Married For Real

“I want you, Arizona!” About the Author Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“I want you, Arizona!”

“There’s a saying about hell and fury and women scorned—are you sure you’re not suffering from being scorned, Declan?” she asked scathingly.

He laughed. “It could be a bit of that, too, I guess.”

“On the other hand, what would you have thought of me if I had responded to your eyes across the fence?”

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have had to marry you, would I?” he said placidly.

LINDSAY ARMSTRONG was born in South Africa, but now lives in Australia with her New Zealand-born husband and their five children. They have lived in nearly every state of Australia and have tried their hand at some unusual, for them, occupations, such as farming and horse training—all grist to the mill for a writer! Lindsay started writing romances when their youngest child began school and she was left feeling at a loose end. She is still doing it and loving it.

Married For Real

Lindsay Armstrong

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

ARIZONA Adams flung her large black hat on a settee, crossed the lounge to the mirror over the fireplace and withdrew the pins securing her thick hair. She ran her fingers through it as it fell to her shoulders in a rich river of chestnut. It was strong, abundant hair with a bit of a wave in it, and she could do pretty much as she liked with it. Her late husband, who had died a year ago and whose memorial service she’d just attended, had often commented that it had a life of its own.

She sighed and looked at her elegant outfit, an almost ankle-length slim black dress worn with a long cream jacket, and thought he would probably have approved of it. He’d also often said that she had an innate but different sense of style, although he’d been fond of adding that she could wear anything and look good. But the truth was, she did her own thing when it came to clothes, and for some reason it generally came out right—then again, according to her mother, she always did her own thing pretty much, which was fairly ironic coming from her mother, who had named her only daughter after a song first and a state in the USA quite incidentally. Yet here she was, Arizona reflected also with irony, feeling tense and uneasy as well as sad and not at all sure whether she would be allowed to continue to do her own thing.

She turned away from the fireplace and glanced at her watch. Nearly six o’clock, which left six more hours of this day—would he come?

He came five minutes later.

Arizona heard the doorbell chime just after she’d shed her jacket and was picking up her hat. She stilled, and right on cue the double lounge doors opened and Cloris stood there.

‘Sorry, Arizona,’ she said diffidently, ‘I know you didn’t want to be disturbed but it’s Mr. Holmes. I—well, I didn’t like to say no.’

‘That’s all right, Cloris,’ Arizona said resignedly, laying her hat and jacket down with exaggerated care. ‘I’m sure Mr. Holmes is a hard man to say no to.’

Cloris, who liked to think she enjoyed a more exalted station than housekeeper but who nevertheless was a marvellous housekeeper, smiled gratefully. ‘He was at the service,’ she confided. ‘At the back—I don’t think many people saw him. I only saw him because I was at the back myself and, well—’ she gestured ‘—that’s Mr. Holmes.’

‘That’s Mr. Holmes,’ Arizona echoed. ‘Show him in, please, Cloris.’

Cloris beamed then hesitated. ‘Would you like me to bring in some, er, drinks and snacks?’

‘No,’ Arizona said definitely.

Cloris opened her mouth but detected the gleam in Arizona’s grey eyes, and she withdrew with a suddenly shuttered expression. Arizona grimaced. Ten seconds later Declan Holmes walked into the room. He was, as Arizona had often heard commented, a fine figure of a man. Tall and well built, he had thick dark hair and Irish blue eyes. That he often had a saturnine, cynical look in those blue eyes didn’t seem to lower him in the estimation of many women by an iota. If anything, it was the opposite. Which was a fact that she’d thought about once or twice with some cynicism herself—her own sex’s preference for dark, damning men. And, as she’d often seen him, he was faultlessly outfitted in a dark grey suit that hid neither his powerful shoulders nor lean hips and justly became his position of wealth and power.

‘Hello, Declan,’ she said coolly and with some idea of taking the initiative as he stopped a few feet from her. ‘So you did come.’

He raised a wry eyebrow at her. ‘I don’t break my word lightly, Arizona. How are you? I believe I’m to be denied the pleasure of having a drink with you.’

She narrowed her eyes and said a bare, ‘Yes.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’ he murmured amusedly. ‘You look as if you could do with one yourself. It can’t have been an easy afternoon.’

‘And about to become even harder, I imagine.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said placidly. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t come? I thought you knew me better than that, Arizona.’

‘It’s strange you should say that, Declan, because I hardly know you at all,’ she retorted.

‘Now that, my dear, is not quite true,’ he replied. ‘I think it’s fair to say we’ve been—eyeing each other over the fence for a couple of years now.’

A flash of anger lit her eyes. ‘I have not been eyeing you or anyone else over any fence,’ she said precisely.

He moved his shoulders slightly. ‘Well, put it this way—I’ve certainly been eyeing you, Arizona. And I’m equally certain that you have not been unaware of it.’

She tensed inwardly and would have loved to be able to deny this with composure and surety. Unfortunately, although he’d made no overt moves at all, she had been aware, by some inner sense, of Declan Holmes’s interest. There had been times right from the day they’d first met when she’d looked across a room and encountered his blue gaze, times, she couldn’t deny to herself, when something within had responded, some curl of interest had awoken—which she’d thoroughly despised herself for. And correspondingly there had been times when she’d gone out of her way to avoid him, only to be visited by the uncomfortable feeling that he’d known exactly what she was doing and why... But I’m damned if I’m actually going to admit anything to him.

She said matter of factly, ‘A lot of men look.’

He smiled a little dryly. ‘One of the hazards of being such a good sort, I guess.’

Arizona shrugged. ‘I don’t really care whether you think I’m vain, Declan.’

‘As a matter of fact I don’t—just honest, in this case. Do they all ask you to marry them?’ he enquired guilelessly.

Arizona was saved having to reply as there was a knock at the door. It was Cloris, looking pink and determined, which didn’t happen often, but when it did she was as tenacious as a miniature bulldog with faded blonde curls. She had with her a trolley with an array of drinks and a plate of snacks, and she stood in the doorway staring beseechingly at her boss. Arizona closed her eyes then said in a goaded sort of voice, ‘Bring it in, Cloris, bring it in.’

And so Cloris spent a few fluttering minutes deploying her trolley and departed finally in an even worse flutter after a few kind words from Declan Holmes.

Who said to Arizona once the door was closed again, ‘Routed, I’m afraid, Arizona—are you going to take it in good grace? In other words, may I pour you a drink and myself one and may we then sit down and discuss—things more comfortably?’ But there was a gleam of mockery in his blue eyes.

Arizona breathed deeply, shrugged and sat down. ‘Thanks, a brandy and dry,’ she said briefly.

He poured two of the same, handed her hers then sat down opposite her. ‘Cheers. Well, here’s to the fact that I’m here to ask you to marry me as I promised I would twelve months ago—to the day,’ he said gently, sipped his drink then placed it beside him.

‘And you haven’t, in the intervening twelve months, reflected that if nothing else it was pure bad taste to ask me that on the day of my husband’s funeral?’ she retorted.

‘On the contrary, I think advising you of my intentions but allowing a whole year to pass before I acted on them was observing all the proprieties. Particularly in view of the fact that your last marriage was a marriage of convenience, Arizona.’

‘How dare you?’ She stared at him coldly.

‘Let’s examine the facts then,’ he replied smoothly, ‘and don’t forget I knew Pete well. But you came here to Scawfell as a penniless governess, didn’t you, Arizona? To look after the four motherless children of a man twice your age. Less than a year later you married him, and all this—’ he gestured, taking in the elegant room and somehow more, the whole beautiful estate of Scawfell ‘—became yours.’

‘No, it didn’t,’ Arizona contradicted through lips pale with anger. ‘It’s held in trust for his children, as you very well know, Declan. After all, you’re the trustee.’

‘All the same, you have the use of it guaranteed until you remarry, Arizona,’ he said coolly, ‘and the means so that you can continue to use it in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed.’ His eyes lingered on the smooth skin of her bare arms then drifted down the exquisitely tailored black dress.

‘I didn’t want that, I didn’t know it was in his will,’ she said steadily. ‘Nor have I done anything in the manner to which I had become accustomed, quote unquote, since Pete died, other than look after his children and—’

‘How are they?’ he broke in.

‘Fine,’ Arizona said briskly. ‘Why don’t you ask them how I rate as a stepmother, incidentally?’

‘I’ve never accused you of not being a good stepmother, Arizona,’ he returned mildly.

‘Only a fortune huntress,’ she said with soft mockery.

‘Well, why did you do it?’ he countered.

‘Marry Pete?’ she said with hauteur. ‘That’s my business, Declan, and I’m afraid you’re, destined to remain in ignorance.’

‘Even when you’re married to me?’

She took this without a blink and said thoughtfully, ‘Tell me something—considering what good friends you were, didn’t you think it was in incredibly bad taste to be eyeing your friend’s wife across the fence, as you put it yourself, Declan, if nothing else?’

‘Unfortunately one can’t help one’s—instinctive reactions. And as I did nothing but look on the odd occasion, no, I don’t.’

‘And what would have happened if Pete hadn’t died?’ she asked caustically.

He shrugged wryly. ‘Who knows? I might have got tired of looking, although I’m not sure about that. Or you might have got tired of Pete.’ He grimaced.

Arizona ignored this and said, ‘But, and this does puzzle me, you now want to marry me, despite the fact that you think I only married Pete with an eye to the main chance. That doesn’t altogether make sense, if you’ll forgive me.’

‘I think it makes perfect sense,’ he responded. ‘I have a much larger fortune than Peter ever had, which makes me an excellent candidate for your hand—provided, of course, you reserve that lovely, sexy—’ he looked her up and down ‘—body for my exclusive use,’ he finished, looking into her eyes with a gleam of pure insolence in his.

‘That’s incredbly—that’s diabolical,’ Arizona said with an effort, an effort to stay calm. ‘You’re talking about trade, nothing else—’

‘I rather thought you understood about trade all too well, Arizona,’ he broke in.

‘Contrary to what you think, Declan, I was extremely fond of Pete,’ she said, and stood up restlessly.

‘But you weren’t in love with him?’ he said after a moment as he sat with his arm along the back of the settee and watched her thoughtfully.

‘I...’ She stopped then looked directly into his blue eyes. ‘It wasn’t a grand passion, if they exist.’ She shrugged. ‘But yes, I loved him in a way. A warm, committed way that I can’t imagine ever loving you.’ And her grey eyes were suddenly challenging.

‘Would it surprise you to find yourself loving me in a different way?’

‘Are you talking about love or lust?’ she asked with an insolent glint of her own.

‘They’re not always easy to separate, Arizona,’ he drawled.

‘Oh, I think they would be in this case.’

A faint smile twisted his lips, then he sat forward, picked up his drink and regarded its depths for a moment before he said, ‘Well, my dear, this may be the moment to talk turkey then. Pete’s rather complicated estate has finally cleared probate, and unfortunately, the outlook is not good at all.’

Arizona frowned at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You may not have realized this, but Scawfell is heavily mortgaged and was, to an extent, mortgaged against Peter’s future income, which should have payed it off—he was one of the most famous, soughtafter architects in the country. What he neglected to do, however, was take out any insurance against, well, the unknown happening such as did happen.’

Arizona sat down rather suddenly. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying,’ he said levelly, ‘that although he was the finest architect, he wasn’t much of a businessman. He was also very secretive so that not even I knew how complicated his affairs were or how unwise some of his investments. What it boils down to is that Scawfell will have to be sold to save anything of his estate for his children, let alone the provisions he made for you, but in the real estate climate of the moment, it’s debatable if there will be anything left for any of you.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ Arizona whispered, paling as his words sank in. ‘He never said a word to me about all this, not—’ she stopped then continued ‘—not that I ever asked him. But he didn’t seem to have any worries about finances.’

‘He wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t died so unexpectedly.’

‘But...’ She stood up again, uncaring that he was watching her like a hawk now. ‘This is terrible! It was bad enough for them to lose their father like that, in a car accident, after losing their mother to an incurable disease and with no living relatives—’

‘Which was why as their trustee I agreed to them staying with you, Arizona,’ he said with a significant little look. ‘They don’t have anyone else, no grandparents left alive, aunts or uncles et cetera because both their parents were single children.’

‘I know that. And to lose Scawfell as well,’ she said hollowly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sorry to have to say I’m all too sure.’

‘So... what will we do?’ She stared at him dazedly. ‘Ben is enough of a handful at the moment as it is.’ She stopped abruptly and bit her lip.

‘So they’re not all fine—what about the others?’

Arizona closed her eyes briefly then said a little bitterly, ‘I’m sure fifteen-year-old boys can be a handful without the trauma he’s gone through—’

‘Oh, I’m sure they can,’ Declan Holmes replied dryly. ‘Especially without a father. What about ten-year-old twins—and Daisy?’

‘How did you find them on the last of your monthly visits?’ Arizona countered.

He looked amused. ‘My monthly visits that you so pointedly went out of your way to avoid whenever you could? Daisy was—Daisy,’ he said. ‘The twins were extremely taken up with the model I brought down, and Ben was out, too.’

Arizona sighed. ‘Sarah and Richard do seem to have bounced back, but then they have each other,’ she said of Peter Adams’s ten-year-old twins. ‘As for Daisy, it took her months to understand he was never coming back, then she got weepy for a while, but I think she’s forgetting now, although she tends to cling, but I’m always here so—Ben is the only real problem.’

‘How so?’

‘He’s moody, he seems to have given up on schoolhe seems to hate the whole world, other than his horse and riding, at times.’

‘I see.’

‘That’s a great help,’ Arizona remarked after a pause.

‘I didn’t think you wanted my help.’

‘I don’t, but you insisted on knowing. Look,’ she said impatiently, ‘this is getting us nowhere. How come no-one has seen fit to let me know about all this before today?’

‘A lot of it wasn’t known for a time. There were offshore ventures that took quite some time and patience to unravel.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said, perplexed. ‘How have we been going along in the meantime?’

Declan Holmes paused, narrowed his eyes and said, ‘I hope you don’t hate this too much, Arizona, but with my help.’

She gasped. ‘Do you mean you’ve been supporting us?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

He said reflectively, ‘I had several motives, Arizona. I didn’t want to add any more burdens for the kids to have to cope with so soon after losing their second parent, and I thought it would be difficult for you to carry on unconcernedly once you knew.’

‘Well, you’re right,’ she said through her teeth, ‘but it would have been on their behalf not mine that I would have been unable to remain unconcerned despite what I have no doubt you’re implying!’

‘Perhaps,’ he said mildly.

‘So what were your other motives?’ she demanded.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I guess I wanted to see how you did—conduct yourself over the last twelve months.’

‘Before you came back and asked me to marry you again? How do you know I haven’t taken a legion of lovers in the interim?’

‘Have you?’

Arizona made a sound of pure, despairing exasperation.

‘Look, don’t answer—I know you haven’t,’ he said with a lightening grin.

Arizona opened her mouth, closed it then all but spat, ‘Have you been having me followed or something like that?’

‘No, nothing like that, but I do have my sources,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘In fact,’ he continued softly, ‘it’s almost as if you’ve been waiting for me, my dear.’

‘So...it’s never entered your calculations,’ she said with difficulty, ‘that I might just have been grieving and not interested in forming any liaisons?’

‘Well, one day I’ll probably know a lot more about you, but in the meantime, will you marry me, Arizona?’

‘No. Definitely not,’ she added to give it more force and then tried a little more force. ‘It would be the very last thing I’d do. Do I make myself clear?’

His blue gaze didn’t alter much—perhaps a tinge of amusement crept into it. ‘Not even if I told you that it was one way, probably the only way, to save Scawfell for Pete’s kids?’

Arizona realized suddenly that she could hear her heart beating heavily, that her lips were dry and her breathing ragged. And nearly a minute passed before she said in a voice quite unlike her own, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that if you married me I would pay off the mortgage on the estate so that the children had something to inherit as well as a familiar beloved spot to live out their childhood, and I would support them as my own—as our own.’

‘Do you mean you would bring them up as your children?’ she said uncertainly.

‘We could bring them up as ours.’

Arizona stared at him dazedly then licked her lips. ‘What’s the alternative—for them, I mean?’

‘Well, I would certainly never let Pete’s children starve, but taking them on single-handedly wouldn’t be the same for them—I’d probably have to relocate them. I wouldn’t have a great deal of time for them although I suppose I could always get another governess for them.’

‘Stop,’ she whispered then cleared her throat. ‘This is the most arrant blackmail I’ve ever heard—why?’ she asked intensely.

‘Why?’ he mused. ‘I should have thought that was obvious—I want you, Arizona!’

‘There’s a saying about hell and fury and women scorned—are you sure you’re not suffering from being scorned, Declan?’ she asked scathingly.

He laughed. ‘It could be a bit of that, too, I guess.’

‘On the other hand what would you have thought of me if I had responded to your eyes across the fence?’

‘Well, I probably wouldn’t have had to marry you, would I?’ he said placidly.

‘That doesn’t make sense—it’s worse,’ she declared bitterly. ‘It puts me in a no-win situation, which is simply crazy!’

‘Well, now, that remains to be seen. Being married to me won’t be nearly so bad as you’re cracking it up, Arizona. At one stroke you’ll retain Scawfell, you’ll retain four children you’re very fond of and who need you—think of that if nothing else.’

Arizona closed her eyes and for the life of her couldn’t help thinking of it. Thinking of Daisy, whose natural mother had died when she was two, Daisy who didn’t remember her and didn’t understand about stepmothers and thought Arizona was her mother, Daisy who worried... Thought about Sarah and Richard, charming twins so long as you understood the full extent of their dependence on each other, and Ben. Poor, tortured Ben who was still bereft without his father, who now viewed the world with cynicism and disenchantment and was increasingly disruptive ... She opened her eyes and stared blankly at Declan Holmes.

‘Also,’ he said quietly, ‘you’ll have your sex life taken care of—and an awful lot of pin money to spend, Arizona.’

‘If I didn’t hate you before, I do now,’ she responded equally quietly.

He smiled briefly. ‘But you’ll do it?’

‘Only because I have no choice.’

‘Not entirely true,’ he drawled, ‘but nevertheless, when?’

‘Oh, I think I’ll leave it to you to name the day, Declan.’

‘Is that some kind of a cop-out, Arizona?’ he murmured.

‘No,’ she said baldly. ‘Merely an indication of my lack of interest.’

His Lips twisted but he said only, ‘How about a month from today then? It will give the kids a bit of time to get used to the idea.’

‘If you say so—me, as well, I suppose.’ She grimaced.

‘You’ve had a lot longer than that,’ he remarked softly. ‘If it’s so repugnant I’m surprised you haven’t left the country or something equally dramatic.’

‘But you knew damn well you had me here as some kind of a hostage, didn’t you, Declan?’

‘Did I?’ he reflected. ‘Exactly what kind of a hostage, is what one wonders, to be honest. While I don’t doubt your devotion to the kids—oh, well—’ he gestured with one long, strong hand ‘—time will no doubt tell. Why don’t you invite me for the weekend, Arizona? We could start the process of apprising the world of our intentions.’

‘Come, by all means,’ Arizona replied with utterly false cordiality. In fact her stance and the look in her eyes said something quite different—come and do your damnedest, in other words.

To which, after a long, challenging moment, he merely smiled gently as if to say, We’ll see, we’ll see...

‘Dearest Mother,’ Arizona wrote that night. ‘I suppose it’s still all right to call you that and not Sister Margaret Mary, but I digress. The news is that I’m getting married again—now I know how you opposed, from the seclusion of your convent, my first marriage but from a purely materialistic sense, this one is even better. You’ve probably heard of Declan Holmes—who hasn’t? Yes, the same one who took over his father’s media empire (small media empire) at the age of twenty-six and now, at about thirty-three, could probably be justifiably termed a media magnate. Well, he was a good friend of Peter’s, he’s the children’s trustee and guardian and as I’m the children’s stepmother, it seems like a good idea. So far as your objections to my previous marriage go, he’s only ten years older than me, he’s not a father figure or anything like that, he’s a mighty marriageable man, but no, I’m not in love with him and I don’t think he’s in love with me. What else can I tell you? It’s to be a month from today...’

Arizona lifted her head and stared into the middle distance. Can I tell you that I’m incredibly confused, desperate and afraid? That I’m wondering whether I should leave the country or something like that—but how to leave the kids?