Just For A Night

“It’s only one night, after all.”

Their eyes locked and his widened slightly.

And then he knew. Knew what she was saying. She would give him one night. And give herself one night. With him.

She watched him struggle with what she knew had to be a compellingly wicked temptation.

“It’s your decision,” he said slowly, but his fists remained balled up by his side.

“I’ve already made up my mind,” she said.

“So be it,” he said, and as he stared deep into her eyes his own were strangely cold, yet full of a dark triumph.

MIRANDA LEE is Australian, living near Sydney. Born and raised in the bush, she was boarding-school educated and briefly pursued a classical music career before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast-paced and sexy. Her interests include reading meaty sagas, doing word puzzles and going to the movies.

Miranda Lee

Just for a Night

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

‘I DON’T want you to go.’

Marina looked up from her suitcase and shook her head at the sulky expression on her fiancé’s face.

‘Please don’t start that again, Shane. I have to go. Surely you can see that?’

‘No, I can’t,’ he snapped. ‘It’s only three weeks till the wedding and here you are swanning off to the other side of the world on some wild-goose chase. There’s no guarantee that your bone marrow will save that little girl’s life. You’re probably just getting their hopes up for nothing.’

‘Firstly, I will only be away a week at the most,’ Marina pointed out, impatience only a breath away. ‘Secondly, I happen to be a near perfect match. Not only in blood, but in tissue type. Do you know how rare that is?’

‘I’m sure you’ll tell me,’ he said sourly. ‘You’re the smart one around here.’

Marina frowned at his tone of voice, and at the indication behind his words. This was a side to Shane she’d never seen before.

There again, she considered slowly, she’d never crossed him before. After her mother’s death a couple of months ago she’d been more than happy to accept the warm hand of friendship and support Shane had offered, more than happy to have someone there to make all the funeral arrangements and give her a shoulder to cry on. Her usually decisive and strong-willed character had failed her entirely during that grief-stricken time. Shane had been strong when she’d felt weak, kind and thoughtful when that was what she’d needed most.

That his kindness had ended up in his bed had probably been inevitable. He was an attractive man and she was, after all, so terribly lonely. Her satisfaction with his lovemaking had not been quite so inevitable, given her uninspiring sexual history. The pleasure he’d given her had stunned her, so much so that she’d believed herself in love at last. When he’d asked her to marry him a month ago, she’d said yes.

Now she stared at him. His face was not so handsome as he scowled at her. His eyes not so kind, either. They were cold and angry.

‘I had no idea how much you resented my being a teacher,’ she said, covering her distress behind a cool tone. ‘If you imagine I think you’re in any way inferior to me because you work with your hands, then I don’t.’

Shane had been her mother’s right-hand man in the riding and dressage school she’d run on the outskirts of Sydney. Although a high school drop-out, Shane was far from dumb. When Marina’s mother had hired him a good few years back, the then twenty-five-year-old had known everything there was to know about matters equestrian. He’d got along with Marina’s mother like a house on fire because they had a passion in common: the passion for horses.

Marina quite liked horses, and she’d learnt to ride adequately enough, but she’d never been obsessed by the showjumping scene, as her mother and Shane were. She’d always quite liked Shane too, but he’d been standoffish in her presence—till her mother’s illness and death had changed the status quo between them.

After they’d become engaged, Marina had told Shane that the school and the horses were his to do with whatever he liked.

She wondered now if he loved the school and horses more than he loved her.

Or if he loved her at all…

‘Maybe our getting married is not such a good idea,’ she said quietly. ‘We did rush into it a bit.’

He was around the bed and taking her in his arms before she could say boo. But his hard, hungry kisses left her cold. Shane stopped after a while and held her at arm’s length. This time his expression was full of apology and remorse.

‘You’re angry with me,’ he said. ‘And you’ve every right to be. I was being bloody selfish. Of course you have to go. Of course. It’s just that I’m going to miss you terribly, sweetheart.’ He released her arms to cup her chin and lift her mouth for him to kiss again. Softly this time. And sweetly.

Marina had to admit to a moment of melting. These new sexual responses of hers could be very disarming. And perhaps not always in her best interests, came the astonishing realisation.

‘I’m really going to miss this beautiful mouth of yours,’ Shane murmured. ‘There again, everything about you is so beautiful. Your eyes. Your skin. Your hair. Your breasts.’ His hands lifted to stroke them through her shirt and she was dismayed at the way they responded, as though they weren’t connected with her brain.

‘I’ve always wanted you, Marina,’ he insisted, with a thickened quality to his voice. ‘From the first moment I saw you. But your mother warned me right from the start that I could look, but not touch. Her little princess was not for the likes of me.’

Marina was not really surprised by this news. Her mother had been a very contradictory person. British-born and bred, she’d apparently defied her wealthy, upper-crust parents to run off to Australia with a colonial stablehand. She’d been told never to darken their doorstep again. Which she hadn’t.

Her bitterness over their attitude had been such that she’d never spoken of her English ancestors to her daughter, and had forbidden Marina to ever seek them out.

One would have thought she’d bring up Marina to despise this kind of snobbery and hypocrisy. And she had, in a way. But at the same time, perversely, she’d tried to turn her only daughter into a right little madam, with all the associated refinements and manners. Marina had been given ballet lessons, piano lessons and speech and drama lessons, not to mention the obligatory riding and dressage lessons.

It hadn’t really worked. Marina might look an elegant twenty-five-year-old lady on the surface, and she could hold her own in any company, but she was still Australian through and through—with a stubborn streak a mile long, an instinctive irreverence for authority and a pragmatic no-nonsense attitude to life.

She was also a chip off the old block when it came to defying parents, because when she’d gone to England on a backpacking holiday a couple of years previously she had tried to look up the maternal side of her family—her mother’s maiden name being on her birth certificate—only to find that there were more Binghams in England than you could poke a stick at.

Without more information to narrow the field, or money to hire an investigator, finding the right Binghams would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. Since she had never been all that curious about the English side to her family—they sounded horrible snobs to her—she’d given up the search without another qualm.

Shane’s comment reminded her that she would be in England again soon. And this time she did have some money. Her mother’s estate had been larger than she’d envisaged. It seemed she’d been a very astute businesswoman over the years. Now that Marina could not hurt her mother with a more in-depth search, she might just see if she could find her grandparents, plus any possible aunts, uncles and cousins.

And maybe she wouldn’t.

They’d never searched for her, had they? Why should she care a whit for them? They’d probably only upset her by not wanting to have anything to do with her.

No, she would abandon that idea entirely. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

‘I never thought you’d look twice at me,’ Shane was saying, ‘with your private school education and your looks. But you did, didn’t you, princess? And now…now you’re mine.’ He bent to back his claim with a long and very intimate kiss. It did set her heart a-thudding, but it was not what she wanted at that moment. All she wanted was to be left alone. Her head was absolutely whirling.

‘Come back as quickly as you can,’ he urged. ‘Don’t stay over there a moment longer than necessary.’

Marina didn’t know what to say. She felt very confused. A couple of weeks ago she had not been able to wait to marry Shane. Now, suddenly, those heady feelings of being madly in love seemed to have disappeared and her thoughts were very disturbing.

Surely Shane could not be just marrying her for the horses. Surely he loved her. And surely she loved him back. Hadn’t she quivered under his touch only last night? Hadn’t she cried out with pleasure?

Her mental toing and froing led nowhere, but the urge to get away from Shane remained acute. The urge to get away all round was becoming even stronger.

The trip to London, which had loomed in her mind as something of a trial, now took on a different perspective. It became a welcome escape, a time away from Shane during which she could think more clearly. By the time she returned, hopefully, she would know what to do.

It would not be too late to break her engagement even then. It wasn’t as though they were going to have a big church wedding, only a simple ceremony in her mother’s prized rose garden, with a celebrant and a few close friends attending.

This had been Shane’s wish, not Marina’s. She’d always wanted a traditional wedding, but Shane had argued the unsuitability of a big celebration so soon after her mother’s death. She recalled Shane had also said it would be a waste of money—money better spent on the plans he had for building new stables and buying new horses.

Money figured a lot in Shane’s arguments, Marina was beginning to realise.

When the phone call had come from the children’s hospital, asking her if she could fly to London as soon as possible to be a bone marrow donor, Shane’s first concern had been how much money it would cost and who was going to pay. He hadn’t shut up about it till a follow-up letter had arrived, explaining Marina would not be out of pocket in any way whatsoever.

Shane still hadn’t been happy about her going.

But in this case Marina had remained adamant, her natural tendency to stubbornness rising up through the uncharacteristic submissiveness which had been plaguing her. This had nothing to do with them as a couple and everything to do with herself as a decent and caring human being. She was prepared to go even if she had to pay for it all herself. How could she not, when a little girl’s life was at stake?

Her name was Rebecca, and she was only seven. An orphan, God love her, but with a wonderful great-uncle, it seemed. An earl, no less. And rich as Croesus, thank heavens.

He’d sent a first-class return ticket for Marina, plus a written assurance that he would be personally responsible for all her expenses. His gratitude knew no bounds. He claimed he would be in her debt for the rest of his life.

Marina smiled as she thought of the letter and its incredibly formal-sounding expressions. The man was British aristocracy through and through, all right. But rather sweet, she conceded. For a blue-blood.

‘Ahh, you’re smiling,’ Shane said, and bent to peck her on the lips. ‘I must be forgiven.’

Marina could not trust herself to speak. She twisted out of Shane’s arms and busied herself shutting and locking her suitcase. ‘We’ll have to leave for the airport shortly,’ she said. ‘If you’re still going to drive me, that is?’

‘Why wouldn’t I drive you?’ he said expansively. ‘Don’t be so sensitive, sweetheart.’ He scooped the suitcase off the bed and placed his spare arm around her shoulders.

‘I know why you’re so touchy,’ he said, hugging her to his side. ‘You’re just jumpy about the flight. And about your hospital stay at the other end. I’ll say this for you, Marina, you’re damned brave, volunteering to have needles poked in you like that. I know I wouldn’t do it. Not for a perfect stranger.’

Marina frowned. She didn’t think of herself as particularly brave. She’d been assured the procedure was not painful, though there might be some discomfort in her hip for a couple of days.

It dawned on her then that Shane was a very selfish man. Selfish and ambitious and stingy.

Marina fingered her engagement ring all the way from Bringelly to the airport at Mascot. Half a dozen times she contemplated taking it off and giving it back. But she didn’t. And, in the end, she boarded the plane still an engaged woman.

CHAPTER TWO

THE man holding the sign which said ‘MISS MARINA SPENCER’ didn’t look like a chauffeur.

He wasn’t wearing a uniform for one thing, like several of the other sign-carrying chauffeurs standing near him. He was wearing a black pin-striped three-piece suit and a crisp white business shirt whose starched collar was neatly bisected by a classy maroon tie. A matching maroon handkerchief winked from the breast pocket of the superbly tailored jacket.

Frankly, he looked like an executive. A very tall, very good-looking, very successful executive. In his early thirties, Marina guessed, he had straight black hair—impeccably parted and groomed—straight black brows, and an air of urbane superiority. She could see him sitting behind a desk, in one of those black leather swivel chairs. Or in a boardroom, at the head of one of those long, polished tables.

But the sign he was carrying placed him very firmly as the chauffeur she’d been told would meet her at Heathrow. So Marina set her luggage trolley on an unswerving path straight towards him.

His gaze, which had been staring rather blankly at the steady stream of arrivals, shifted abruptly to hers, and Marina found herself looking into deeply set blue eyes which widened at her approach. Clearly she didn’t fit his idea of a Miss Marina Spencer any more than he did her concept of a chauffeur.

Admittedly, she probably didn’t look like most Englishmen’s idea of a girl from Sydney. Her bright red hair and very pale skin did not fit the clichéd beach beauties from Bondi, sporting honey-blonde hair as long as their legs and a gorgeous all-over tan.

At least I have the long legs, she thought, smiling ruefully to herself over her total inability to tan—inherited, possibly, from somewhere on her maternal side. Unless it came from her father’s distant Irish ancestry. Who knew, where recessive genes were concerned? Luckily, Marina’s mother had lathered her daughter’s sensitive skin with sun factor fifteen her entire life, and she only carried a smattering of light freckles.

Marina stopped the trolley right in front of the chauffeur and smiled politely up into his by now frowning face.

‘I’m Marina Spencer,’ she informed him.

He gave her the longest look in return, one which left her feeling as poorly composed as the twenty-two-hour flight had. She’d hardly slept a wink, for one thing. And something she’d eaten had not agreed with her. All in all, the trip had been a trial, and she wasn’t looking forward to the return flight, regardless of the first-class seat.

She’d done her best to resurrect her appearance in the Ladies just before disembarking, but despite fresh make-up her skin still felt dehydrated, and her normally vibrant red-gold curls hung rather limply around her face and shoulders. Her widely spaced green eyes, one of her best features, had dark smudges under them.

On the plus side, her jeans had survived the trip better than a skirt or a dress. And her favourite and thankfully crease-proof black jacket hid the wrinkles in the white shirt underneath.

But she still felt somewhat the worse for wear.

The chauffeur’s thorough visual assessment irritated her somewhat. Finally, he bent to prop the sign against a nearby pillar, then straightened, still unsmiling, to hold out his hand to her in greeting.

‘How do you do, Miss Spencer? I trust you had a good flight? I’m James Marsden.’ The fingers which enclosed hers were firm and cool. ‘My chauffeur had a problem with one of his knees this morning. Arthritis. So I came to collect you myself. He’s waiting for us out in the car.’

Marina blinked her astonishment. This was James Marsden? This was Rebecca’s great-uncle? This was the Earl of Winterborne?

Her first impulse was to laugh. No wonder he hadn’t fitted the image of a chauffeur. But, my goodness, he didn’t fit her image of the Earl of Winterborne, either. She’d pictured an elderly white-haired gentleman, with a handle-bar moustache, a walking stick and an Irish wolfhound at his feet.

‘That was very kind of you,’ she said, trying to school her mouth into a polite expression instead of an amused grin. She succeeded, but not before the Earl of Winterborne clearly spotted her struggle to suppress a smile. Those straight black brows of his drew momentarily together, and for a brief second she thought he was going to ask her what the joke was. But he merely shrugged and stepped forward to lift her suitcase from the trolley, swinging it easily to the ground at his feet.

‘Is this your only luggage?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it is.’ She was glad now that she’d brought only her best clothes with her. Glad too that she’d had a new suitcase to pack them in. The bag she’d brought to England on her previous visit would have proved a right embarrassment.

This one was an elegant tapestry model in smoky blues and greys which she’d bought from one of the chain stores during the after-Christmas sales at the beginning of the year. It had a roomy matching shoulder bag which was at that moment hanging fairly heavily on one of her slender shoulders, filled to the brim with everything she’d thought she might need on the long flight over.

‘You travel light, Miss Spencer.’

She almost laughed again. He wasn’t carrying her leaden shoulder bag. She smiled instead. ‘Do call me Marina. Please.’

Now he smiled, if you could call a slight upward movement at one corner of his nicely shaped lips a smile. ‘Australians have a penchant for using first names quickly, don’t they?’

‘We don’t stand on ceremony, I guess,’ she agreed, and wondered if she had offended him in some way. There was a dryness to his voice which could have been sarcasm. Or disapproval.

The demi-smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. He was as stiffly formal in life as he’d been in his letters, she decided. But where his written words had seemed rather sweet, his blue-blood bearing and autocratic manner were not so endearing. Frankly, they were intimidating. Marina determined not to succumb to the temptation to kowtow and grovel, reminding herself he was just a flesh and blood man underneath the cloak of superiority he wore so arrogantly, yet so very elegantly.

‘So what should I call you?’ she asked. ‘What does an earl get called, anyway?’

There was a minute lifting of his eyebrows, as though her casual attitude was to be expected but only just tolerated. ‘My Lord, usually,’ came his cool reply. ‘Or Lord Winterborne, in my case.’

His pompousness sparked a touch of rebellion. ‘That sounds awfully stiff. How can you stand it? At home you’d simply be called James. Or Jim. Or even Jack. Still, when in Rome do as the Romans do, I guess. I wouldn’t want to do anything which wasn’t appropriate while I’m over here.’

He gave her another of those highly disturbing looks. ‘No, of course not,’ he drawled, and his eyes dropped to her left hand and her diamond engagement ring.

Marina could not believe the thought which flashed into her mind. Immediately prickles of heat whooshed into her cheeks. When his eyes lifted back to her face, she hoped and prayed he could not read the reason behind her most uncustomary blush.

‘Then call me James, by all means,’ he said with starch-filled gallantry. ‘Come.’ He lifted her suitcase from the floor beside him with his right hand while he put his left at her elbow. ‘You must be tired. I will take you to my apartment in Mayfair where you can have some decent food and a rest. Then, this afternoon, I will take you to the hospital to meet Rebecca.’

Marina felt guilty that she’d forgotten her mission for a moment. ‘How is Rebecca?’ she asked anxiously. This is what you’ve come for, she lectured herself sternly. Not to have unconscionable thoughts about the Earl of Winterborne.

‘She’s very much looking forward to meeting you,’ he replied. ‘I must warn you, though, she’s very thin and she’s lost all of her hair through the chemotherapy. So try not to look shocked when you walk in. Rebecca might only be seven but she’s very much a girl, and very sensitive to her appearance.’

Marina’s heart turned over. ‘Oh, the poor little love,’ she murmured.

The Earl of Winterborne gave a very un-earl-like sigh. It carried a weariness born of worry and grief, plus a type of resignation which came from feeling totally helpless. Marina understood perfectly what he was going through, because that was how she had felt while her mother had been dying of cancer. It was the reason why Marina had put herself on the bone marrow register. Because she’d wanted to give someone else hope where there had been none for her mother—or herself.

‘Yes. Yes, that sums Rebecca up entirely,’ he agreed. His face had grown as bleak as his voice, and his hand dropped away from Marina’s elbow. The suitcase was lowered to the floor once more. ‘She’s had little enough love in her life so far. And little enough luck. But that’s been the way with things at Winterborne Hall for quite some time.’

Marina found herself reaching out to put a comforting hand on his nearest sleeve. His handsome head dipped slowly to glance down, first at her hand on his arm and then up into her sympathetic gaze.

‘Let’s hope my coming will turn the tables, then, shall we?’ she said softly, giving his arm a gentle squeeze before letting it fall back to her side.

He stared at her in silence for ages. Or so it seemed. It was probably only a few seconds.

A thousand emotions seemed to flitter across his face, none staying long enough for her to gauge properly. But she was left with the impression of a deep distress, one which was disturbing him greatly.

‘I would like to think so,’ he said staunchly at long last. ‘But I have a feeling that might not be the case. They say things are sent to try us,’ he added in a strangely bitter tone. ‘To test our characters. I can see that the next few days are going to test mine to the limit.’

Marina was not sure what he meant. Had the doctors already given up all real hope for the child? Was her own trip over here a waste of time, as Shane had suggested? She wondered what other misfortunes had befallen his family lately. Marina suspected he had more on his mind than the health of the child. The Earl of Winterborne clearly had many burdens on his shoulders.