swivel her chair now without risking actually touching him. ‘And I was under the impression I had every right to come in here. Legally if not morally.’

‘Morally?’ His laugh seemed to split the air. ‘What does a conniving little opportunist like you know about morals?’

Animosity burned in his eyes, so intense that involuntarily she shrank back from it, although she managed to keep her head high as he suddenly stooped to rest one hand on the back of her chair, the other on its padded arm.

‘My lovely little second cousin didn’t have any then—ten years ago—and I’m sure as hell she wouldn’t have grown up to stake any ostensible claims to any now. This air of cool poise is out of character, Alex.’

Sudden mockery was etching the dark symmetry of his features with something that was wholly feral and which sent warning bells clamouring through her brain.

‘The unrestrained passion of the Alexia I remember wouldn’t have diminished with the years. Such elemental attraction makes no concession to time. To age. Or even to hatred.’

His words were intimidatingly soft, the hand above her shoulder dropping now to move with heart-stopping sensuality along the delicate curve of her jaw. His fingers were strong and slightly rough against the heated column of her throat, slipping with outrageous insolence beneath the collar of her blouse, locking her breath in her lungs until she thought she was suffocating.

The clock was silent now, the only sound that steady, somnolent tick, and her expelled breath suddenly shivered through her as she fought a myriad reckless sensations generated by the perverse excitement of his touch. No matter how immune a woman might think she was, that treacherous sexual sophistication of his could break through any resistance, she realised with sudden, terrifying clarity.

‘No. Some of us just grow up, York!’ she uttered. And with one hard twist of her chair, which had her knocking her knee painfully against his, she leapt up and away from him, out of the room without stopping to subject herself to the mocking triumph she knew would be written on his face.

She was grateful when, the following morning, Celia suggested that they go riding. Not that Alex considered herself a particularly good horsewoman, but she welcomed anything that took her away from the house and York.

‘I always try to get in the saddle before I go home as the countryside’s so good for riding around here,’ Celia commented as she swung the Range Rover into the yard of the pretty moorland stable nestling beneath the dark ochre of the heathland and the lush green hills. Here and there the glint of silver betrayed a stream tumbling down

to the wooded valley. ‘It keeps the muscles in shape. Not that you need to worry about that,’ she said, with an approving glance over Alex’s slim figure.

‘Even so, I never say no to a workout,’ Alex laughed, petting one or two of the equine heads peering curiously out at them above the stable doors as they made their way across the yard.

‘York suggested you might enjoy a ride when I told him I was thinking about coming here today,’ the woman enlightened her when they were leading their horses out of their respective stalls, Celia looking the part in full riding gear, Alex noted, with an inward grimace at her own rather less suitable anorak and cords.

‘Did he?’ Fastening the helmet she had hired from the stable, she hoped she had managed to make her voice sound casual. She had heard York drive off in the BMW earlier that morning and had known relief at the likelihood that she might not be seeing him for the rest of the day.