Conflict Of Hearts
‘I may have misread the situation, but I don’t think you were planning on house-sitting for the next month, Elizabeth.’
She flushed angrily. ‘My plans are none of your business.’
‘I wish that were true,’ he replied, with feeling. ‘However, if you’d had the good manners to stay and listen to Olivia, instead of making a fool of yourself over Hallam, you would know that there’s been a last-minute change of plan. She has been advised not to fly. Which is why, like it or not, you’re coming to London with me. Right now.’
‘Not to fly? Why on earth...?’ Lizzie felt the angry flush drain from her cheeks. There could be only one reason why a perfectly fit woman shouldn’t fly. ‘She’s pregnant!’
Noah eyed her sudden pallor. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘Obviously not. Presumably, after all the lectures about the dangers of unwanted pregnancies, Dad found it difficult to tell me.’
A small muscle tightened at the side of his mouth. ‘This baby may not have been planned, but if you believe that it’s unwanted I suggest you think again. When I had lunch with your father last week he was overjoyed at the possibility of a son. I certainly understand why he wouldn’t want any more daughters.’ He glanced around him. ‘Although I can see that you might be a little piqued at having to step aside and surrender all this for such a late arrival.’
‘Step aside?’ Lizzie repeated, too bewildered for a moment to respond more vigorously to his barely cloaked aggression. A baby? For a moment—just a moment—she thought that everything might, after all, work out. Then she knew, understood the full horror of that triumphant telephone call the day after the wedding had been announced, when Olivia had thought that she was in the house alone.
‘We’re saved, darling. I’ve got the man in the palm of my hand. Lord, but it took some acting to convince the old fool... But it’s the perfect cover...’
There had been a pause and Olivia had laughed softly. ‘I can’t run away from my honeymoon, my darling, much as I’d like to. But after that, well...I’m keeping my London flat so I can see you any time I want. The only fly in the ointment is Daddy’s little girl...she’s so protective...but I’m working on a little plan to deal with her...’ And after a few more seconds there had been the little ting as the phone had been replaced.
And Olivia hadn’t wasted any time putting her plan into action. The next day her father had called her into the study and suggested that she might like to spend a few weeks in London. It would give Olivia a chance to take control of the house, he had explained. With Lizzie there...well, the staff would naturally look first to her... He knew she would understand.
Olivia’s brother had kindly offered to put Lizzie up at his London home for a few weeks, he told her. There had been just a touch of awkwardness about his smile. She had spent too much time looking after her old dad, he’d said, and patted her hand. Noah would see that she had some real fun.
How reasonable it would have sounded if she hadn’t known better. It was then that she had made the mistake of trying to tell her father what Olivia was really like beneath that sugar-sweet exterior.
Now she stared at Noah. Whatever ‘little plan’ Olivia had devised, her brother was quite obviously a part of it. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, turning abruptly away.
‘Quick as you can, Elizabeth. And don’t forget the long dress.’
She glared at him, but didn’t bother to reply. She would be quick, but not because he demanded it. Her own desperate need to get away from all of them was encouragement enough. And she certainly wouldn’t be needing a long dress.
She regarded her reflection in the cheval-glass in the corner of her bedroom with distaste. Was it only a few hours ago when she had stood in that same spot, certain that if Peter responded to her olive branch, came to the wedding, it might just be possible to make a life for herself, to be strong for the time when her father would need her again?
She stripped off the cream silk dress and threw it on the bed, then tore the tiny rosebuds from her hair, angrily brushing it until she had obliterated every vestige of the hairdresser’s art and it hung as straight and plain as a yard of tap water down her back. Then she felt marginally better, back in control, because if they all thought that she was going to fall in with the plans Olivia had made to dispose of ‘Daddy’s little girl’ they could think again.
She would spend a few nights with an old school-friend who lived on the outskirts of London. It would give her time to sort herself out and make some decisions about the future. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere with Noah Jordan. Not even, she thought, with just the tiniest regret, to the opera.
Then she took a deep breath and, dressed in her most comfortable jeans and a defiant scarlet T-shirt, she descended to the hall.
Noah was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He took in her change of appearance with a single, exasperated glance, and for just a moment she felt a touch of something between anger and shame. She’d wanted to shout her rage to the world. Too late she realised that flaunting her pain was simply emphasising her humiliation.
But there was no time for self-analysis because he seized her arm and thrust her back up the stairs before she could utter more than the feeblest protest. He didn’t bother to ask which room was hers. He simply flung open every door he passed until he came to the one where her silk dress had slipped and crumpled into an untidy heap on the rosebud-strewn carpet, betraying her misery.
He stepped over it without comment, flung open her wardrobe and began to flip through the remaining contents.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded as she regained the use of her tongue, furiously pushing herself between him and her clothes.
‘I’m not about to walk out of here with you in a pair of jeans—’
‘Mr Jordan, you’re not about to walk out of here with me, full stop!’
He ignored this outburst and reached over her head to lift a soft voile print dress from its hanger. ‘Put this on.’ He turned back to the wardrobe. ‘Is this the only evening dress you have?’
She regarded the pink taffeta garment with loathing. ‘That’s none of your business.’
He flipped it across his arm without comment and glanced around. ‘Where are your bags?’
‘Downstairs. In the boot room,’ she said, crossing her fingers, fairly sure that he wouldn’t know where that was.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Very well. I’ll see you downstairs in three minutes.’
‘And if I refuse to change?’ she flung at his retreating back.
He turned in the doorway and regarded her with a slow look that travelled from the toes of her hard-worn trainers to the top of her defiant head, and quite unexpectedly her lips began to burn with the memory of that fierce kiss. Her hand flew to cover her mouth, as if somehow he might be able to tell. He followed the movement and his eyes snapped ominously. ‘I’ll change you myself,’ he said abruptly. ‘Anything else?’
‘I...’ She tried to speak, but the word came out as little more than a hoarse croak. She cleared her throat, but he wasn’t interested.
‘No? Two and a half minutes.’ Then he was gone.
And she made it, adding a dashing straw hat for good measure, and drawing on a pair of white lace gloves as she raced to the head of the stairs. Having decided to change, there was no point in being half-hearted about it. Then, as he heard her and turned, she slowed and sauntered down as if she had had all the time in the world. Noah’s face was in shadow, so even if she cared she could not have seen his expression.
‘Now we’ll go and say goodbye to Olivia and James,’ he said firmly.
‘I’m sure they won’t notice one way or the other,’ she said, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.
‘Would you have it any other way?’ It was a rebuke, and it brought hot little patches of colour to Lizzie’s cheeks. ‘But then, if Peter Hallam had flung himself into your willing arms instead of spoiling the perfect scenario by arriving with his brand-new wife, you wouldn’t have been noticing much either, would you?’
‘How can you be so beastly?’
‘It takes years of practice,’ he assured her.
‘Don’t be so modest, Mr Jordan,’ she said fervently. ‘You clearly have a natural talent for it.’
His brows rose a fraction. ‘Careful, Miss Sweetness. Your claws are showing.’
‘Miss Sweetness’? What was that supposed to mean? She clenched her teeth, determined not to rise to such an obvious attempt to bait her. Why on earth did the man have to be so unpleasant? Even if Olivia had told him that she had tried to interfere with the wedding plans, surely he must know what his sister was like? It wasn’t her fault, so why was she attracting such venom from the man?
But he was right about one thing. Despite the fact that her father had barely spoken to her since her attempt to open his eyes, she wouldn’t make things worse between them. None of this was his fault. And he had misery enough in store.
So she took a deep breath and braced herself, knowing that there must be pitying speculation about her feelings since Peter’s arrival with his new bride. Every bead would turn as she made her way across the lawn. So she had better be smiling. Noah took her arm and tucked it into his, holding it there when she would have pulled away.
‘Forget any plans you have to make a scene, Elizabeth, or, I promise you, I will put you over my knee and spank you.’
Startled, she turned to stare at him. What did he think she was going to do—fling herself down on the grass and drum her heels like a spoilt child who’d lost her dolly? ‘I’d just like to get this over with,’ she said. ‘As quickly as possible.’
But Noah refused to be hurried. Despite his insistence that they were short of time, he stopped to shake hands and say goodbye to a number of new acquaintances, and she was able to witness at first hand his undoubted charisma. By the time he delivered her to her father she was certainly the object of considerable speculation. But pity had nothing to do with it.
How was it, everyone clearly wanted to know, that little Lizzie French was leaving the wedding on the arm of the one man that every other woman would have given her eye-teeth to be with?
CHAPTER TWO
JAMES FRENCH turned as his daughter approached. ‘Lizzie, there you are. Are you leaving now?’ he said, a little awkwardly.
She wanted to fling her arms about his neck and hug him—longed to be able to tell him how happy she was for him, but the lie would stick in her throat. Lord, how she wished that she hadn’t overheard that conversation.
‘Noah has explained about the honeymoon having to be cancelled,’ she said stiffly, turning quickly as she saw the painful reproach in his eyes. ‘If you’d told me sooner, Olivia, I could have arranged...’ She lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug. ‘But there’s plenty of food in the freezer. You won’t starve.’
‘Olivia has arranged a hamper...’ James French took hold of his new wife’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. ‘She’s been quite amazing.’
‘Amazing,’ Lizzie agreed dully. She had helped, encouraged, supported her father for the better part of five difficult years, until the long black tunnel of depression he had been living in had begun to open out and he had been able to begin to work again, to live again. But Olivia had picked up the telephone and ordered a hamper from Fortnum’s and she was ‘amazing’. Well, Olivia would soon discover that life at Dove Court was not the bed of roses that she had obviously imagined.
The object of her speculation was talking quietly to Noah. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’
‘It’s no trouble. Just forget about everything but yourself and James.’ Noah caught Lizzie’s blue eyes regarding him sceptically and he straightened. ‘Shall we go?’ he said abruptly.
‘If you’re quite ready,’ she murmured, and reluctantly submitted to the hollow ritual of cheek-kissing.
‘Lizzie...’ Olivia hesitated for just a moment under her expressionless eyes, then shook her head. ‘Nothing. Just...enjoy yourself,’ she urged. ‘You haven’t had much fun...’
‘Fun’. The word rang tauntingly in her ears as they made their way back to the house.
‘Noah...’ Olivia had followed them, and her summons made him pause and turn.
‘Get in the car, Elizabeth. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
She made her way towards the vintage drophead Bentley, gleaming silver, its top down in the glorious summer sunshine. Her pink dress lay on the back seat along with Noah’s top hat. He was welcome to it.
She kept walking until she was in the cooler shade of the garage. Her car was at the far end and she climbed in, fitted the key and turned it. The engine obediently whirred, but did not catch. She tried again. Shock was beginning to overtake her. She was trembling, and her fingers slipped on the key as she tried for the third time to start the car.
The door beside her opened and she leaned back in the driving seat, admitting defeat. ‘What have you done?’ she asked.
‘Anticipated your every move.’ Noah leaned against the roof of her Metro and held out a small metal object for her inspection. ‘It’s called a rotor arm. I’m afraid you car won’t start without it.’
She stared uncomprehendingly for a moment. ‘How did you know?’
‘You lied about the luggage. Since you were planning to leave, this was the obvious place to look. I’ve already moved it to my car.’ He stood back, his face expressionless. ‘Shall we go?’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ she protested. ‘I’m going to stay with a friend in Islington for a few days until I sort myself out. And I’m perfectly capable of driving myself.’
‘Nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘You’re in no condition to drive anywhere.’
‘I’m just fine.’
‘Really?’ He grasped her wrist and held her hand in front of her eyes. ‘You’re shaking, Elizabeth. And how many glasses of champagne did you drink?’
‘I wasn’t counting,’ she snapped back.
‘There was no need to. I don’t imagine you were planning to drive yourself down the M40 into London on this Saturday evening. You were going to let Peter Hallam do that.’
Damn the man! Why did he have to be right about everything? She took a deep breath. ‘You can give me a lift,’ she compromised.
‘How generous of you.’ And, with an ironic little twist to his mouth, he straightened and opened the door wide for her. She slipped out of her seat and fled across the yard to his car, not waiting for him to open the door.
‘Ready?’ he asked as he climbed in beside her. She took a last long look at the garden and the people standing about in small knots—friends, relations, people she had known all her life. Then she saw Peter. As if he could feel her eyes upon him, he turned and stared at her. Then Fran followed his glance and she also stared at Lizzie, her brow drawn down in a small frown. Noah had seen it too.
‘Fasten your seatbelt, Elizabeth,’ he said abruptly. She did so, then sank back against the old leather and closed her eyes. ‘And take off your hat, or you’ll lose it. There’s a scarf in the glove box.’
Would she never have a moment of peace to shed a tear for what she had thrown away? Apparently not. When she made no immediate move to obey he leaned across and removed her hat for her, flipping it onto the rear seat to keep his top hat company. Then he opened the glove compartment and thrust a long silk chiffon scarf at her.
‘Here.’ She continued to stare fiercely at her gloves, unwilling to betray her weakness, but he caught her chin and turned her face towards him. She blinked furiously, but too late.
For a moment he stared as the tears welled onto her cheeks, then with an impatient gesture he wiped them from her face with the pads of his thumbs. And he wrapped the scarf around her hair in a movement so practised that she was certain he had done it a hundred times before, holding her against his chest as he tied it at the nape of her neck. ‘Just how old are you, Elizabeth?’ he asked.
‘Twenty-one.’ Her voice was muffled against the lapel of his morning coat, her ear only hearing the steady thump of his heart.
‘As old as that?’ The doubt in his voice touched off a dangerous spark of anger, driving her away from the deceptive comfort of his broad shoulder. She fought down an intense desire to slap the man, but only because she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would slap her back. ‘Far too old to be mooning over a calf-love. Did you actually believe him when he said he would marry you?’ She stared at him. ‘Surely your mother told you that a young man in the grip of his libido will promise anything to get his way?’
Dark colour seared her cheek-bones. ‘Doubtless you speak from experience.’
‘No, Elizabeth. I’m old enough to take care not to make promises I have no intention of keeping.’
‘I can imagine. Although your status as a confirmed bachelor is so public I can’t imagine that expectations on that score can be very high.’
‘I have never failed to make my position clear.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
‘It saves complications.’
‘What about love? Doesn’t that complicate things?’ she demanded.
‘Love?’ He turned away, switched on the ignition, pressed the starter and the car purred into life. ‘I learned a long time ago to distrust the word. Much safer to treat the whole idea as a spectator sport—on a par with bungee-jumping or free-fall parachuting.’
‘Didn’t I read somewhere that you once were a member of the Dangerous Sports Club?’
‘Did you?’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t say I never participated, Elizabeth, only that I knew the risks involved.’ His lips tightened in a horrible parody of his smile as she drew in a sharp breath. ‘Have I shocked you? Well, you’re very young. Still naive enough to believe in such rubbish. You’ll learn.’
‘Just how old do you have to be before you get that cynical?’ she asked.
‘Not very old,’ he said, with feeling, and she thought for the most fleeting moment that she had managed to dent his insufferable arrogance. But then the blade-edged smile was firmly back in place. ‘I’m not quite in my dotage, but by your own demanding standards, Elizabeth, I’m far too old for you,’ he replied very firmly. ‘I can assure you that whatever you may hear to the contrary you will be perfectly safe under my roof. I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole.’
‘You...’ She barely managed to stop herself from telling him in the most graphic terms what he could do with his bargepole. ‘You kissed me,’ she pointed out, and achieved a certain sharp satisfaction in contradicting him.
‘And I shall do so again if the situation requires it,’ he replied, unmoved. ‘But we’ll both know that it doesn’t mean a thing.’
The slow burn of anger helped, she found. While she kept her mind simmering on the obnoxious Noah Jordan she could almost forget about Peter.
‘You kiss very... thoroughly...’ she said, deliberately provoking him. ‘I’m sure I shall learn a lot.’
‘And you kiss like a virgin.’
She pressed her tongue hard against her teeth to stop herself from screaming at him that there was a very good reason for that.
‘Kissed once when I wasn’t looking,’ she misquoted a little shakily, ‘and never kissed again, even though I was looking all the time?’
‘No doubt you’ll improve with practice.’ For a moment she thought that she detected that errant touch of humour in his voice. But his face, when she turned, was stony.
‘Don’t bother to apply for the position of coach. It isn’t vacant.’
‘On the contrary.’ Her blush deepened painfully under his searching glance, but she refused to be intimidated. ‘However, tonight I think we must do our best to convince the new Mrs Hallam that it has already been filled.’ He slowed as they reached the main road, and for a moment concentrated on the traffic. Once they were moving along smoothly again he continued. ‘After that you can do whatever you like.’
‘What would you suggest?’ she prompted. Anything rather than dwell on the thought of Mrs Hallam, she thought.
His eyes lingered on her for a moment, then he turned away. ‘I hardly think I’m the best person to advise you,’ he said abruptly.
‘You’ve been pretty free with your advice until now,’ she declared.
He shrugged. ‘I suggest you do whatever is necessary to take your mind off Peter Hallam. Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the chance?’
Another reminder that it was time to be moving on? ‘So long as it isn’t bungee-jumping or free-fall parachuting?’ she offered sourly.
‘You’re young enough to survive a few painful landings.’ Heartache wasn’t fatal, then? She thought it was a little early to say. She was still numb with shock. But fighting with Noah Jordan was certainly a very effective diversion. He threw her a fleeting glance. ‘Have you ever lived away from home? Actually worked for a living?’
He made her sound like a parasite. ‘No. But it looks as if I’m about to get my first taste of both. I don’t have much choice, do I? I’ve been given my marching orders.’
‘Marching orders?’ His surprise was very convincing, but she wasn’t fooled.
‘Frankly, Noah, I don’t understand why you’re taking so much interest.’
His mouth thinned. ‘Like you, Elizabeth, I had my arm twisted.’
‘Well, you can consider it untwisted. Just take me to Islington.’ He didn’t bother to reply, and for a while they travelled in silence. Then Lizzie glanced at the man beside her. ‘Was I really so transparent? Back there?’ she was finally driven to ask.
He threw her a cursory look. ‘As the Crystal Palace with all the lights on.’ She paled. ‘I assumed you wanted an honest answer.’
‘There’s honest,’ she replied stiffly, ‘and there’s brutal.’ She stared straight ahead. ‘I’ll never be able to look that girl in the face again.’
‘You’re going to have to. I invited them to join us tonight.’
‘They won’t miss me.’
‘On the contrary, your absence would be impossible to attribute to anything other than...pique.’
‘Pique?’
‘Jealousy is such a nasty word.’
Lizzie frowned. Jealous? She had always imagined jealousy to be a sour, hateful emotion. This hollow, empty feeling had none of that. But there was no time to consider the matter as Noah claimed her attention.
‘You will be charming to Francesca, you will behave towards Peter like the doting little sister he has doubtless portrayed you as to his wife, and you will treat me...’ He said nothing for a moment, but as they slowed and came to a halt for the motorway roundabout he raised heavy lids to run an assessing glance over her. It was unnerving.
Something in that look—the slightest darkening of a pair of steely eyes—brought a fierce glow to her cheeks and played havoc with her pulse, sending it crashing into overdrive. Whatever he wanted from her, she didn’t think she was going to like it.
A blast on a car horn behind them made her jump. Noah raised an apologetic hand and turned his attention back to the road.
‘What?’ Lizzie demanded.
‘You will treat me as if we are lovers,’ he said with absolute conviction.
Lizzie swallowed, hard. She’d been right. She didn’t like it one bit. ‘And how am I supposed to do that from the end of a bargepole?’
‘You can safely leave all the details to me.’ If Noah had meant to be reassuring he failed signally. His kiss still burned like a brand on her lips, and the suggestion that there was more to come sent a tremor of apprehension rippling through her midriff. ‘So?’ he asked once he had negotiated the slip-road. ‘What do you plan to do with yourself in London?’
‘I haven’t had much time to make plans,’ she said.
‘But surely you...?’ Then he went on, ‘No, of course you wouldn’t have made any plans for London. You were planning on a trip to New York with young Mr Hallam.’ His chiselled features were rock-hard. ‘Well, Olivia asked me to make sure you had some fun.’ He made it sound like hard labour. ‘I’m sure I’ll think of something. I’ll have to. It’s clear that you’ve never had to stand on your own two feet.’