A Wife on Paper
A Wife on Paper
Liz Fielding
A convenient wife… An inconvenient love…Francesca walked into the room and Guy Dymoke was mesmerized. But she was pregnant with Guy's brother's baby. An impossible situation…and Guy had been hiding his feelings ever since.Years later, Francesca is now a widow, and when the will is read she's stunned to discover she's been placed into Guy's safekeeping…as his convenient wife! Guy wants to give Francesca and her son all the care in the world. He also yearns to tell her how much he really loves her. But he'll wait for the day that she gives her love freely in return….
Rita
Award-winning author Liz Fielding “gets better and better with every book!”
—Romantic Times
Further praise for Liz Fielding
About The Bridesmaid’s Reward:
“The characters are out-of-this-world fun, the scenes and dialogue laugh-out-loud funny and the story is delightful.”
—Romantic Times
About A Suitable Groom:
“A sparkling, bubbly romance with witty dialogue, humor, and a deliciously scrumptious hero.”
—Bookbug on the Web
About His Desert Rose:
“Once again, talented storyteller Liz Fielding has given readers another truly remarkable tale of love conquering all, utilizing intense emotional scenes, dynamic characters, a powerful internal conflict and an exotic desert setting.”
—Romantic Times
About The Best Man and the Bridesmaid:
“A delightful tale with a fresh spin on a fan-favorite storyline, snappy dialogue and charming characters.”
—Romantic Times
Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve, when she won a writing competition at school. After that early success there was quite a gap—during which she was busy working in Africa and the Middle East, getting married and having children—before her first book was published in 1992. Now readers worldwide fall in love with her irresistible heroes, and adore her independent-minded heroines. Visit Liz’s Web site for news and extracts of upcoming books at www.lizfielding.com
A Wife on Paper
Liz Fielding
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
HIS brother was late, the restaurant was crowded, noisy, the kind of fashionable look-at-me-I’ve-arrived place he loathed, and Guy wished he’d made an excuse, stuck to his original plan to have a sandwich at his desk as he worked through the evening.
A rush of cold air as the door opened behind him gave him hope that his ordeal would soon be over, but as he turned he saw that it wasn’t Steve but a young woman rushing to get in out of the rain.
She paused momentarily, framed in the entrance, spotlit by the bright lights of the cocktail bar against the darkness outside.
Time stretched like elastic. The earth stopped turning. Everything slowed down. He felt as if he could count every one of the raindrops sparkling in her corn gold hair.
It was tousled, as if it had been caught by the gusting wind that she seemed to have brought into the restaurant with her, stirring everyone so that they turned to look. Kept on looking. Maybe it was because she was laughing, as if running through the rain was something she did for fun. Because she was a breath of fresh air…
She lifted her arms to comb her fingers through her hair, shake it back into place, and the dress she was wearing rode up to expose half a yard of thigh. When she dropped her hands and the hem descended, the scooped neckline of her dress fell too, offering a glimpse of what the clinging fabric so enticingly suggested.
Nothing about her was flat; everything about her seemed an open invitation to his hands to describe her, to stroke the sinuous lines of her body. She wasn’t beautiful exactly. Her nose lacked classical perfection. Her mouth was too big, but her silver-fox eyes sparkled as if she was lit up from within and the glow that emanated from her eclipsed every other woman in the room.
And, as time caught up with them, his body reacted as if she’d touched his personal blue touch-paper.
Pulse, heart rate, all the physical responses leapt into overdrive, but it was more than a lustful response to the kind of stimuli that probably had half the men in the room in the same condition.
It was like coming face to face with destiny. Coming face to face with the reason for your existence.
As he rose slowly to his feet she saw him, their gazes locked, and for a split second the laughter froze on her lips, and he thought that she felt it too. Then his brother was there, closing the door, cutting off the rush of cold air, breaking the connection between them as he put his arm around the girl’s waist, pulled her close against him.
Something hot, possessive, swept through him and he wanted to grab Steve, pull him away, demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing. Except, of course, it was obvious. He was saying to the world—saying to him—this woman is mine. And, as if the gesture wasn’t enough, he grinned and said, ‘Guy, I’m glad you could make it. I really want you to meet Francesca.’ He looked down at her with the look of a man who’d won the Lottery. ‘She’s moving in with me. She’s having my baby…’ Make that a man who’d won the Lottery twice.
‘Mr Dymoke…’ He started at a touch to his shoulder, opened his eyes to see the stewardess smiling down at him. ‘We’re about to land.’
He dragged his hands over his face in an effort to dispel the lingering wisps of a dream that, even after three years, continued to haunt him.
He straightened his chair, fastened his seat belt, checked the time. He should just make it.
Guy Dymoke was the first person she saw as she stepped from the car. That wasn’t what surprised her. He was the kind of man who would stand out in any crowd. Tall, broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, his thick dark hair lightened by the sun, he made everyone else look as if they were two-dimensional figures in a black and white photograph.
The effect was mesmerising. She saw it in the effect he had on the people around him. Had to steel herself against it, even now.
She wasn’t even surprised that he had taken the time from his busy life to fly in from whatever distant part of the world he currently called home to attend his half-brother’s funeral.
He was a man who took the formalities very seriously. He believed that every t should be properly crossed, every i firmly dotted. He’d made no secret of his disapproval of her and Steven’s decision not to do the ‘decent’ thing and get married. Demonstrated it by his absence from their lives.
As if it was any of his business.
No, what truly astonished her was that he had the nerve to show up at all after three years in which they hadn’t seen or heard from him. She hadn’t cared for herself, but for Steven…
Poor Steven…
Thankfully, she didn’t have to make an effort to hide her feelings as their gazes briefly met over the heads of the gathered mourners. Her face was frozen into a white mask. Nothing showed. There was nothing to show. Just a gaping hollow, an emptiness yawning in front of her. She knew if she allowed herself to think, to feel, she’d never get through this, but as she walked past him, looking neither to left nor right, he said her name, very softly.
‘Francesca…’
Softly. Almost tenderly. As if he cared. And the ache in her throat intensified. The mask threatened to crack…
Anger saved her. Hot, shocking, like a charge of lightning.
How dared he come here today? How dared he make a show of offering her sympathy when he hadn’t bothered to so much as lift a telephone when Steven was alive and it would have actually meant something?
Did he expect her to stop? Listen to his empty condolences? Allow him to take her arm, sit beside her in church as if he gave a damn…?
Just for appearances.
‘Hypocrite,’ she replied as, looking neither to left nor right, she swept past him.
She looked brittle. Insubstantial. Like spun glass. Altered out of all recognition from the vital young woman who’d changed his life in a moment with just one look.
Thin watery sunlight filtered through the October sky to light up her pale hair, emphasise the translucence of her skin, as she stood by the church doorway, shaking hands with those who’d taken the time to come and pay their respects. Inviting them back to the house. Cool, composed, apparently in control. The only moment when she’d seemed real, herself, had been that quick angry flush to her cheeks when he’d spoken her name. The rest was all just a role she was playing, he thought, a performance to get her through the nightmare.
One tap and she’d shatter…
He hung back, waiting until the others had moved off, before he stepped out of the shadows of the porch. She knew he was there, but he’d given her the chance to walk away, ignore him. But she was waiting for him to say his piece. Maybe she hoped he’d explain, but what could he say?
The words for what he was feeling hadn’t yet been invented. The loss, the pain, the regret that the last time he’d seen his brother, Steve had been at his worst. It had been deliberate, of course. A ploy to make him angry. And he’d risen self-righteously to the bait…
Neither of them had come out of it with any glory.
But she’d lost the man she loved. The father of her child. How much worse must it be for her…
He stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Francesca.’
‘Ten days. Time enough to have got from almost anywhere, I would have thought.’
He wanted to ask her why she’d left it so late. Too late.
‘I wish I could have relieved you of the burden of organising this.’ His voice seemed to belong to someone else. Someone cold, distant…
‘Oh, please. Don’t apologise. Your secretary rang, offering to help— I imagine Steven’s lawyer must have called your office—but a funeral is a family thing. Not something for strangers.’
He wasn’t talking about the funeral, but the months before that, when Steve had been dying and he’d been on the other side of the world, unaware of the tragedy about to overtake them all. By the time the message that his brother was running out of time had reached him, it was too late.
‘It took me days to get to any kind of landing strip when the message came through about Steve.’ He sounded, even to himself, as if he were making excuses. ‘I’ve come straight from the airport.’
Finally she turned to look at him. Acknowledge him.
‘You really needn’t have bothered. We’ve managed perfectly well without you for the last three years. The last six months changed nothing.’
Her voice was cold, too. Every word an ice dagger striking at his heart. But this wasn’t about him. His feelings.
Right now all he cared about was her. He wanted to say that she was all he’d cared about for the last three years. Instead he said, ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘All right?’ She repeated the words carefully, as if testing them. Trying to divine his meaning. ‘In what way could I possibly be “all right”? Steven is dead. Toby’s daddy is dead…’
‘Financially,’ he said, pressing on, even though he knew that he was making things immeasurably worse. Or perhaps not. How could they possibly be worse?
Her silver-grey eyes regarded him with utter disdain. ‘I should have known your only concern would be for the practicalities. Ensuring that I did it by the book. It isn’t feelings that matter with you, is it, Guy? It’s appearances.’
Which answered that question.
Smothering the pain, he pressed on. ‘Practicalities have to be addressed, Francesca.’
Listen to him! He should be putting his arms around her, offering her comfort, taking a little for himself, but since that was denied him he was talking like a lawyer. If he’d been a lawyer there would be some excuse…
‘Please don’t concern yourself about us, Guy. By your standards I’m about as “all right” as it’s possible to be. The house. Life insurance… That is what you mean, isn’t it?’ With that, she turned and crossed to the waiting limousine. The driver held the door for her, but she didn’t get in, just stood there for a moment, head bowed, as if gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. After a moment or two she straightened, glanced back at him, then with a lift of her shoulders she said, ‘I suppose you’d better come back to the house. For appearances.’
Then she climbed into the car and waited for him to follow her.
He didn’t mistake her invitation for a thaw but he abandoned the car that had been waiting for him at the airport without hesitation.
‘Thank you,’ he said as he joined her.
‘I don’t want your thanks. He was your brother. I haven’t forgotten that, even if you did.’ And she shifted to the farthest end of the seat, putting the maximum distance between them, not that he had any intention of crowding her. Offering comfort that she clearly didn’t want—at least, not from him. But he had to say something.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’
That earned him another look to freeze his heart. ‘That’s just guilt talking, Guy. If you’d cared about him you wouldn’t have stayed away. Why did you do that?’ For a long moment she challenged him. Then, in the shadowy interior of the limousine, he saw a faint colour smudge her pale cheeks before, with the smallest lift of her shoulders, she let it go. ‘The cancer was virulent. Faster than anyone anticipated. I asked him if he wanted me to call you, but he said there was plenty of time.’
Instinctively he reached to hold her, comfort her as he’d hold anyone in distress, but her eyes flashed a warning. It was like hitting a force field at speed. Shocking. Painful.
He’d intended only to reassure her but realised that anything he did or said would simply fuel her resentment that he was alive, while the man she loved was dead. She clearly thought him capable of feeling nothing but guilt. And that only at a stretch.
‘He was so sure that you’d come,’ she said.
‘I’m not clairvoyant.’
‘No. Just absent.’
He bit back the need to defend himself. She needed to strike out at someone and he was a handy target. If he could do nothing else for her, he could take the blame.
When he didn’t say anything—and he didn’t believe she expected or wanted him to respond—she looked away, staring out of the windows at the passing urban landscape as if anything was better than looking at him. Talking to him. Only a tiny betraying sigh escaped her lips as they turned into the elegant city street with its tall white stuccoed houses, where she and Steve had made their home.
The sound cut deeper than any words—no matter how much they were intended to wound.
The car drew up at the kerb and he climbed out, hesitating between offering his hand and the certainty that she would ignore it. But as she stepped on to the pavement her legs buckled momentarily beneath her and neither of them had much choice in the matter. He caught her elbow beneath his hand. She felt insubstantial, fragile, weightless as, briefly, she allowed him to support her.
‘Why don’t you give this a miss?’ he said. ‘I can handle it.’
Maybe, if he had been someone else, she might have surrendered control, leaned against him, allowed him to take the strain. But she gathered herself, shook off his support and said, ‘Steven managed without you, so can I.’ Then she walked quickly up the steps to her front door to join the subdued gathering.
Francesca paused on the threshold of her drawing room to catch her breath. She had never felt so alone in her life and, unable to help herself, she glanced back to where Guy was shedding his coat. For a moment their eyes met and she glimpsed his pain. But she buried her guilt. She’d meant to hurt him, wound him for staying away, and not just for Steven. Then someone said her name, put an arm around her, and she allowed herself to be wrapped up in this show of care from virtual strangers, no matter how shallow their sentiments, how empty their words of support.
But the imprint of his fingers still burned into her and she rubbed at her arm, shook her head as if to loosen the image. Forced herself to concentrate. This wasn’t just her tragedy. There were other people here, people who needed reassurance about their jobs, the future of Steven’s business. She’d left it to tick over in the hands of the staff for the last few months. Now she would have to take control, make decisions. But not today.
Today she had to lay Steven to rest in style, ensure that everyone had something to drink. Something to eat. Give his friends time to talk about him.
And avoid Guy Dymoke.
‘Fran?’
She jumped as a voice at her elbow brought her back to the present. This minute. This dreadful hour that she had to get through.
‘Did everything go smoothly?’
She looked down, made an effort to pull herself together. Put on a reassuring smile for her cousin. ‘Yes. It was a beautiful service. Thank you, Matty.’
‘You should have let me come with you.’
‘No. No, really, I needed to know that Toby was with someone he loves and I didn’t want Connie distracted while she was making sandwiches.’ Then, with a little jab of panic, ‘Where is Toby? Is he okay?’
‘He was a bit fractious so Connie took him upstairs and put him down for a nap. With a bit of luck he’ll sleep through this.’
‘I hope so.’ Another hour and it would be over. Just one more hour. She could do it. She’d held herself together for so long. She could manage one more hour. She wasn’t going to break down now. Not in front of Guy Dymoke.
Guy watched her as she took on the role of comforter, taking the hand of a thin young woman confined to a wheelchair as they exchanged a few words, hugging people, allowing them to grieve. She was the perfect hostess, ensuring that everyone had something to eat and drink, all the while managing to keep her distance from him without so much as a glance in his direction. As if she had some sixth sense that warned her when he was getting too close.
He decided to make it easy for her, seeking out those friends of his brother’s that he remembered, catching up with their news. Introducing himself to those he did not. Checking the arrangements for the reading of the will with Tom Palmer, the family lawyer. As executor he would have to be there, welcome or not. More than that, he wanted reassurance that Francesca and her son were indeed ‘all right’.
‘You’re not eating.’
He turned around and found himself confronted by the woman in the wheelchair, offering him a plate of sandwiches.
‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry.’
‘That’s no excuse. It’s part of the ritual,’ she said. ‘Man’s natural reaction to his own mortality. An affirmation that life goes on. You know…eat, drink and be grateful it was someone else who fell under the bus. Metaphorically speaking.’
‘In my case,’ he replied, ‘I suspect it would have caused a great deal less bother all round if it had been me. Falling under the metaphorical bus.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Her eyebrows rose to match her interest. ‘Then you must be Guy Dymoke, the rich, successful older brother who no one ever talks about. You don’t look like Steven,’ she added, without waiting for confirmation.
‘We’re half-brothers. Same father, different mothers. Steve favours—favoured—his. Mother.’
‘Should one speak ill of the dead at his own funeral?’ she enquired, with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Then, clearly not expecting an answer, ‘I’m Matty Lang,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘Francesca’s cousin. So what’s the mystery? Why haven’t we met?’
‘There’s no mystery. I’m a geologist. I spend a lot of time overseas in remote places.’ Then, because he didn’t want to elaborate on why he didn’t include family visits when he was in London, he said, ‘Francesca must be glad to have you here. Her parents live overseas, I understand.’
‘They do. In separate hemispheres to avoid bloodshed. As for the rest of them, they’re all too busy to waste time at a funeral that won’t benefit them in any way.’ She looked around, rather pointedly, then at him and said, ‘It was one of the things Fran and Steven had in common, apparently.’
‘I’m surprised his mother isn’t here.’ A B-list actress who had been through half a dozen husbands and lovers since his father had paid through the nose to be rid of her, she rarely missed a photo opportunity. ‘She looks good in black.’
‘She sent flowers and her excuses. Apparently she’s filming some lust-in-the-dust mini-series in North Africa. She was sure Fran would understand. Call me cynical, but with Francesca getting top billing I suspect she decided there wasn’t any PR mileage in admitting to having a son old enough to have made her a grandmother.’
‘Not good for the image,’ he agreed, doing his best to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘She was never cut out for grandmotherhood. Or motherhood, come to that.’ Every time that Steve had got himself into trouble, every time he had sworn that this was the last time he’d dig him out, he had found himself rerunning a long distant memory of his stepmother screaming at his father, furious that she’d had to surrender some film part because she was pregnant. Had found himself remembering the miserable little boy sobbing his heart out when he had finally realised his mother wasn’t coming back.
And he was no better. He’d walked away, too. He’d told himself that Steve didn’t need him any more now he had a family of his own. But that had just been an excuse.
‘I’m glad Francesca had you to give her some support today,’ he said.
‘She was there for me when I had my own close call with death-by-transport.’ Her smile was slightly wry. ‘Not a bus, in my case, but a combination of speed, black ice and a close encounter with a brick wall.’ The sympathetic response that came to his lips on automatic was neatly deflected as she went on, ‘Of course, since I live in the basement I didn’t have to make much of an effort to be here.’
‘The basement?’
She clearly misread his expression. ‘I believe that Lower Ground Floor is the correct “estate agent” term. It’s not as bad as it sounds, I promise you. It’s a basement at the front, where I have my kitchen and bedroom and a front door for visitors who can handle steps, but the land slopes away at the rear. My sitting room and studio is on ground level so that I have direct access to the rear garden, the garage and my car. I can’t walk now, but I can still drive.’
‘I’m familiar with the layout,’ he said, although her reference to a studio puzzled him. ‘My maternal grandmother used to live here,’ he explained when she looked surprised.
‘Did she? I didn’t know that it was a family house. I thought Steven had paid…’ She clearly decided that she was getting into something that was none of her business. ‘What I meant to say is that I’m not dependent. I’m totally self-contained and go for days without seeing either of them.’ She stopped, clearly realising that ‘either’ was no longer a possibility. ‘Fran managed to convince Steven that the conversion was a good idea. That a self-contained granny-stroke-staff flat would increase the value of the house.’
‘I’m sure she’s right.’
‘She’s more than just a pretty face. Of course I paid for the extension work.’
‘Of course.’
‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to one of Connie’s sandwich surprises?’
‘Who is Connie?’
‘Another of Fran’s lame ducks. She has a bit of trouble with English and can’t seem to tell her lemon curd from her mayonnaise, which tends to make her cooking a bit of a gamble.’
‘In that case I’m quite sure,’ he replied.
Matty grinned. ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’
‘I left it behind in a steaming swamp. It needs a rest.’
‘Fair enough.’ Then, looking at the crowded room, ‘Oh, good grief, this lot look as if they’ve taken root. I’d better go and circulate. There’s nothing like a wheelchair to make people thoroughly uncomfortable, make them remember that they have to be somewhere else. And, if that doesn’t shift them, I’ll fall back on my pathetic-relative-from-the-basement act and dribble a little. I don’t think Fran can take much more of this.’
For a moment they both looked in her direction.
‘How’s she doing?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’
Francesca’s smile was fixed, her eyes glassy with fatigue and the effort of listening to the two men who seemed to have her pinned in the corner.
‘Actually, I think she needs rescuing.’ He also knew that she’d endure anything rather than accept help from him. ‘Who are those people? Can’t they see she’s at the end of her tether?’
Matty shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Probably people Steven was doing business with. Obviously things have been let go a bit in the last few months.’
‘Obviously,’ he muttered, heading in their direction, furious with Steven, furious with himself, but most of all furious with them for bothering Francesca at a time like this. She might not want his help, but she was getting it anyway. ‘We haven’t met,’ he said, offering his hand to one of the men and, as he took it, he turned him away from her, stepping between them. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t intended to be. ‘Guy Dymoke, Steven’s brother. I’ve been out of the country for a while. You’re friends of his?’
‘We’re business acquaintances.’ They introduced themselves, but he cut them off as they launched into an explanation of their precise connection with his brother.
‘It’s very good of you to give up your valuable time in this way.’
‘No trouble. I was just asking Miss Lang—’
‘This really isn’t a good time. Why don’t you give me a call?’ he said, handing the man his card and mentally willing Francesca to take advantage of the opportunity to escape, but she seemed fixed to the spot. Beyond help.
‘As I was just saying to Miss Lang,’ the man continued, stubbornly refusing to take the hint, ‘it’s really a matter of some urgency and no one at the office seems to know—’
This time he was cut off mid-sentence as Matty caught him behind the ankle with her wheelchair. ‘Oops, sorry. I can’t seem to get the hang of this thing.’ she said. Then, ‘Fran, sweetheart…’ It needed a second prompt before she responded. ‘Fran, you’re needed in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, right.’ She snapped out of whatever memory she was lost in and saw him. That seemed to do the trick. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’
‘But Miss Lang, I really need—’
‘Not now.’ Guy softened the words with a smile, all the while urging them firmly towards the door. ‘I know Francesca appreciates your sympathy, but it’s a difficult time for her. Bring your problems to me.’
Realising that they were not going to get any further, they took the hint and left.
‘Jerks,’ Matty said as she watched them leave, one favouring his left ankle.
‘I don’t think you’re a very nice person, Matty Lang.’
‘Really?’ She grinned. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in ages. For some reason, because I’m confined to a wheelchair, people seem to think I should have suddenly been transformed into a saint.’ Then, ‘Can I leave you to mop up the stragglers while I go and rustle up a pot of tea?’
No one needed her in the kitchen, although she was just in time to prevent Connie from loading crystal glasses into the dishwasher. Matty had simply been giving her a chance to escape, Fran realised belatedly. Guy, too, although it hurt to acknowledge that he might have even one kind bone in his body.
She should go back. People would be leaving, but she couldn’t face the drawing room again. The polite condolences which, for the most part, simply masked the unasked questions she could see in everyone’s eyes. They were sorry Steven was dead, sympathetic, but their concerns were with the future. Would the company go on? Would they have their jobs at the end of the month? Survival was the name of the game. For them, just as much as those two tactless imbeciles who undoubtedly wanted to know when their bills would be paid.
Questions to which she had no answers.
It occurred to her that she was now the owner of a business that she knew next to nothing about. She’d talked about going back to work once she’d had Toby, but Steven had insisted that she had enough to do running their home, being Toby’s mother. That it was his job to take care of them.
Even while he was dying he’d insisted that he’d got it sorted…that he was going to take care of them all.
She choked back a sob as she sank on to the saggy old sofa that filled one corner of the kitchen, curling up into it for comfort. For endless days she’d been holding on, knowing that once the funeral was over she would have to confront the future. But not now. Not today.
Guy shut the door on the last of the mourners, then went through to the kitchen to find Francesca. He had no illusions about his reception, but he had to convince her that she must call him if she had any problems. That he’d be there for her. He doubted that she’d ask him for help, but he’d leave his number with Matty anyway. She was sharp enough to call him if…
A ball bounced at his feet and he turned to confront a small boy who was standing on the half-landing. There was no mistaking who he was. He had something of Steve about him, a nose that was a gift from his grandfather, his mother’s corn-gold hair.
The wrench at his heartstrings was so unexpected, so painful, that for a moment he clutched his fist to his chest as if to hold his heart in place. When he’d read that Francesca and Steve had a son he had been bombarded with such a mixture of emotions that he hadn’t known what to do with himself. The truth was that there was nothing to do. Only endure.
He bent to pick up the ball but for a moment couldn’t speak, just stood there, holding it.
The child bounced down the stairs one step at a time, then, suddenly shy, stopped about halfway. Guy swallowed, tried to form the words, finally managed, ‘Hello, Toby.’
‘Who are you?’ he said, hanging on to the banister rail as he hopped down another step. ‘How do you know my name?’
He’d read it in a newspaper clipping sent to him by his secretary.
Francesca Lang and Steven Dymoke are pleased to announce the birth of their son Tobias Lang Dymoke.
He’d sent the antique silver rattle, a family heir-loom that should have been passed to his own first-born. A gesture that was meant to say to Steve that he was valued. That they were equals. He’d hoped that with a woman like Francesca at his side, with the birth of his son, Steve might have discovered an inner strength, self-confidence to finally realise that. Maybe he had, but his gift had been returned. The message was clear. Keep away.
‘I’m your Uncle Guy.’ He offered the child the ball and he descended another couple of steps until they were at the same eye level. Then, as he made a grab for the ball, he lost his balance and Guy found himself with an armful of small boy.
‘What are you doing?’
Francesca’s anxious voice startled Toby and he began to cry.
‘Give him to me!’ She didn’t wait, but wrenched the child from his arms, making things worse as she hugged him tight, frightening him. ‘What is it with you? You think just because Steven’s dead you can walk into his home as if you own the place, pick up his son—’
‘The boy overbalanced, Francesca. I caught him before he fell.’ About to add that he was fine until she’d shouted, he thought better of it. She’d just suffered one terrible loss and it was only natural that she’d be protective. ‘I was looking for you to let you know I’m leaving.’
‘You’ve said it. Now will you please just go.’
Distraught, grieving, she wasn’t about to listen to him and he wasn’t about to try and justify his absence from their lives. ‘I simply wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about the paperwork, Steve’s business. I’ll handle it, and if there’s anything you need—’
‘You won’t,’ she declared, lifting her chin a little. ‘It’s my concern, not yours. And I don’t. Need anything.’
Her rejection felt as physical as a slap. He took a breath. ‘All you have to do is call my office. Speak to my secretary—’
‘Your secretary? Well, thanks. It’s good to know where I stand in your priorities.’
‘I thought…’ He’d thought that dealing through an intermediary would be easier for her, but the truth was that in the face of her complete refusal to see him as anything other than her enemy he felt utterly helpless.
Matty appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea if anyone fancies a cup,’ she said, then glanced from him to Francesca and back again. ‘I can make that Scotch if you’d prefer?’
‘Another time. I have to go.’ He crossed to her, bent to take her hand, then taking the opportunity to slip her the card with his mobile number on it, the one he’d been planning to give Francesca. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Matty.’
‘Well, don’t say it as if was the first and last time.’
‘I’m sure Guy has more pressing demands on his time, Matty. A potential oil field or three needing his expertise.’
‘I’ll be staying in London for a week or two.’
‘That long?’ The scorn in Francesca’s voice would have withered crab grass. ‘Oh, well, then we’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about, have we…?’
She was near the edge of hysteria, he thought, and his presence wasn’t helping. Maybe Matty realised that too because she caught his eye and said, ‘I’ll see you out.’
‘It’s all right. He knows the way. This used to be his house until he sold it to Steven at the top of the property boom.’ He looked up and, seeing the shock on his face, she said, ‘What’s the matter? Did you think I didn’t know how much he paid you?’
What could he say? Tell her that she was wrong? That the man she loved, nursed, cared for, had lied to her?
‘He adored you, Guy,’ she said, as he turned to leave. ‘Worshipped you. He was always making excuses for you. In his eyes you could do no wrong…’
How he wished that was true, but wishing helped no one. Instead, he smiled at the child who had stopped crying and was peering up at him from beneath long wet lashes.
‘Goodbye, Toby,’ he said, through what felt like a rock in his throat, and the child thrust the ball he was still holding towards him.
He didn’t know what was expected of him and he got no help from Francesca. Feeling helpless was becoming repetitive. He wasn’t used to it. He didn’t like it. Choosing action, he took the ball and said, ‘Thank you, Toby.’ The child buried his head in his mother’s shoulder.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Francesca.’
‘Don’t bother.’ She didn’t wait to see how he reacted. She swept from the hall, taking Toby with her, and he forced his unwilling feet towards the door.
‘Shall I leave this with you?’ he asked, offering the ball to Matty.
‘Toby gave it to you because he wants you to come back,’ she said.
‘His mother doesn’t feel the same way.’
‘Possibly not, but I don’t see anyone else crossing continents and oceans to be at her side—’
‘Steve was my brother,’ he said.
‘—or leaping to her rescue when she was being hounded by men anxious about their invoices,’ she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. Her face, thin, plainly marked with everything she’d suffered, was bright with intelligence and he sensed an ally.
‘Have they reason to be?’ he asked. ‘Anxious?’
‘Steven didn’t confide in me but he hasn’t been in any state to run the business himself for the last six months.’
‘I wish she’d let me know.’
‘He wouldn’t let her. At the end she called your office anyway, but it was too late. All you can do now, Mr Knight Errant, is stick around and help her pick up the pieces.’
CHAPTER TWO
FRANCESCA was shaking so badly that she had to sit down before her legs gave way. Toby struggled to free himself, but she clutched at him as if he was the only thing standing between her and some dark chasm that yawned in front of her.
She’d been so sure that Guy wouldn’t come today. It had been pure relief when his secretary rang to tell her that although she’d finally managed to get the news to him he was unlikely to make it home in time, even for the funeral. Easy enough to assure the woman that she understood, decline all offers of assistance.
She should have known he would move heaven and earth. Steven had once told her that his brother was a man who simply refused to contemplate the impossible, that only once had he backed down, retreated from the challenge to get what he wanted. Guy Dymoke was a dark, unseen shadow that had seemed to haunt Steven. She should have, could have, done something to change that, she thought guiltily. Made an effort to bridge the gulf that had opened up between them, but an uneasy sense of self-preservation had warned her to leave well alone.
‘Why don’t you go and put your feet up, Fran? You look done in.’
Grateful to Matty for distracting her, she finally allowed Toby to escape. The one thing she mustn’t become was a clinging mother, weeping over her child. ‘I’m fine, really. Where’s Connie?’
‘She’s tidying up the drawing room.’
‘You’ve both been wonderful. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘I wish I could say that the worst is over.’
‘It is. I just have to see the solicitor tomorrow. Sort out the will.’ She didn’t anticipate any difficulty. Steven had told her that he’d made sure she and Toby were taken care of; he must have known he was dying then, despite the fact that neither of them had ever acknowledged it and she had to believe he meant it.
Her real problem was his business. What was going to happen to that?
‘Just remember that you’re not alone,’ Matty continued, distracting her. ‘I’m here, and Connie will hold the fort with Toby—’
‘It’s not necessary, really.’ She’d been forcing her mouth into a smile, her voice into soothing tones of reassurance for so long that it did it on automatic. But she was determined not to worry Matty. She’d made an amazing recovery but she was still far from strong.
‘She wants to help, Fran. To be honest I think she’s terrified you’ll move away and won’t take her with you.’
‘No! I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…’ Even as she said it she realised that Matty was appealing for reassurance too. ‘She’s family,’ she said.
‘Of course she is. That’s what I told her. And Guy Dymoke looks like the kind of man a woman in trouble could lean on.’ Then, while she was still trying to get her head around the idea of leaning on Guy, ‘Is there going to be trouble?’
Francesca was drained, exhausted, tired to the bone, but it wasn’t over yet and she forced the smile into a grin. ‘Are you kidding? I’ve got a company to run and the most challenging thing I’ve had to think about for the last three years is the menu for the next dinner party. That sounds like enough trouble for anyone.’
‘Don’t undersell yourself, Fran.’ Matty reached out, took her hand, held it for a moment. Then, ‘I need to know. Is there going to be trouble?’
She wanted to say no. Absolutely not. The way she had to Guy. But she’d encouraged her cousin to come and share the house after her accident. Steven hadn’t been wildly keen, but the house was huge, far too big for the three of them. Matty had needed to be in London for treatment, needed to have someone close she could call on in an emergency, and there was no one else. Nowhere else. And it wasn’t a one way bargain. She was company during Steven’s absences abroad seeking out the merchandise he imported.
The truth was, she just didn’t know. Steven had never talked about the business. Had always brushed aside her interest, her questions, as something she needn’t bother her head about, until she’d stopped bothering to ask. She wished she hadn’t allowed herself to be so easily distracted, but he obviously hadn’t wanted her involved, and she had Toby and Matty…
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ she said. ‘Not today. Let’s have that Scotch.’
‘But what about the house?’
She heard the fear and knew it was a fair question. Matty had an investment in the house. She’d spent her own money on the conversion of the lower ground floor into a self-contained flat suitable for her wheelchair. A talented illustrator, she’d extended it to make a studio so that she could work there.
‘He always promised me that the house was safe.’ Always promised that he would never use their home to raise finance. She wanted to believe that he had meant that, but if the company was in any kind of trouble—and what company wasn’t these days?—and the bank wanted its pound of flesh…
She and Toby could live anywhere, but Matty would never be able to find another home in London. Not like the one she had with them, especially converted to her needs. With the space. Room for her drawing board…
‘I’m sorry. Of course he did. It was your palace—he said so often enough, and you were his princess.’ Matty looked around. ‘I wonder how he raised enough cash to buy it at the top of the property boom?’
‘He didn’t have to. His father left him some money. Nothing like the fortune Guy had in trust from his mother, of course—especially after some City fraud put a major dent in the family finances—but there was enough for this house. He just wanted everything to be perfect for me.’
As if he had something to prove. There had only ever been one person he needed to prove himself to—and, torn between relief and fury that Guy had never bothered to show up and be impressed by his success, she declared, ‘And it was. Perfect.’
But she couldn’t quite meet Matty’s eye as she said it.
Guy paid the cab driver, peeled off the parking ticket stuck to his windscreen, tossed it into the glove box and headed for the echoing space of the Thames-side loft apartment that he’d lavished time and money on, but which only served to remind him of the emptiness at the heart of his life.
He poured Scotch into a glass, sank into the comfort of a soft leather armchair and stared out across the river. He wasn’t seeing the boats, didn’t notice the lights that were coming on as dusk settled over the city, blurring the familiar skyline. All he could see was Francesca Lang. Not sombre in black with her hair coiled up off her neck, but the way she’d looked the first time he’d set eyes on her.
He sipped the whisky, but its heat didn’t warm him. There was nothing in the world that could warm him other than the arms of a woman who was forbidden him in every code he lived by. A woman who today had looked at him as if he was something that had crawled out from under a stone. He’d anticipated a frosty reception, but he hadn’t anticipated this level of animosity. Every single word she’d uttered had felt like a blow. He’d been taking them from her all afternoon and he felt bruised to the bone.
He abandoned the whisky—there was no help for what ailed him in a bottle—got up and walked restlessly across to the window, seeking distraction. Finding none.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, closed his eyes. Running the endless loop of memory that was all he had of her.
If he’d had any idea what was coming he’d have been on his guard, but the moment Francesca had appeared in the doorway of that restaurant she’d stolen his wits as well as what passed for his heart, blind-siding him, so that he’d been exposed, vulnerable, and Steve—clever Steve—had instantly picked up the signals and positively revelled in the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had something that his half-brother wanted, something he could never have.
He hadn’t blamed him for that. He had just wanted to be somewhere else, a million miles from the restaurant, but there had been no escape. There had been an entire evening to get through first and all he could do was pull down the mental shutters, shake Steve’s hand, brush Francesca’s cheek with his lips as he welcomed her into the family, congratulated her. It had been a quiet torture then and the slow drip of it had never left him.
His mind, stuck in an endless re-run that he couldn’t escape—didn’t want to escape—continued to play that moment over and over every time he stopped concentrating on something else. Every time he closed his eyes.
The peachy softness of her cheek. A subtle scent that hadn’t come from any bottle but was a fusion of her hair, the warmth of her body, her clothes, the fresh air she’d brought in with her, all enhanced by a touch of something exotic and rich. He’d had three years to analyse it, reduce it to its constituent parts.
All he had been able to do was wish them well, be glad that Steve had finally found what he’d always been searching for. Someone who loved him. Someone who would always be there. A family of his own.
And live with it.
Attempt to carry on a normal conversation.
‘Where are you planning to live?’ he’d asked. ‘Steve’s flat isn’t big enough for two, let alone a baby.’ It was like prodding himself with a hot needle.
‘We’re looking around for just the right place…’ Then, with a casual shrug, Steve added, ‘Fran and I looked at the Elton Street house yesterday.’
His heart missed a beat as he forced himself to turn to Francesca, include her in the conversation. ‘Did you like it?’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Fran fell head over heels in love with it,’ Steve said emphatically. ‘I’d like to come and see you tomorrow. Talk about it.’
He ignored the opening his brother had left him.
Maybe he was the one avoiding eye contact. Avoiding a repeat of that moment when, with one look, the entire world seemed to slide into place and lock with an almost audible click; the kick-in-the-stomach pain that went with the loss of something precious.
He forced himself to look directly at her.
‘You would like to live there?’ he asked.
For a moment something shimmered between them as, very quietly, she said, ‘It felt like home.’
He dragged himself back from the edge. From stepping off. From saying, Come with me and I will give you everything your heart desires. The house, my heart, my life…
‘Then I’m sure Steve will find a way to give it to you.’
‘It depends on the price. Unlike you, brother, I don’t have unlimited means at my disposal.’
‘No one has unlimited means.’ But he’d got the picture. The reason for the invitation to dinner. The last time he’d had a call from his half-brother—make that every time he’d had a call from him—it had been to ‘borrow’ money, on the last occasion to ask for start-up funds for his latest business venture. He’d assumed tonight was going to be more of the same, but clearly it wasn’t to help with some half-baked business plan he wanted this time.
‘Have you set a wedding date?’ he asked, evading a direct answer and Steve didn’t push. He clearly didn’t want Francesca to know that he was asking for help with finance. But then why would he push? In the past all he’d had to do was lay out his desires and wait for guilt to do the rest.
‘Wedding? Who said anything about getting married?’
‘Isn’t that the obvious next step?’ He looked at Steve. A youthful marriage was the one mistake he hadn’t been called to bail him out of, but anything was possible. ‘Unless there’s some good reason why you shouldn’t?’ He managed a grin of sorts. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me?’
Steve grinned right back. ‘Relax, Guy. I don’t have a secret wife or three tucked away. Fran’s the only woman I’ve ever wanted to settle down with.’
‘Then what’s your problem?’ If Francesca Lang had been his, nothing on earth would have stopped him from swearing his undying love in front of as many witnesses as he could cram into one room. Making that public vow to love and honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both should live… ‘If you’re setting up home together, having a baby…’
It was like poking a sore tooth. Something he knew he’d regret, but he couldn’t stop himself.
‘For heaven’s sake, listen to yourself. Marriage is meaningless in this day and age. An anachronism. Outdated. Just a way of keeping lawyers fat when it all goes wrong.’
He glanced at Francesca to see how she was taking that ‘when’, but she was looking down at her plate.
With no clue as to her feelings, he shrugged and said, ‘I believe you’ll find that even in the twenty-first century it offers some benefits.’ What they were, beyond the special bond that swearing till-death-us-do-part vows to one another, he couldn’t immediately summon to mind. But then that would be enough for him.
‘The chance to dress up and have a party? I don’t think we need to go to church first, do you?’ Then, ‘Look, you know the kind of nasty divorce Dad went through with my mother. Fran’s been through much the same thing with her parents.’ Steve leaned across and took her hand, grasping it in his, emphasising their relationship. ‘We’re allergic, okay?’
Guy fastened his gaze on some point in the distance. ‘If you believe that not getting married will protect you from the fallout of a disintegrating relationship, think again. Once property and children are involved…’
‘Guy, I hear what you’re saying, but that stuff is just for rich people.’ He didn’t add …like you. He didn’t have to.
‘It’s your decision, of course,’ he said, wondering if Francesca felt quite as strongly on the subject—she’d remained silent—but he didn’t dare look at her again. He didn’t want to see the love shining out of her eyes. Not when she was looking at another man. ‘Just don’t discount it without real thought.’
‘We have thought about it.’ He lifted Francesca’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then, with a smile, he said, ‘But if you want to play the big brother you can pay for the champagne.’
The message came over loud and clear. Steve was saying, This is nothing to do with you. It’s my baby she’s carrying…
That had been the only thing he’d been able to think about all through that terrible evening. Francesca was pregnant and he’d have given everything he possessed to change places with his brother. His career, the company he’d built up with a group of friends, the fortune that had been left to him by his own mother, just to be sitting on the other side of the table with his arm draped protectively over the back of her chair, knowing that the baby she carried was his.
Total madness. He’d only just met the woman. Had exchanged barely more than a dozen words with her. The briefest touch of her cheek against his lips. The moment she’d realised who he was, the hundred watt smile had been dimmed to something more reserved. Steve had obviously given her chapter and verse on all his grievances. Real and imagined. Told her all about his older, more fortunate half-brother who had everything, including a mother who’d loved him. Especially a mother who’d loved him…
It made no difference. Even the forty-watt version lit up his soul.
‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’
‘I’ve got to get used to it, Matty. Today seems like a good day to start.’
Fran smoothed her collar, regarded her image in the hall mirror. Black suit, perfectly groomed hair. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, she looked every inch the businesswoman. Steven would have approved. He had always said that image was everything. The trick was to ignore the butterflies practising formation-flying in your stomach; if you looked confident, looked as if you knew what you were talking about, people would believe in you. Okay, so it was three years since she’d set foot in an office, but her brain hadn’t atrophied just because she’d had a baby—well, not that much anyway.
Right now a load of people were sitting around in the office waiting for someone to say, It’ll be all right. Let’s get on with it. And there was no one but her.
‘I’ll get the paperwork sorted out with the lawyers first,’ she said. ‘And then I’m going into the office.’
‘What is he doing here?’
Guy had only just arrived when a secretary announced Francesca’s arrival. She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway when she saw him, but there was no stop-the-world moment this time. No out-of-control hairstyle, no clinging dress to ride up and no yard of leg. And she didn’t pause to look up at him with a smile caught on her lips.
He hadn’t realised just how much weight she’d lost. Her hair was paler too. More grown up than the corn gold he remembered. Maybe that hadn’t been her natural colour, either, but he preferred it.
That night she had been all vibrant colour, now she was monochrome, the pallor of her skin emphasised by dark hollows beneath her eyes, at her temples. It made the quick angry flush as she saw him all the more noticeable.
‘Why is he here?’ she said, ignoring him completely and looking directly at Tom Palmer, the family lawyer, who’d come around his desk to welcome her.
‘Guy is your…is Steven’s executor, Fran. It’s his responsibility to see that the will is properly executed.’
Now she turned those lovely grey eyes on him. ‘So that’s why you raced back from the back of beyond,’ she said. ‘To secure your assets.’
‘I have no doubt that Steven left everything he possessed to you and Toby. It’s my sole responsibility to ensure that his wishes are carried out and I will do that, no matter what they are.’
Tom, who had undoubtedly witnessed family discord on such occasions many times over a long career, intervened with a quiet, ‘Please, come and sit down, Fran. Would you care for some coffee…tea, perhaps?’
‘Nothing, thank you. Let’s get this over with. I’ve a full day ahead of me.’
‘Of course. The will itself is a simple enough document.’ He opened a file. ‘First, Guy, Steven left this letter for you.’
He pocketed it without comment.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Francesca demanded.
‘Not now,’ he said. If Steve, the least organised person in the world, had chosen to write him a letter when he knew he was dying, he wanted to be alone when he read it. ‘Tom?’
Prompted, Tom Palmer began to read the will.
While he’d been in a position to make conditions, Guy had insisted that Steve make a will in favour of Francesca. It had not been altered, and her relief, though contained, was nevertheless evident for those with eyes to read the small signs. The briefly closed eyes, the slightest slump in her posture as the tension left her.
‘Is that it?’ she asked.
‘It’s little enough,’ Tom said. ‘Unfortunately, as you know, Steven surrendered his life assurance to raise some capital last year.’
‘He did?’ The shocked words slipped out before she could contain them. ‘Yes. Of course. He discussed it with me,’ she continued, swiftly covering her slip.
That had been the other condition. The life policy. So much for his best intentions.
‘When I asked if that was it, I just meant, can I go now? I want to go to the office, make a start on sorting things out.’
She was incredible, he thought. She’d just received a monumental blow but she’d absorbed it and, but for those two words, no one would believe it was anything other than what she’d expected to hear.
‘Not quite all,’ Tom said, clearly relieved that he hadn’t had to deal with hysterics. ‘I just need your signature on here so that I can set about organising a valuation of the estate. It shouldn’t take too long.’
‘Valuation?’ She looked up from the document he’d placed in front of her.
‘Of the company. For tax purposes.’ She looked blank. ‘Inheritance tax?’ he elaborated. ‘I did warn Steven of the situation when he originally signed the will. At that time there was no urgency, of course, but I did suggest he talk it over with you. Maybe consider going through the motions. Just a ten minute job at the local Register Office would do.’ Guy could see that Tom was beginning to founder in the face of Francesca’s incomprehension. Clearly she had never had that conversation with Steven, and he wondered just how many more shocks she could take. ‘Just to satisfy the legalities,’ Tom ploughed on. ‘Perhaps after the baby was born…’
‘Inheritance tax?’ she repeated, ignoring the waffle.
‘Is the company likely to exceed the inheritance tax threshold?’ Guy asked, giving Tom a moment to catch up. Work out for himself exactly how much in the dark she was.
‘I have no idea,’ the lawyer said.
They both looked at Francesca for an answer, but she dismissed their query with an impatient little gesture.
‘Tell me about inheritance tax,’ she said rather more sharply.
‘I don’t imagine it will be too much of a problem, unless the company is doing substantially better than it was at the last audit,’ Tom Palmer said, clearly unsure which would be preferable. ‘However, since you weren’t married to Steven any legacy will be subject to inheritance tax.’
She sat and digested this for a moment, then said, ‘So if we’d been married I wouldn’t have to pay inheritance tax?’
‘No, but as I said—’
‘And because we didn’t go through some totally meaningless ceremony I will? Have to pay it?’
‘Well, yes. That’s the present situation, I’m afraid.’
‘But that’s outrageous! We’ve lived together for nearly three years. We have a child…’
‘If you’d lived together for twenty-three years and had ten children it would make no difference, I’m afraid.’
After the brief stunned silence she asked, ‘What’s the liability threshold?’
‘£250,000. After that forty percent of the estate goes to the Inland Revenue.’
‘But…’ Guy had thought she looked pale. He had been wrong. Colour leached from her skin, leaving her ashen. ‘But surely the house alone is worth ten times that?’
‘You don’t have to worry about the house, Fran.’
‘You mean the house is free of inheritance tax?’ Francesca asked.
‘I mean that Steven did not own the house.’
She shook her head. ‘No. That’s not right. Steven bought it from Guy. Three years ago.’ She turned to him. Looked up at him. ‘We’ve lived there for three years. Tell him.’
‘There seems to be some confusion, Francesca. I don’t know what Steve told you, but he didn’t buy the house from me. It was sold to a property company about ten years ago, along with a lot of other property.’
‘But he said—you said…’ He saw her trying to recall the conversation in the restaurant that night. ‘He was going to come and see you. To talk about it. He asked you. That night…’
‘He asked me for help with a deposit for the house, that’s all. I didn’t know until yesterday that you thought I had owned it. And I had no idea he hadn’t gone ahead and bought it.’
‘But why would he need to borrow from you? He had money…’ She stopped. ‘How much?’
He didn’t want to go there.
‘How much did you give him?’ she demanded.
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’
‘But he didn’t buy it?’ This to Tom Palmer.
The lawyer shook his head. ‘As far as I know it wasn’t even on the market at the time. He has been renting it on a yearly lease.’
‘But it’s our home,’ she said. ‘Toby’s home. Matty spent thousands of pounds on the studio extension, converting the place into a flat she could use. If I’d known we only had a lease I’d never have encouraged her to do that.’ She caught her breath. ‘They don’t know about that, do they? The people who own the house?’
‘I would think it’s highly unlikely,’ Guy said gently.
To say that she looked stunned, confused, was an understatement. It was hardly surprising. He felt as if he’d taken a body blow, but she had been under the impression that she’d inherited a house worth upwards of two million pounds. Even taking into account the taxman, that would have meant she could sell up and have a million plus change to set up home somewhere else. Suddenly she owned nothing except a company that no one seemed wildly optimistic about and a short-term lease that might not be renewed. That she probably couldn’t afford to renew…
Fran discovered that reaction was beyond her. It was as if she was under water, sinking very slowly, and she was completely paralysed, unable to do anything to stop herself from drowning.
One moment it had seemed as if she could relax, shake off the nagging sense of impending disaster. Now—
‘There is one other thing.’
‘There’s more?’ She turned and looked at Tom Palmer. Until now he had been wearing the grave expression of the average family lawyer. Now he looked positively uneasy.
How much worse could it get?
‘The last time I saw Steven he asked me to add a codicil to his will. I had to tell him that it was a bequest I was not prepared to add to that document. We came to a compromise. He dictated his wishes to me and I promised to read them out at this point.’
‘You mean after you’ve told me that my son and I are homeless and penniless?’
‘Francesca—’
She glared at Guy, daring him to say another word.
‘I’ll read it now then, shall I?’ Tom waited briefly, but neither of them said a word and he took a letter from the file in front of him.
‘Before I start I want to say that there is nothing in this document that is binding,’ he said, clearly unhappy about something. ‘These are no more than Steven’s…’ He stopped.
‘Last wishes?’ she finished for him.
‘Just read it,’ Guy said.
‘Very well.’ Tom cleared his throat. ‘Well, Guy, here we are again. It’s in his own words, just as he said it,’ he explained.
‘Tom!’
‘Sorry. Right…
Well, Guy, here we are again. Me messing up and you doing your big brother bit and saving my hide. Except this time my hide is well beyond saving. It’s Fran and Toby who need you now.
‘Not this side of hell,’ she muttered.
‘First the confession. Well, you’ll have worked this out for yourself by now, but I used your money for the lease on the house for some diamond earrings for Fran—since she didn’t want a ring. Oh, and to pay the bill at that fancy private maternity hospital. Nothing but the best for mine. Something I learned from you. I just didn’t have the cash to pay for it. But you never let me down.’
‘He didn’t have to do that!’ Fran protested. ‘I wanted to go to the local hospital. I could have lived without diamonds or any of the other stuff…’
Tom waited patiently for her to finish, but she ground to a halt, consumed with shame that Steven had taken money from his brother to give her everything her heart desired. Consumed with guilt that she had taken it without a thought. But that was Steven. He’d said money was something to be enjoyed. Spent it as if he never had to think about where it was going to come from. Maybe he never had. Maybe Guy had always been there…
Tom and Guy were looking at her and she lifted a hand, a silent gesture that he should go on.
‘Okay, Guy, here’s what I want you to do. Just about the last thing I did, before I stopped being able to do anything for myself, was to book a surprise wedding for Fran and me. A beach job in the Caribbean. It seems I was over-optimistic about my prognosis and I’m not going to be able to make it, but Toby is going to need a father and Fran will need someone to help her take care of her waifs and strays and, as always, you are it.
Tom says I can’t make a codicil to the will leaving Fran and Toby to you as a bequest, but I know you won’t let me down. He’s got the tickets, all you have to do is turn up and say ‘I do’. It shouldn’t be a problem for either of you.
Steve’
CHAPTER THREE
THERE was a long, still moment after Tom stopped speaking when it seemed that everyone had forgotten to breathe.
Then Guy said, ‘Is that right, Tom? You have the tickets?’
‘Yes, but—’
He held out his hand and the lawyer reluctantly passed the travel folder to him. Fran watched in disbelief as he calmly opened it and checked the documents before turning to her.
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Liz Fielding
A convenient wife… An inconvenient love…Francesca walked into the room and Guy Dymoke was mesmerized. But she was pregnant with Guy's brother's baby. An impossible situation…and Guy had been hiding his feelings ever since.Years later, Francesca is now a widow, and when the will is read she's stunned to discover she's been placed into Guy's safekeeping…as his convenient wife! Guy wants to give Francesca and her son all the care in the world. He also yearns to tell her how much he really loves her. But he'll wait for the day that she gives her love freely in return….
Rita
Award-winning author Liz Fielding “gets better and better with every book!”
—Romantic Times
Further praise for Liz Fielding
About The Bridesmaid’s Reward:
“The characters are out-of-this-world fun, the scenes and dialogue laugh-out-loud funny and the story is delightful.”
—Romantic Times
About A Suitable Groom:
“A sparkling, bubbly romance with witty dialogue, humor, and a deliciously scrumptious hero.”
—Bookbug on the Web
About His Desert Rose:
“Once again, talented storyteller Liz Fielding has given readers another truly remarkable tale of love conquering all, utilizing intense emotional scenes, dynamic characters, a powerful internal conflict and an exotic desert setting.”
—Romantic Times
About The Best Man and the Bridesmaid:
“A delightful tale with a fresh spin on a fan-favorite storyline, snappy dialogue and charming characters.”
—Romantic Times
Liz Fielding started writing at the age of twelve, when she won a writing competition at school. After that early success there was quite a gap—during which she was busy working in Africa and the Middle East, getting married and having children—before her first book was published in 1992. Now readers worldwide fall in love with her irresistible heroes, and adore her independent-minded heroines. Visit Liz’s Web site for news and extracts of upcoming books at www.lizfielding.com
A Wife on Paper
Liz Fielding
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER ONE
HIS brother was late, the restaurant was crowded, noisy, the kind of fashionable look-at-me-I’ve-arrived place he loathed, and Guy wished he’d made an excuse, stuck to his original plan to have a sandwich at his desk as he worked through the evening.
A rush of cold air as the door opened behind him gave him hope that his ordeal would soon be over, but as he turned he saw that it wasn’t Steve but a young woman rushing to get in out of the rain.
She paused momentarily, framed in the entrance, spotlit by the bright lights of the cocktail bar against the darkness outside.
Time stretched like elastic. The earth stopped turning. Everything slowed down. He felt as if he could count every one of the raindrops sparkling in her corn gold hair.
It was tousled, as if it had been caught by the gusting wind that she seemed to have brought into the restaurant with her, stirring everyone so that they turned to look. Kept on looking. Maybe it was because she was laughing, as if running through the rain was something she did for fun. Because she was a breath of fresh air…
She lifted her arms to comb her fingers through her hair, shake it back into place, and the dress she was wearing rode up to expose half a yard of thigh. When she dropped her hands and the hem descended, the scooped neckline of her dress fell too, offering a glimpse of what the clinging fabric so enticingly suggested.
Nothing about her was flat; everything about her seemed an open invitation to his hands to describe her, to stroke the sinuous lines of her body. She wasn’t beautiful exactly. Her nose lacked classical perfection. Her mouth was too big, but her silver-fox eyes sparkled as if she was lit up from within and the glow that emanated from her eclipsed every other woman in the room.
And, as time caught up with them, his body reacted as if she’d touched his personal blue touch-paper.
Pulse, heart rate, all the physical responses leapt into overdrive, but it was more than a lustful response to the kind of stimuli that probably had half the men in the room in the same condition.
It was like coming face to face with destiny. Coming face to face with the reason for your existence.
As he rose slowly to his feet she saw him, their gazes locked, and for a split second the laughter froze on her lips, and he thought that she felt it too. Then his brother was there, closing the door, cutting off the rush of cold air, breaking the connection between them as he put his arm around the girl’s waist, pulled her close against him.
Something hot, possessive, swept through him and he wanted to grab Steve, pull him away, demand to know what the hell he thought he was doing. Except, of course, it was obvious. He was saying to the world—saying to him—this woman is mine. And, as if the gesture wasn’t enough, he grinned and said, ‘Guy, I’m glad you could make it. I really want you to meet Francesca.’ He looked down at her with the look of a man who’d won the Lottery. ‘She’s moving in with me. She’s having my baby…’ Make that a man who’d won the Lottery twice.
‘Mr Dymoke…’ He started at a touch to his shoulder, opened his eyes to see the stewardess smiling down at him. ‘We’re about to land.’
He dragged his hands over his face in an effort to dispel the lingering wisps of a dream that, even after three years, continued to haunt him.
He straightened his chair, fastened his seat belt, checked the time. He should just make it.
Guy Dymoke was the first person she saw as she stepped from the car. That wasn’t what surprised her. He was the kind of man who would stand out in any crowd. Tall, broad-shouldered, deeply tanned, his thick dark hair lightened by the sun, he made everyone else look as if they were two-dimensional figures in a black and white photograph.
The effect was mesmerising. She saw it in the effect he had on the people around him. Had to steel herself against it, even now.
She wasn’t even surprised that he had taken the time from his busy life to fly in from whatever distant part of the world he currently called home to attend his half-brother’s funeral.
He was a man who took the formalities very seriously. He believed that every t should be properly crossed, every i firmly dotted. He’d made no secret of his disapproval of her and Steven’s decision not to do the ‘decent’ thing and get married. Demonstrated it by his absence from their lives.
As if it was any of his business.
No, what truly astonished her was that he had the nerve to show up at all after three years in which they hadn’t seen or heard from him. She hadn’t cared for herself, but for Steven…
Poor Steven…
Thankfully, she didn’t have to make an effort to hide her feelings as their gazes briefly met over the heads of the gathered mourners. Her face was frozen into a white mask. Nothing showed. There was nothing to show. Just a gaping hollow, an emptiness yawning in front of her. She knew if she allowed herself to think, to feel, she’d never get through this, but as she walked past him, looking neither to left nor right, he said her name, very softly.
‘Francesca…’
Softly. Almost tenderly. As if he cared. And the ache in her throat intensified. The mask threatened to crack…
Anger saved her. Hot, shocking, like a charge of lightning.
How dared he come here today? How dared he make a show of offering her sympathy when he hadn’t bothered to so much as lift a telephone when Steven was alive and it would have actually meant something?
Did he expect her to stop? Listen to his empty condolences? Allow him to take her arm, sit beside her in church as if he gave a damn…?
Just for appearances.
‘Hypocrite,’ she replied as, looking neither to left nor right, she swept past him.
She looked brittle. Insubstantial. Like spun glass. Altered out of all recognition from the vital young woman who’d changed his life in a moment with just one look.
Thin watery sunlight filtered through the October sky to light up her pale hair, emphasise the translucence of her skin, as she stood by the church doorway, shaking hands with those who’d taken the time to come and pay their respects. Inviting them back to the house. Cool, composed, apparently in control. The only moment when she’d seemed real, herself, had been that quick angry flush to her cheeks when he’d spoken her name. The rest was all just a role she was playing, he thought, a performance to get her through the nightmare.
One tap and she’d shatter…
He hung back, waiting until the others had moved off, before he stepped out of the shadows of the porch. She knew he was there, but he’d given her the chance to walk away, ignore him. But she was waiting for him to say his piece. Maybe she hoped he’d explain, but what could he say?
The words for what he was feeling hadn’t yet been invented. The loss, the pain, the regret that the last time he’d seen his brother, Steve had been at his worst. It had been deliberate, of course. A ploy to make him angry. And he’d risen self-righteously to the bait…
Neither of them had come out of it with any glory.
But she’d lost the man she loved. The father of her child. How much worse must it be for her…
He stepped forward. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Francesca.’
‘Ten days. Time enough to have got from almost anywhere, I would have thought.’
He wanted to ask her why she’d left it so late. Too late.
‘I wish I could have relieved you of the burden of organising this.’ His voice seemed to belong to someone else. Someone cold, distant…
‘Oh, please. Don’t apologise. Your secretary rang, offering to help— I imagine Steven’s lawyer must have called your office—but a funeral is a family thing. Not something for strangers.’
He wasn’t talking about the funeral, but the months before that, when Steve had been dying and he’d been on the other side of the world, unaware of the tragedy about to overtake them all. By the time the message that his brother was running out of time had reached him, it was too late.
‘It took me days to get to any kind of landing strip when the message came through about Steve.’ He sounded, even to himself, as if he were making excuses. ‘I’ve come straight from the airport.’
Finally she turned to look at him. Acknowledge him.
‘You really needn’t have bothered. We’ve managed perfectly well without you for the last three years. The last six months changed nothing.’
Her voice was cold, too. Every word an ice dagger striking at his heart. But this wasn’t about him. His feelings.
Right now all he cared about was her. He wanted to say that she was all he’d cared about for the last three years. Instead he said, ‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘All right?’ She repeated the words carefully, as if testing them. Trying to divine his meaning. ‘In what way could I possibly be “all right”? Steven is dead. Toby’s daddy is dead…’
‘Financially,’ he said, pressing on, even though he knew that he was making things immeasurably worse. Or perhaps not. How could they possibly be worse?
Her silver-grey eyes regarded him with utter disdain. ‘I should have known your only concern would be for the practicalities. Ensuring that I did it by the book. It isn’t feelings that matter with you, is it, Guy? It’s appearances.’
Which answered that question.
Smothering the pain, he pressed on. ‘Practicalities have to be addressed, Francesca.’
Listen to him! He should be putting his arms around her, offering her comfort, taking a little for himself, but since that was denied him he was talking like a lawyer. If he’d been a lawyer there would be some excuse…
‘Please don’t concern yourself about us, Guy. By your standards I’m about as “all right” as it’s possible to be. The house. Life insurance… That is what you mean, isn’t it?’ With that, she turned and crossed to the waiting limousine. The driver held the door for her, but she didn’t get in, just stood there for a moment, head bowed, as if gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. After a moment or two she straightened, glanced back at him, then with a lift of her shoulders she said, ‘I suppose you’d better come back to the house. For appearances.’
Then she climbed into the car and waited for him to follow her.
He didn’t mistake her invitation for a thaw but he abandoned the car that had been waiting for him at the airport without hesitation.
‘Thank you,’ he said as he joined her.
‘I don’t want your thanks. He was your brother. I haven’t forgotten that, even if you did.’ And she shifted to the farthest end of the seat, putting the maximum distance between them, not that he had any intention of crowding her. Offering comfort that she clearly didn’t want—at least, not from him. But he had to say something.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’
That earned him another look to freeze his heart. ‘That’s just guilt talking, Guy. If you’d cared about him you wouldn’t have stayed away. Why did you do that?’ For a long moment she challenged him. Then, in the shadowy interior of the limousine, he saw a faint colour smudge her pale cheeks before, with the smallest lift of her shoulders, she let it go. ‘The cancer was virulent. Faster than anyone anticipated. I asked him if he wanted me to call you, but he said there was plenty of time.’
Instinctively he reached to hold her, comfort her as he’d hold anyone in distress, but her eyes flashed a warning. It was like hitting a force field at speed. Shocking. Painful.
He’d intended only to reassure her but realised that anything he did or said would simply fuel her resentment that he was alive, while the man she loved was dead. She clearly thought him capable of feeling nothing but guilt. And that only at a stretch.
‘He was so sure that you’d come,’ she said.
‘I’m not clairvoyant.’
‘No. Just absent.’
He bit back the need to defend himself. She needed to strike out at someone and he was a handy target. If he could do nothing else for her, he could take the blame.
When he didn’t say anything—and he didn’t believe she expected or wanted him to respond—she looked away, staring out of the windows at the passing urban landscape as if anything was better than looking at him. Talking to him. Only a tiny betraying sigh escaped her lips as they turned into the elegant city street with its tall white stuccoed houses, where she and Steve had made their home.
The sound cut deeper than any words—no matter how much they were intended to wound.
The car drew up at the kerb and he climbed out, hesitating between offering his hand and the certainty that she would ignore it. But as she stepped on to the pavement her legs buckled momentarily beneath her and neither of them had much choice in the matter. He caught her elbow beneath his hand. She felt insubstantial, fragile, weightless as, briefly, she allowed him to support her.
‘Why don’t you give this a miss?’ he said. ‘I can handle it.’
Maybe, if he had been someone else, she might have surrendered control, leaned against him, allowed him to take the strain. But she gathered herself, shook off his support and said, ‘Steven managed without you, so can I.’ Then she walked quickly up the steps to her front door to join the subdued gathering.
Francesca paused on the threshold of her drawing room to catch her breath. She had never felt so alone in her life and, unable to help herself, she glanced back to where Guy was shedding his coat. For a moment their eyes met and she glimpsed his pain. But she buried her guilt. She’d meant to hurt him, wound him for staying away, and not just for Steven. Then someone said her name, put an arm around her, and she allowed herself to be wrapped up in this show of care from virtual strangers, no matter how shallow their sentiments, how empty their words of support.
But the imprint of his fingers still burned into her and she rubbed at her arm, shook her head as if to loosen the image. Forced herself to concentrate. This wasn’t just her tragedy. There were other people here, people who needed reassurance about their jobs, the future of Steven’s business. She’d left it to tick over in the hands of the staff for the last few months. Now she would have to take control, make decisions. But not today.
Today she had to lay Steven to rest in style, ensure that everyone had something to drink. Something to eat. Give his friends time to talk about him.
And avoid Guy Dymoke.
‘Fran?’
She jumped as a voice at her elbow brought her back to the present. This minute. This dreadful hour that she had to get through.
‘Did everything go smoothly?’
She looked down, made an effort to pull herself together. Put on a reassuring smile for her cousin. ‘Yes. It was a beautiful service. Thank you, Matty.’
‘You should have let me come with you.’
‘No. No, really, I needed to know that Toby was with someone he loves and I didn’t want Connie distracted while she was making sandwiches.’ Then, with a little jab of panic, ‘Where is Toby? Is he okay?’
‘He was a bit fractious so Connie took him upstairs and put him down for a nap. With a bit of luck he’ll sleep through this.’
‘I hope so.’ Another hour and it would be over. Just one more hour. She could do it. She’d held herself together for so long. She could manage one more hour. She wasn’t going to break down now. Not in front of Guy Dymoke.
Guy watched her as she took on the role of comforter, taking the hand of a thin young woman confined to a wheelchair as they exchanged a few words, hugging people, allowing them to grieve. She was the perfect hostess, ensuring that everyone had something to eat and drink, all the while managing to keep her distance from him without so much as a glance in his direction. As if she had some sixth sense that warned her when he was getting too close.
He decided to make it easy for her, seeking out those friends of his brother’s that he remembered, catching up with their news. Introducing himself to those he did not. Checking the arrangements for the reading of the will with Tom Palmer, the family lawyer. As executor he would have to be there, welcome or not. More than that, he wanted reassurance that Francesca and her son were indeed ‘all right’.
‘You’re not eating.’
He turned around and found himself confronted by the woman in the wheelchair, offering him a plate of sandwiches.
‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry.’
‘That’s no excuse. It’s part of the ritual,’ she said. ‘Man’s natural reaction to his own mortality. An affirmation that life goes on. You know…eat, drink and be grateful it was someone else who fell under the bus. Metaphorically speaking.’
‘In my case,’ he replied, ‘I suspect it would have caused a great deal less bother all round if it had been me. Falling under the metaphorical bus.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Her eyebrows rose to match her interest. ‘Then you must be Guy Dymoke, the rich, successful older brother who no one ever talks about. You don’t look like Steven,’ she added, without waiting for confirmation.
‘We’re half-brothers. Same father, different mothers. Steve favours—favoured—his. Mother.’
‘Should one speak ill of the dead at his own funeral?’ she enquired, with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. Then, clearly not expecting an answer, ‘I’m Matty Lang,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘Francesca’s cousin. So what’s the mystery? Why haven’t we met?’
‘There’s no mystery. I’m a geologist. I spend a lot of time overseas in remote places.’ Then, because he didn’t want to elaborate on why he didn’t include family visits when he was in London, he said, ‘Francesca must be glad to have you here. Her parents live overseas, I understand.’
‘They do. In separate hemispheres to avoid bloodshed. As for the rest of them, they’re all too busy to waste time at a funeral that won’t benefit them in any way.’ She looked around, rather pointedly, then at him and said, ‘It was one of the things Fran and Steven had in common, apparently.’
‘I’m surprised his mother isn’t here.’ A B-list actress who had been through half a dozen husbands and lovers since his father had paid through the nose to be rid of her, she rarely missed a photo opportunity. ‘She looks good in black.’
‘She sent flowers and her excuses. Apparently she’s filming some lust-in-the-dust mini-series in North Africa. She was sure Fran would understand. Call me cynical, but with Francesca getting top billing I suspect she decided there wasn’t any PR mileage in admitting to having a son old enough to have made her a grandmother.’
‘Not good for the image,’ he agreed, doing his best to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘She was never cut out for grandmotherhood. Or motherhood, come to that.’ Every time that Steve had got himself into trouble, every time he had sworn that this was the last time he’d dig him out, he had found himself rerunning a long distant memory of his stepmother screaming at his father, furious that she’d had to surrender some film part because she was pregnant. Had found himself remembering the miserable little boy sobbing his heart out when he had finally realised his mother wasn’t coming back.
And he was no better. He’d walked away, too. He’d told himself that Steve didn’t need him any more now he had a family of his own. But that had just been an excuse.
‘I’m glad Francesca had you to give her some support today,’ he said.
‘She was there for me when I had my own close call with death-by-transport.’ Her smile was slightly wry. ‘Not a bus, in my case, but a combination of speed, black ice and a close encounter with a brick wall.’ The sympathetic response that came to his lips on automatic was neatly deflected as she went on, ‘Of course, since I live in the basement I didn’t have to make much of an effort to be here.’
‘The basement?’
She clearly misread his expression. ‘I believe that Lower Ground Floor is the correct “estate agent” term. It’s not as bad as it sounds, I promise you. It’s a basement at the front, where I have my kitchen and bedroom and a front door for visitors who can handle steps, but the land slopes away at the rear. My sitting room and studio is on ground level so that I have direct access to the rear garden, the garage and my car. I can’t walk now, but I can still drive.’
‘I’m familiar with the layout,’ he said, although her reference to a studio puzzled him. ‘My maternal grandmother used to live here,’ he explained when she looked surprised.
‘Did she? I didn’t know that it was a family house. I thought Steven had paid…’ She clearly decided that she was getting into something that was none of her business. ‘What I meant to say is that I’m not dependent. I’m totally self-contained and go for days without seeing either of them.’ She stopped, clearly realising that ‘either’ was no longer a possibility. ‘Fran managed to convince Steven that the conversion was a good idea. That a self-contained granny-stroke-staff flat would increase the value of the house.’
‘I’m sure she’s right.’
‘She’s more than just a pretty face. Of course I paid for the extension work.’
‘Of course.’
‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you to one of Connie’s sandwich surprises?’
‘Who is Connie?’
‘Another of Fran’s lame ducks. She has a bit of trouble with English and can’t seem to tell her lemon curd from her mayonnaise, which tends to make her cooking a bit of a gamble.’
‘In that case I’m quite sure,’ he replied.
Matty grinned. ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’
‘I left it behind in a steaming swamp. It needs a rest.’
‘Fair enough.’ Then, looking at the crowded room, ‘Oh, good grief, this lot look as if they’ve taken root. I’d better go and circulate. There’s nothing like a wheelchair to make people thoroughly uncomfortable, make them remember that they have to be somewhere else. And, if that doesn’t shift them, I’ll fall back on my pathetic-relative-from-the-basement act and dribble a little. I don’t think Fran can take much more of this.’
For a moment they both looked in her direction.
‘How’s she doing?’ he asked.
‘What do you think?’
Francesca’s smile was fixed, her eyes glassy with fatigue and the effort of listening to the two men who seemed to have her pinned in the corner.
‘Actually, I think she needs rescuing.’ He also knew that she’d endure anything rather than accept help from him. ‘Who are those people? Can’t they see she’s at the end of her tether?’
Matty shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Probably people Steven was doing business with. Obviously things have been let go a bit in the last few months.’
‘Obviously,’ he muttered, heading in their direction, furious with Steven, furious with himself, but most of all furious with them for bothering Francesca at a time like this. She might not want his help, but she was getting it anyway. ‘We haven’t met,’ he said, offering his hand to one of the men and, as he took it, he turned him away from her, stepping between them. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t intended to be. ‘Guy Dymoke, Steven’s brother. I’ve been out of the country for a while. You’re friends of his?’
‘We’re business acquaintances.’ They introduced themselves, but he cut them off as they launched into an explanation of their precise connection with his brother.
‘It’s very good of you to give up your valuable time in this way.’
‘No trouble. I was just asking Miss Lang—’
‘This really isn’t a good time. Why don’t you give me a call?’ he said, handing the man his card and mentally willing Francesca to take advantage of the opportunity to escape, but she seemed fixed to the spot. Beyond help.
‘As I was just saying to Miss Lang,’ the man continued, stubbornly refusing to take the hint, ‘it’s really a matter of some urgency and no one at the office seems to know—’
This time he was cut off mid-sentence as Matty caught him behind the ankle with her wheelchair. ‘Oops, sorry. I can’t seem to get the hang of this thing.’ she said. Then, ‘Fran, sweetheart…’ It needed a second prompt before she responded. ‘Fran, you’re needed in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, right.’ She snapped out of whatever memory she was lost in and saw him. That seemed to do the trick. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’
‘But Miss Lang, I really need—’
‘Not now.’ Guy softened the words with a smile, all the while urging them firmly towards the door. ‘I know Francesca appreciates your sympathy, but it’s a difficult time for her. Bring your problems to me.’
Realising that they were not going to get any further, they took the hint and left.
‘Jerks,’ Matty said as she watched them leave, one favouring his left ankle.
‘I don’t think you’re a very nice person, Matty Lang.’
‘Really?’ She grinned. ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in ages. For some reason, because I’m confined to a wheelchair, people seem to think I should have suddenly been transformed into a saint.’ Then, ‘Can I leave you to mop up the stragglers while I go and rustle up a pot of tea?’
No one needed her in the kitchen, although she was just in time to prevent Connie from loading crystal glasses into the dishwasher. Matty had simply been giving her a chance to escape, Fran realised belatedly. Guy, too, although it hurt to acknowledge that he might have even one kind bone in his body.
She should go back. People would be leaving, but she couldn’t face the drawing room again. The polite condolences which, for the most part, simply masked the unasked questions she could see in everyone’s eyes. They were sorry Steven was dead, sympathetic, but their concerns were with the future. Would the company go on? Would they have their jobs at the end of the month? Survival was the name of the game. For them, just as much as those two tactless imbeciles who undoubtedly wanted to know when their bills would be paid.
Questions to which she had no answers.
It occurred to her that she was now the owner of a business that she knew next to nothing about. She’d talked about going back to work once she’d had Toby, but Steven had insisted that she had enough to do running their home, being Toby’s mother. That it was his job to take care of them.
Even while he was dying he’d insisted that he’d got it sorted…that he was going to take care of them all.
She choked back a sob as she sank on to the saggy old sofa that filled one corner of the kitchen, curling up into it for comfort. For endless days she’d been holding on, knowing that once the funeral was over she would have to confront the future. But not now. Not today.
Guy shut the door on the last of the mourners, then went through to the kitchen to find Francesca. He had no illusions about his reception, but he had to convince her that she must call him if she had any problems. That he’d be there for her. He doubted that she’d ask him for help, but he’d leave his number with Matty anyway. She was sharp enough to call him if…
A ball bounced at his feet and he turned to confront a small boy who was standing on the half-landing. There was no mistaking who he was. He had something of Steve about him, a nose that was a gift from his grandfather, his mother’s corn-gold hair.
The wrench at his heartstrings was so unexpected, so painful, that for a moment he clutched his fist to his chest as if to hold his heart in place. When he’d read that Francesca and Steve had a son he had been bombarded with such a mixture of emotions that he hadn’t known what to do with himself. The truth was that there was nothing to do. Only endure.
He bent to pick up the ball but for a moment couldn’t speak, just stood there, holding it.
The child bounced down the stairs one step at a time, then, suddenly shy, stopped about halfway. Guy swallowed, tried to form the words, finally managed, ‘Hello, Toby.’
‘Who are you?’ he said, hanging on to the banister rail as he hopped down another step. ‘How do you know my name?’
He’d read it in a newspaper clipping sent to him by his secretary.
Francesca Lang and Steven Dymoke are pleased to announce the birth of their son Tobias Lang Dymoke.
He’d sent the antique silver rattle, a family heir-loom that should have been passed to his own first-born. A gesture that was meant to say to Steve that he was valued. That they were equals. He’d hoped that with a woman like Francesca at his side, with the birth of his son, Steve might have discovered an inner strength, self-confidence to finally realise that. Maybe he had, but his gift had been returned. The message was clear. Keep away.
‘I’m your Uncle Guy.’ He offered the child the ball and he descended another couple of steps until they were at the same eye level. Then, as he made a grab for the ball, he lost his balance and Guy found himself with an armful of small boy.
‘What are you doing?’
Francesca’s anxious voice startled Toby and he began to cry.
‘Give him to me!’ She didn’t wait, but wrenched the child from his arms, making things worse as she hugged him tight, frightening him. ‘What is it with you? You think just because Steven’s dead you can walk into his home as if you own the place, pick up his son—’
‘The boy overbalanced, Francesca. I caught him before he fell.’ About to add that he was fine until she’d shouted, he thought better of it. She’d just suffered one terrible loss and it was only natural that she’d be protective. ‘I was looking for you to let you know I’m leaving.’
‘You’ve said it. Now will you please just go.’
Distraught, grieving, she wasn’t about to listen to him and he wasn’t about to try and justify his absence from their lives. ‘I simply wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about the paperwork, Steve’s business. I’ll handle it, and if there’s anything you need—’
‘You won’t,’ she declared, lifting her chin a little. ‘It’s my concern, not yours. And I don’t. Need anything.’
Her rejection felt as physical as a slap. He took a breath. ‘All you have to do is call my office. Speak to my secretary—’
‘Your secretary? Well, thanks. It’s good to know where I stand in your priorities.’
‘I thought…’ He’d thought that dealing through an intermediary would be easier for her, but the truth was that in the face of her complete refusal to see him as anything other than her enemy he felt utterly helpless.
Matty appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea if anyone fancies a cup,’ she said, then glanced from him to Francesca and back again. ‘I can make that Scotch if you’d prefer?’
‘Another time. I have to go.’ He crossed to her, bent to take her hand, then taking the opportunity to slip her the card with his mobile number on it, the one he’d been planning to give Francesca. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Matty.’
‘Well, don’t say it as if was the first and last time.’
‘I’m sure Guy has more pressing demands on his time, Matty. A potential oil field or three needing his expertise.’
‘I’ll be staying in London for a week or two.’
‘That long?’ The scorn in Francesca’s voice would have withered crab grass. ‘Oh, well, then we’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about, have we…?’
She was near the edge of hysteria, he thought, and his presence wasn’t helping. Maybe Matty realised that too because she caught his eye and said, ‘I’ll see you out.’
‘It’s all right. He knows the way. This used to be his house until he sold it to Steven at the top of the property boom.’ He looked up and, seeing the shock on his face, she said, ‘What’s the matter? Did you think I didn’t know how much he paid you?’
What could he say? Tell her that she was wrong? That the man she loved, nursed, cared for, had lied to her?
‘He adored you, Guy,’ she said, as he turned to leave. ‘Worshipped you. He was always making excuses for you. In his eyes you could do no wrong…’
How he wished that was true, but wishing helped no one. Instead, he smiled at the child who had stopped crying and was peering up at him from beneath long wet lashes.
‘Goodbye, Toby,’ he said, through what felt like a rock in his throat, and the child thrust the ball he was still holding towards him.
He didn’t know what was expected of him and he got no help from Francesca. Feeling helpless was becoming repetitive. He wasn’t used to it. He didn’t like it. Choosing action, he took the ball and said, ‘Thank you, Toby.’ The child buried his head in his mother’s shoulder.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Francesca.’
‘Don’t bother.’ She didn’t wait to see how he reacted. She swept from the hall, taking Toby with her, and he forced his unwilling feet towards the door.
‘Shall I leave this with you?’ he asked, offering the ball to Matty.
‘Toby gave it to you because he wants you to come back,’ she said.
‘His mother doesn’t feel the same way.’
‘Possibly not, but I don’t see anyone else crossing continents and oceans to be at her side—’
‘Steve was my brother,’ he said.
‘—or leaping to her rescue when she was being hounded by men anxious about their invoices,’ she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. Her face, thin, plainly marked with everything she’d suffered, was bright with intelligence and he sensed an ally.
‘Have they reason to be?’ he asked. ‘Anxious?’
‘Steven didn’t confide in me but he hasn’t been in any state to run the business himself for the last six months.’
‘I wish she’d let me know.’
‘He wouldn’t let her. At the end she called your office anyway, but it was too late. All you can do now, Mr Knight Errant, is stick around and help her pick up the pieces.’
CHAPTER TWO
FRANCESCA was shaking so badly that she had to sit down before her legs gave way. Toby struggled to free himself, but she clutched at him as if he was the only thing standing between her and some dark chasm that yawned in front of her.
She’d been so sure that Guy wouldn’t come today. It had been pure relief when his secretary rang to tell her that although she’d finally managed to get the news to him he was unlikely to make it home in time, even for the funeral. Easy enough to assure the woman that she understood, decline all offers of assistance.
She should have known he would move heaven and earth. Steven had once told her that his brother was a man who simply refused to contemplate the impossible, that only once had he backed down, retreated from the challenge to get what he wanted. Guy Dymoke was a dark, unseen shadow that had seemed to haunt Steven. She should have, could have, done something to change that, she thought guiltily. Made an effort to bridge the gulf that had opened up between them, but an uneasy sense of self-preservation had warned her to leave well alone.
‘Why don’t you go and put your feet up, Fran? You look done in.’
Grateful to Matty for distracting her, she finally allowed Toby to escape. The one thing she mustn’t become was a clinging mother, weeping over her child. ‘I’m fine, really. Where’s Connie?’
‘She’s tidying up the drawing room.’
‘You’ve both been wonderful. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘I wish I could say that the worst is over.’
‘It is. I just have to see the solicitor tomorrow. Sort out the will.’ She didn’t anticipate any difficulty. Steven had told her that he’d made sure she and Toby were taken care of; he must have known he was dying then, despite the fact that neither of them had ever acknowledged it and she had to believe he meant it.
Her real problem was his business. What was going to happen to that?
‘Just remember that you’re not alone,’ Matty continued, distracting her. ‘I’m here, and Connie will hold the fort with Toby—’
‘It’s not necessary, really.’ She’d been forcing her mouth into a smile, her voice into soothing tones of reassurance for so long that it did it on automatic. But she was determined not to worry Matty. She’d made an amazing recovery but she was still far from strong.
‘She wants to help, Fran. To be honest I think she’s terrified you’ll move away and won’t take her with you.’
‘No! I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…’ Even as she said it she realised that Matty was appealing for reassurance too. ‘She’s family,’ she said.
‘Of course she is. That’s what I told her. And Guy Dymoke looks like the kind of man a woman in trouble could lean on.’ Then, while she was still trying to get her head around the idea of leaning on Guy, ‘Is there going to be trouble?’
Francesca was drained, exhausted, tired to the bone, but it wasn’t over yet and she forced the smile into a grin. ‘Are you kidding? I’ve got a company to run and the most challenging thing I’ve had to think about for the last three years is the menu for the next dinner party. That sounds like enough trouble for anyone.’
‘Don’t undersell yourself, Fran.’ Matty reached out, took her hand, held it for a moment. Then, ‘I need to know. Is there going to be trouble?’
She wanted to say no. Absolutely not. The way she had to Guy. But she’d encouraged her cousin to come and share the house after her accident. Steven hadn’t been wildly keen, but the house was huge, far too big for the three of them. Matty had needed to be in London for treatment, needed to have someone close she could call on in an emergency, and there was no one else. Nowhere else. And it wasn’t a one way bargain. She was company during Steven’s absences abroad seeking out the merchandise he imported.
The truth was, she just didn’t know. Steven had never talked about the business. Had always brushed aside her interest, her questions, as something she needn’t bother her head about, until she’d stopped bothering to ask. She wished she hadn’t allowed herself to be so easily distracted, but he obviously hadn’t wanted her involved, and she had Toby and Matty…
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ she said. ‘Not today. Let’s have that Scotch.’
‘But what about the house?’
She heard the fear and knew it was a fair question. Matty had an investment in the house. She’d spent her own money on the conversion of the lower ground floor into a self-contained flat suitable for her wheelchair. A talented illustrator, she’d extended it to make a studio so that she could work there.
‘He always promised me that the house was safe.’ Always promised that he would never use their home to raise finance. She wanted to believe that he had meant that, but if the company was in any kind of trouble—and what company wasn’t these days?—and the bank wanted its pound of flesh…
She and Toby could live anywhere, but Matty would never be able to find another home in London. Not like the one she had with them, especially converted to her needs. With the space. Room for her drawing board…
‘I’m sorry. Of course he did. It was your palace—he said so often enough, and you were his princess.’ Matty looked around. ‘I wonder how he raised enough cash to buy it at the top of the property boom?’
‘He didn’t have to. His father left him some money. Nothing like the fortune Guy had in trust from his mother, of course—especially after some City fraud put a major dent in the family finances—but there was enough for this house. He just wanted everything to be perfect for me.’
As if he had something to prove. There had only ever been one person he needed to prove himself to—and, torn between relief and fury that Guy had never bothered to show up and be impressed by his success, she declared, ‘And it was. Perfect.’
But she couldn’t quite meet Matty’s eye as she said it.
Guy paid the cab driver, peeled off the parking ticket stuck to his windscreen, tossed it into the glove box and headed for the echoing space of the Thames-side loft apartment that he’d lavished time and money on, but which only served to remind him of the emptiness at the heart of his life.
He poured Scotch into a glass, sank into the comfort of a soft leather armchair and stared out across the river. He wasn’t seeing the boats, didn’t notice the lights that were coming on as dusk settled over the city, blurring the familiar skyline. All he could see was Francesca Lang. Not sombre in black with her hair coiled up off her neck, but the way she’d looked the first time he’d set eyes on her.
He sipped the whisky, but its heat didn’t warm him. There was nothing in the world that could warm him other than the arms of a woman who was forbidden him in every code he lived by. A woman who today had looked at him as if he was something that had crawled out from under a stone. He’d anticipated a frosty reception, but he hadn’t anticipated this level of animosity. Every single word she’d uttered had felt like a blow. He’d been taking them from her all afternoon and he felt bruised to the bone.
He abandoned the whisky—there was no help for what ailed him in a bottle—got up and walked restlessly across to the window, seeking distraction. Finding none.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, closed his eyes. Running the endless loop of memory that was all he had of her.
If he’d had any idea what was coming he’d have been on his guard, but the moment Francesca had appeared in the doorway of that restaurant she’d stolen his wits as well as what passed for his heart, blind-siding him, so that he’d been exposed, vulnerable, and Steve—clever Steve—had instantly picked up the signals and positively revelled in the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had something that his half-brother wanted, something he could never have.
He hadn’t blamed him for that. He had just wanted to be somewhere else, a million miles from the restaurant, but there had been no escape. There had been an entire evening to get through first and all he could do was pull down the mental shutters, shake Steve’s hand, brush Francesca’s cheek with his lips as he welcomed her into the family, congratulated her. It had been a quiet torture then and the slow drip of it had never left him.
His mind, stuck in an endless re-run that he couldn’t escape—didn’t want to escape—continued to play that moment over and over every time he stopped concentrating on something else. Every time he closed his eyes.
The peachy softness of her cheek. A subtle scent that hadn’t come from any bottle but was a fusion of her hair, the warmth of her body, her clothes, the fresh air she’d brought in with her, all enhanced by a touch of something exotic and rich. He’d had three years to analyse it, reduce it to its constituent parts.
All he had been able to do was wish them well, be glad that Steve had finally found what he’d always been searching for. Someone who loved him. Someone who would always be there. A family of his own.
And live with it.
Attempt to carry on a normal conversation.
‘Where are you planning to live?’ he’d asked. ‘Steve’s flat isn’t big enough for two, let alone a baby.’ It was like prodding himself with a hot needle.
‘We’re looking around for just the right place…’ Then, with a casual shrug, Steve added, ‘Fran and I looked at the Elton Street house yesterday.’
His heart missed a beat as he forced himself to turn to Francesca, include her in the conversation. ‘Did you like it?’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
‘Fran fell head over heels in love with it,’ Steve said emphatically. ‘I’d like to come and see you tomorrow. Talk about it.’
He ignored the opening his brother had left him.
Maybe he was the one avoiding eye contact. Avoiding a repeat of that moment when, with one look, the entire world seemed to slide into place and lock with an almost audible click; the kick-in-the-stomach pain that went with the loss of something precious.
He forced himself to look directly at her.
‘You would like to live there?’ he asked.
For a moment something shimmered between them as, very quietly, she said, ‘It felt like home.’
He dragged himself back from the edge. From stepping off. From saying, Come with me and I will give you everything your heart desires. The house, my heart, my life…
‘Then I’m sure Steve will find a way to give it to you.’
‘It depends on the price. Unlike you, brother, I don’t have unlimited means at my disposal.’
‘No one has unlimited means.’ But he’d got the picture. The reason for the invitation to dinner. The last time he’d had a call from his half-brother—make that every time he’d had a call from him—it had been to ‘borrow’ money, on the last occasion to ask for start-up funds for his latest business venture. He’d assumed tonight was going to be more of the same, but clearly it wasn’t to help with some half-baked business plan he wanted this time.
‘Have you set a wedding date?’ he asked, evading a direct answer and Steve didn’t push. He clearly didn’t want Francesca to know that he was asking for help with finance. But then why would he push? In the past all he’d had to do was lay out his desires and wait for guilt to do the rest.
‘Wedding? Who said anything about getting married?’
‘Isn’t that the obvious next step?’ He looked at Steve. A youthful marriage was the one mistake he hadn’t been called to bail him out of, but anything was possible. ‘Unless there’s some good reason why you shouldn’t?’ He managed a grin of sorts. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me?’
Steve grinned right back. ‘Relax, Guy. I don’t have a secret wife or three tucked away. Fran’s the only woman I’ve ever wanted to settle down with.’
‘Then what’s your problem?’ If Francesca Lang had been his, nothing on earth would have stopped him from swearing his undying love in front of as many witnesses as he could cram into one room. Making that public vow to love and honour and keep her, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both should live… ‘If you’re setting up home together, having a baby…’
It was like poking a sore tooth. Something he knew he’d regret, but he couldn’t stop himself.
‘For heaven’s sake, listen to yourself. Marriage is meaningless in this day and age. An anachronism. Outdated. Just a way of keeping lawyers fat when it all goes wrong.’
He glanced at Francesca to see how she was taking that ‘when’, but she was looking down at her plate.
With no clue as to her feelings, he shrugged and said, ‘I believe you’ll find that even in the twenty-first century it offers some benefits.’ What they were, beyond the special bond that swearing till-death-us-do-part vows to one another, he couldn’t immediately summon to mind. But then that would be enough for him.
‘The chance to dress up and have a party? I don’t think we need to go to church first, do you?’ Then, ‘Look, you know the kind of nasty divorce Dad went through with my mother. Fran’s been through much the same thing with her parents.’ Steve leaned across and took her hand, grasping it in his, emphasising their relationship. ‘We’re allergic, okay?’
Guy fastened his gaze on some point in the distance. ‘If you believe that not getting married will protect you from the fallout of a disintegrating relationship, think again. Once property and children are involved…’
‘Guy, I hear what you’re saying, but that stuff is just for rich people.’ He didn’t add …like you. He didn’t have to.
‘It’s your decision, of course,’ he said, wondering if Francesca felt quite as strongly on the subject—she’d remained silent—but he didn’t dare look at her again. He didn’t want to see the love shining out of her eyes. Not when she was looking at another man. ‘Just don’t discount it without real thought.’
‘We have thought about it.’ He lifted Francesca’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Then, with a smile, he said, ‘But if you want to play the big brother you can pay for the champagne.’
The message came over loud and clear. Steve was saying, This is nothing to do with you. It’s my baby she’s carrying…
That had been the only thing he’d been able to think about all through that terrible evening. Francesca was pregnant and he’d have given everything he possessed to change places with his brother. His career, the company he’d built up with a group of friends, the fortune that had been left to him by his own mother, just to be sitting on the other side of the table with his arm draped protectively over the back of her chair, knowing that the baby she carried was his.
Total madness. He’d only just met the woman. Had exchanged barely more than a dozen words with her. The briefest touch of her cheek against his lips. The moment she’d realised who he was, the hundred watt smile had been dimmed to something more reserved. Steve had obviously given her chapter and verse on all his grievances. Real and imagined. Told her all about his older, more fortunate half-brother who had everything, including a mother who’d loved him. Especially a mother who’d loved him…
It made no difference. Even the forty-watt version lit up his soul.
‘Are you going to be all right on your own?’
‘I’ve got to get used to it, Matty. Today seems like a good day to start.’
Fran smoothed her collar, regarded her image in the hall mirror. Black suit, perfectly groomed hair. Apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes, she looked every inch the businesswoman. Steven would have approved. He had always said that image was everything. The trick was to ignore the butterflies practising formation-flying in your stomach; if you looked confident, looked as if you knew what you were talking about, people would believe in you. Okay, so it was three years since she’d set foot in an office, but her brain hadn’t atrophied just because she’d had a baby—well, not that much anyway.
Right now a load of people were sitting around in the office waiting for someone to say, It’ll be all right. Let’s get on with it. And there was no one but her.
‘I’ll get the paperwork sorted out with the lawyers first,’ she said. ‘And then I’m going into the office.’
‘What is he doing here?’
Guy had only just arrived when a secretary announced Francesca’s arrival. She came to an abrupt halt in the doorway when she saw him, but there was no stop-the-world moment this time. No out-of-control hairstyle, no clinging dress to ride up and no yard of leg. And she didn’t pause to look up at him with a smile caught on her lips.
He hadn’t realised just how much weight she’d lost. Her hair was paler too. More grown up than the corn gold he remembered. Maybe that hadn’t been her natural colour, either, but he preferred it.
That night she had been all vibrant colour, now she was monochrome, the pallor of her skin emphasised by dark hollows beneath her eyes, at her temples. It made the quick angry flush as she saw him all the more noticeable.
‘Why is he here?’ she said, ignoring him completely and looking directly at Tom Palmer, the family lawyer, who’d come around his desk to welcome her.
‘Guy is your…is Steven’s executor, Fran. It’s his responsibility to see that the will is properly executed.’
Now she turned those lovely grey eyes on him. ‘So that’s why you raced back from the back of beyond,’ she said. ‘To secure your assets.’
‘I have no doubt that Steven left everything he possessed to you and Toby. It’s my sole responsibility to ensure that his wishes are carried out and I will do that, no matter what they are.’
Tom, who had undoubtedly witnessed family discord on such occasions many times over a long career, intervened with a quiet, ‘Please, come and sit down, Fran. Would you care for some coffee…tea, perhaps?’
‘Nothing, thank you. Let’s get this over with. I’ve a full day ahead of me.’
‘Of course. The will itself is a simple enough document.’ He opened a file. ‘First, Guy, Steven left this letter for you.’
He pocketed it without comment.
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Francesca demanded.
‘Not now,’ he said. If Steve, the least organised person in the world, had chosen to write him a letter when he knew he was dying, he wanted to be alone when he read it. ‘Tom?’
Prompted, Tom Palmer began to read the will.
While he’d been in a position to make conditions, Guy had insisted that Steve make a will in favour of Francesca. It had not been altered, and her relief, though contained, was nevertheless evident for those with eyes to read the small signs. The briefly closed eyes, the slightest slump in her posture as the tension left her.
‘Is that it?’ she asked.
‘It’s little enough,’ Tom said. ‘Unfortunately, as you know, Steven surrendered his life assurance to raise some capital last year.’
‘He did?’ The shocked words slipped out before she could contain them. ‘Yes. Of course. He discussed it with me,’ she continued, swiftly covering her slip.
That had been the other condition. The life policy. So much for his best intentions.
‘When I asked if that was it, I just meant, can I go now? I want to go to the office, make a start on sorting things out.’
She was incredible, he thought. She’d just received a monumental blow but she’d absorbed it and, but for those two words, no one would believe it was anything other than what she’d expected to hear.
‘Not quite all,’ Tom said, clearly relieved that he hadn’t had to deal with hysterics. ‘I just need your signature on here so that I can set about organising a valuation of the estate. It shouldn’t take too long.’
‘Valuation?’ She looked up from the document he’d placed in front of her.
‘Of the company. For tax purposes.’ She looked blank. ‘Inheritance tax?’ he elaborated. ‘I did warn Steven of the situation when he originally signed the will. At that time there was no urgency, of course, but I did suggest he talk it over with you. Maybe consider going through the motions. Just a ten minute job at the local Register Office would do.’ Guy could see that Tom was beginning to founder in the face of Francesca’s incomprehension. Clearly she had never had that conversation with Steven, and he wondered just how many more shocks she could take. ‘Just to satisfy the legalities,’ Tom ploughed on. ‘Perhaps after the baby was born…’
‘Inheritance tax?’ she repeated, ignoring the waffle.
‘Is the company likely to exceed the inheritance tax threshold?’ Guy asked, giving Tom a moment to catch up. Work out for himself exactly how much in the dark she was.
‘I have no idea,’ the lawyer said.
They both looked at Francesca for an answer, but she dismissed their query with an impatient little gesture.
‘Tell me about inheritance tax,’ she said rather more sharply.
‘I don’t imagine it will be too much of a problem, unless the company is doing substantially better than it was at the last audit,’ Tom Palmer said, clearly unsure which would be preferable. ‘However, since you weren’t married to Steven any legacy will be subject to inheritance tax.’
She sat and digested this for a moment, then said, ‘So if we’d been married I wouldn’t have to pay inheritance tax?’
‘No, but as I said—’
‘And because we didn’t go through some totally meaningless ceremony I will? Have to pay it?’
‘Well, yes. That’s the present situation, I’m afraid.’
‘But that’s outrageous! We’ve lived together for nearly three years. We have a child…’
‘If you’d lived together for twenty-three years and had ten children it would make no difference, I’m afraid.’
After the brief stunned silence she asked, ‘What’s the liability threshold?’
‘£250,000. After that forty percent of the estate goes to the Inland Revenue.’
‘But…’ Guy had thought she looked pale. He had been wrong. Colour leached from her skin, leaving her ashen. ‘But surely the house alone is worth ten times that?’
‘You don’t have to worry about the house, Fran.’
‘You mean the house is free of inheritance tax?’ Francesca asked.
‘I mean that Steven did not own the house.’
She shook her head. ‘No. That’s not right. Steven bought it from Guy. Three years ago.’ She turned to him. Looked up at him. ‘We’ve lived there for three years. Tell him.’
‘There seems to be some confusion, Francesca. I don’t know what Steve told you, but he didn’t buy the house from me. It was sold to a property company about ten years ago, along with a lot of other property.’
‘But he said—you said…’ He saw her trying to recall the conversation in the restaurant that night. ‘He was going to come and see you. To talk about it. He asked you. That night…’
‘He asked me for help with a deposit for the house, that’s all. I didn’t know until yesterday that you thought I had owned it. And I had no idea he hadn’t gone ahead and bought it.’
‘But why would he need to borrow from you? He had money…’ She stopped. ‘How much?’
He didn’t want to go there.
‘How much did you give him?’ she demanded.
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’
‘But he didn’t buy it?’ This to Tom Palmer.
The lawyer shook his head. ‘As far as I know it wasn’t even on the market at the time. He has been renting it on a yearly lease.’
‘But it’s our home,’ she said. ‘Toby’s home. Matty spent thousands of pounds on the studio extension, converting the place into a flat she could use. If I’d known we only had a lease I’d never have encouraged her to do that.’ She caught her breath. ‘They don’t know about that, do they? The people who own the house?’
‘I would think it’s highly unlikely,’ Guy said gently.
To say that she looked stunned, confused, was an understatement. It was hardly surprising. He felt as if he’d taken a body blow, but she had been under the impression that she’d inherited a house worth upwards of two million pounds. Even taking into account the taxman, that would have meant she could sell up and have a million plus change to set up home somewhere else. Suddenly she owned nothing except a company that no one seemed wildly optimistic about and a short-term lease that might not be renewed. That she probably couldn’t afford to renew…
Fran discovered that reaction was beyond her. It was as if she was under water, sinking very slowly, and she was completely paralysed, unable to do anything to stop herself from drowning.
One moment it had seemed as if she could relax, shake off the nagging sense of impending disaster. Now—
‘There is one other thing.’
‘There’s more?’ She turned and looked at Tom Palmer. Until now he had been wearing the grave expression of the average family lawyer. Now he looked positively uneasy.
How much worse could it get?
‘The last time I saw Steven he asked me to add a codicil to his will. I had to tell him that it was a bequest I was not prepared to add to that document. We came to a compromise. He dictated his wishes to me and I promised to read them out at this point.’
‘You mean after you’ve told me that my son and I are homeless and penniless?’
‘Francesca—’
She glared at Guy, daring him to say another word.
‘I’ll read it now then, shall I?’ Tom waited briefly, but neither of them said a word and he took a letter from the file in front of him.
‘Before I start I want to say that there is nothing in this document that is binding,’ he said, clearly unhappy about something. ‘These are no more than Steven’s…’ He stopped.
‘Last wishes?’ she finished for him.
‘Just read it,’ Guy said.
‘Very well.’ Tom cleared his throat. ‘Well, Guy, here we are again. It’s in his own words, just as he said it,’ he explained.
‘Tom!’
‘Sorry. Right…
Well, Guy, here we are again. Me messing up and you doing your big brother bit and saving my hide. Except this time my hide is well beyond saving. It’s Fran and Toby who need you now.
‘Not this side of hell,’ she muttered.
‘First the confession. Well, you’ll have worked this out for yourself by now, but I used your money for the lease on the house for some diamond earrings for Fran—since she didn’t want a ring. Oh, and to pay the bill at that fancy private maternity hospital. Nothing but the best for mine. Something I learned from you. I just didn’t have the cash to pay for it. But you never let me down.’
‘He didn’t have to do that!’ Fran protested. ‘I wanted to go to the local hospital. I could have lived without diamonds or any of the other stuff…’
Tom waited patiently for her to finish, but she ground to a halt, consumed with shame that Steven had taken money from his brother to give her everything her heart desired. Consumed with guilt that she had taken it without a thought. But that was Steven. He’d said money was something to be enjoyed. Spent it as if he never had to think about where it was going to come from. Maybe he never had. Maybe Guy had always been there…
Tom and Guy were looking at her and she lifted a hand, a silent gesture that he should go on.
‘Okay, Guy, here’s what I want you to do. Just about the last thing I did, before I stopped being able to do anything for myself, was to book a surprise wedding for Fran and me. A beach job in the Caribbean. It seems I was over-optimistic about my prognosis and I’m not going to be able to make it, but Toby is going to need a father and Fran will need someone to help her take care of her waifs and strays and, as always, you are it.
Tom says I can’t make a codicil to the will leaving Fran and Toby to you as a bequest, but I know you won’t let me down. He’s got the tickets, all you have to do is turn up and say ‘I do’. It shouldn’t be a problem for either of you.
Steve’
CHAPTER THREE
THERE was a long, still moment after Tom stopped speaking when it seemed that everyone had forgotten to breathe.
Then Guy said, ‘Is that right, Tom? You have the tickets?’
‘Yes, but—’
He held out his hand and the lawyer reluctantly passed the travel folder to him. Fran watched in disbelief as he calmly opened it and checked the documents before turning to her.
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Liz Fielding
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A convenient wife… An inconvenient love…Francesca walked into the room and Guy Dymoke was mesmerized. But she was pregnant with Guy′s brother′s baby. An impossible situation…and Guy had been hiding his feelings ever since.Years later, Francesca is now a widow, and when the will is read she′s stunned to discover she′s been placed into Guy′s safekeeping…as his convenient wife! Guy wants to give Francesca and her son all the care in the world. He also yearns to tell her how much he really loves her. But he′ll wait for the day that she gives her love freely in return….