Harlequin Romance April 2015 Box Set (21 page)

‘Things have been a bit crazy.’ Daisy knew she sounded breathless, welcomed it. Hopefully her sister would put it down to girlish excitement not a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. ‘Rose, I have some news. I’m engaged!’

There was a long silence
at the end of the phone. Then: ‘But you’re not even dating anyone. It’s not Edwin, is it? I thought you said he was dull.’

‘No, of course it’s not Edwin!’ Daisy could feel her cheeks heating. ‘We split up months ago, and he’s not dull exactly,’ she added loyally. ‘Just a little precise. It’s Seb, Sebastian Beresford, you know, Rose, he wrote that book on Charles II’s illegitimate children
you loved so much.’

‘The hot professor? England’s answer to Indiana Jones?’ The shriek was so loud that Daisy was convinced Seb could hear it through the phone. ‘How on earth did you meet him, Daisy? What kind of parties are you going to nowadays? Dinner parties? Academic soirées?’ Rose laughed.

There it was, unspoken but insinuated. How could silly little Daisy with barely a qualification
to her name have anything in common with a lauded academic?

‘Through work,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘He owns Hawksley Castle.’

‘Of course,’ her sister breathed. ‘Didn’t he just inherit a title? What is he, a baron?’

‘An earl.’ It sounded ludicrous just saying the words. She could feel Seb’s sardonic gaze on her and turned around so her back was entirely towards him, wishing she
had gone outside to have this awkward conversation.

‘An earl?’ Rose went off into another peal of laughter. Daisy held the phone away from her ear, waiting for her sister to calm down. ‘Seriously? This isn’t you and Vi winding me up?’

Was it that implausible? Daisy didn’t want to hear the answer.

‘It’s true.’

‘Well, I suppose I had better meet him if you’re going to marry him.
I’ll be over for the Benefit Concert in about four weeks. There’s only so much I can do this side of the Atlantic. With the tour on top of everything else I am completely snowed under. I can’t cope with one more thing at the moment.’ Rose was in charge of all their parents’ PR as well as organising the annual Benefit Concert their father did for charity. His decision to take the band back on tour
had added even more to her sister’s already heavy workload.

So she was going to love the last-minute changes to her plan. ‘Actually you’re going to meet him sooner than that. We’re getting married in three weeks and you have to be my bridesmaid, Rose. You will be there, won’t you?’

‘What? When? But why, Daisy? What’s the rush?’

‘No rush,’ she replied, hating that she was lying to
her family. ‘We don’t want to wait, that’s all.’

There was a deep sigh at the other end of the telephone. ‘Daise, you know what you’re like. You always go all in at first. You thought you’d found The One at sixteen for goodness’ sake, and again when you were at St Martin’s. Then there was Edwin—you told me you were soulmates. Then you wake up one day and realise that they’re actually frogs,
not your prince. Nice frogs—but still frogs. What makes this one different? Apart from the amazing looks, the keen brain and the title, of course.’

Daisy wanted to slide down onto the floor and stay there. Her family had always teased her about her impetuous romantic nature. But to have it recited back to her like that. It made her sound so young. So stupid.

But Rose was wrong. This
wasn’t like the others. She was under no illusions that Seb was her soulmate. She wasn’t in love.

‘This is different and when you meet him you’ll understand.’ She hoped she sounded convincing—it was the truth after all.

‘Okay.’ Rose sighed. ‘If you say it’s different this time then I believe you.’

What Rose actually meant was that she would phone Vi and get her opinion and then
the two of them could close ranks and sit in judgement on Daisy. Just as they always did.

‘You will be there though, won’t you, Rosy Posy?’ Daisy wheedled using the old pet name her sister affected to despise. ‘I can’t get married without you.’ Her breath hitched and she heard the break in her voice. Her sisters might be bossy and annoying and have spent most of their childhood telling her
to leave them alone but they were hers. And she needed them.

‘Of course I’ll be there, silly. I’ll make the rings, my gift to you both. Send me his finger size, okay?’

‘Okay.’ Daisy clung onto the phone, wishing her sister were there, wishing she could tell her the truth.

‘I have to go. There are a million and one things to do. Talk soon. Call me if you need anything.’

‘I will.
Bye.’

Daisy clicked the phone shut, oddly bereft as the connection cut. Rose had been abroad for so long—and when she did come home she worked.

‘That was my other sister.’

Seb was leaning against the wall, arms folded, one ankle crossed over the other. ‘I guessed.’

‘She makes rings, as a hobby although she’s so good she should do it professionally. She’s offered to make ours
so I need to send your finger size over.’

She half expected him to say he wasn’t going to wear a ring and relief filled her as he nodded acquiescence. ‘Why doesn’t she—do it professionally?’

It was a good question. Why didn’t she? Daisy struggled to find the right words. ‘She’s good at PR. Mummy and Daddy have always relied on her, and on Vi, to help them. They’re so incredibly busy
and it’s easier to keep it in the family, with people they trust.’ Her loving, indulgent, generous but curiously childlike parents.

‘What about you? What do you do?’

‘Me? I take photos. That’s all I’m good for. They don’t need me for anything else.’ She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

He looked her curiously. ‘That’s not the impression I got today. They were bowled
over to see you, all fatted calves and tears of joy.’

‘That’s because I don’t go home enough.’ The guilt gnawed away at her. ‘I don’t involve them in my life. It drives my mum crazy as you can probably tell. She doesn’t trust me not to mess up without her.’

‘Why not?’

Daisy looked at him sharply but the question seemed genuine enough. She sighed. ‘It always took me twice as long
as my sisters to do anything,’ she admitted. ‘I was a late talker, walker, reader. My handwriting was atrocious, I hated maths—I was always in trouble at school for talking or messing around.’

‘You and half the population.’

‘But half the population don’t have Rose and Violet as older sisters,’ she pointed out. ‘I don’t think I had a single teacher who didn’t ask me why I couldn’t be
more like my sisters. Why my work wasn’t the same standard, my manners as good. By the time I was expelled that narrative was set in stone. I was like the family kitten—cute enough but you couldn’t expect much from me. Of course actually being expelled didn’t help.’

‘It must have been difficult.’

‘It was humiliating.’ Looking back, that was what she remembered most clearly. How utterly
embarrassed she had been. ‘It was all over the papers. People were commiserating with my parents as if my life was finished. At sixteen! So Mum and Dad tried to do what they do best. Spend money on me and paper over the cracks. They offered to send me to finishing school, or for Mum to set me up with her modelling agency. I could be a socialite or a model. I wasn’t fit for anything else.’

‘But you’re not either of those things.’

‘I refused.’ She swallowed. ‘I think the worst part was that the whole family treated the whole incident like a joke. They didn’t once ask me how I felt, what I wanted to do. To be. I heard Dad say to Mum that I was never going to pass any exams anyway so did it really matter.’ She paused, trying not to let that painful memory wind her the way it usually
did.

It had hurt knowing that even her own parents didn’t have faith in her.

‘I didn’t want them to fix it. I wanted to fix it myself. So I went to the local college and then art school. I left home properly in my first term and never went back. I needed to prove to them, to me, that they don’t have to take care of me.’ She laughed but there was no humour in her voice. ‘Look how well
that’s turned out.’

‘I think you do just fine by yourself.’

‘Pregnant after a one-night stand?’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe they’re right.’

‘Pregnant? Yes. But you faced up to it, came here and told me, which was pretty damn brave. You’re sacrificing your own dreams for the baby. I think that makes you rather extraordinary.’

‘Oh, well.’ She shrugged, uncomfortable with the compliments.
‘I do get to be a countess and sleep with a king for social advantage after all.’

‘There is that.’ His eyes had darkened again. ‘Where were we, when your sister phoned and interrupted us?’

Daisy felt it again, that slow sensual tug towards him, the hyper awareness of his every move, the tilt of his mouth, the gleam of his eye, the play of muscle in his shoulders.

‘You were telling
me about wanting to be an outlaw.’ She felt it but she wasn’t going there. Not today, not when she was in such an emotional tumult.

‘Coward.’ The word was soft, silky, full of promise. Then he straightened, the intentness gone. ‘So I was. Ready to see the rest of your home? Let’s zoom forward to the eighteenth century and start exploring the Georgian part. I’ll warn you, there’s a lot of
it. I think we’ll stick to the ground and first floors today. The second floor is largely empty and the attics have been untouched for years.’

‘Attics?’ A frisson of excitement shivered through her. As a child she had adored roaming through the attics at home, exploring chests filled with family treasures. Only there was nothing to discover in the recently renovated, perfectly decorated house.
Photos sorted into date order? Yes. Tiaras dripping with diamonds or secret love letters? No. But here, in a house that epitomised history, she could find anything.

‘Would you mind if one day I had a look? In the attics?’

Seb walked towards the door and stopped, his hand on the huge iron bolt. ‘One day? I think you’ll need to put aside at least six months. My family were hoarders—I would
love to catalogue it all, although I suspect much of it is junk, but there’s too much to do elsewhere. The whole house could do with some updating. I don’t know if your talents run in that direction but please, feel free to make any changes you want. As long as they’re in keeping with a grade one listed building,’ he added quickly.

‘And there I was, thinking I could paint the whole outside
pink and add a concrete extension.’ But she was strangely cheered. A house with twenty bedrooms and as many reception rooms—if you included the various billiard rooms, studies and galleries—was no small project. But taking it in hand gave her a purpose, a role here. Maybe, just maybe, she could make Hawksley Castle into a home. Into her home.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘M
ORNING
. H
UNGRY
?’

Seb half turned as Daisy slipped into the kitchen, tiptoeing as if she didn’t want to offend him with her presence.

‘Starving. I keep waiting for the nausea to start.’ She was almost apologetic, as if he would accuse her of being a fraud if she wasn’t doubled over with sickness. It would be easier, he admitted, if she were ill. He was after
all taking it on trust that she was even pregnant in the first place, although she had offered him plenty of chances to wait for confirmation.

‘You may be lucky and escape it altogether. How did you sleep?’

‘Good, thanks. Turns out five-hundred-year-old beds are surprisingly comfy.’

The problem of where to put Daisy had haunted him since she had agreed to move in. To make this work,
to fulfil her criteria as far as he could, meant he couldn’t treat her like a guest and yet he wasn’t ready to share his space with anyone.

Even though part of him couldn’t help wondering what it would be like lying next to those long, silky limbs.

Luckily Georgian houses were built with this kind of dilemma in mind. When he first took a leave of absence and returned to Hawksley six
months ago to try and untangle the complicated mess his father had left, he’d moved into his grandparents’ old rooms, not his own boyhood bedroom on the second floor.

There was a suite adjoining, the old countess’ suite, a throwback to not so long ago when the married couple weren’t expected to regularly share a bed, a room or a bathroom. The large bedroom, small study, dressing room and
bathroom occupied a corner at the back of the house with views over the lake to the woods and fields beyond. The suite was rather faded, last decorated some time around the middle of the previous century and filled with furniture of much older heritage but charming for all that.

‘There is a door here,’ he had said, showing her a small door discreetly set into the wall near the bed. ‘It leads
into my room. You can lock it if you would rather, but I don’t bother.’

The words had hung in the air. Were they an invitation? A warning? He wasn’t entirely sure.

It was odd, he had never really noticed the door before yet last night it had loomed in his eyeline, the unwanted focal point of his own room. He had known she was on the other side, just one turn of the handle away. Seb’s
jaw tightened as he flipped the bacon. He could visualise it now as if it were set before him. Small, wooden, nondescript.

‘Did you lock the door?’

‘Bolted it.’

‘Good, wouldn’t want the ghost of a regency rake surprising you in the middle of the night.’

Daisy wandered over to the kettle and filled it. Such a normal everyday thing to do—and yet such a big step at the same time.
‘I’m sure bolts are no barrier to any decent ghosts, not rakish-type ones anyway. Coffee?’

‘All set, thanks.’ He nodded at the large mug at his elbow. The scene was very domestic in a formal, polite kind of way.

Daisy sniffed the several herbal teas she had brought with her and pulled a face. ‘I miss coffee. I don’t mind giving up alcohol and I hate blue cheese anyway but waking up without
a skinny latte is a cruel and unusual punishment.’

‘We could get some decaf.’ Seb grabbed two plates and spooned the eggs and bacon onto them.

‘I think you’re missing the whole point of coffee. I’ll give liquorice a try.’ She made the hot drink and carried the mug over to the table, eying up the heaped plate of food with much greater enthusiasm. ‘This looks great, thanks.’

‘I thought
we might need sustenance for the day ahead. Registrar at ten and I booked you into the doctor’s here for eleven. I hope that’s okay. And then we’d better let the staff and volunteers know our news, begin to make some plans.’

‘Fine.’ A loud peal rang through the house causing a slight vibration, and Daisy jumped, the eggs piled up on her fork tumbling back onto the plate. ‘What on earth is
that?’

Seb pushed his chair back and tried not to look too longingly at his uneaten breakfast. It was a long way from the kitchen to the door, plenty of time for his breakfast to cool. ‘Doorbell. It’s a little dramatic admittedly but the house is so big it’s the only way to know if there’s a visitor—and it’s less obtrusive than a butler. Cheaper too.’

‘Is it the gorgon? If I get turned
to stone I expect you to rescue me.’

He tried not to let his mouth quirk at the apt nickname. There was definitely a heart of gold buried deep somewhere underneath Mrs Suffolk’s chilly exterior but it took a long time to find and appreciate it. ‘The volunteers have a key for the back door—there’s only two working doors between the offices and the main house and I lock them both at night.’

‘Good to know. I don’t fancy being petrified in my bed.’ Her words floated after him as he exited the kitchen and headed towards the front of the house.

Once, of course, the kitchen would have been part of the servants’ quarters; it was still set discreetly behind a baize door, connected to the offices through a short passageway and one of the lockable doors that defined the partition
between his personal space and the work space. But even his oh-so-formal grandparents had dispensed with live-in servants during the nineties and started to use the old kitchen themselves. For supper and breakfast at least.

His parents had brought their servants with them during the four years they had mismanaged Hawksley. Not that they had ever stayed at the castle for longer than a week.

The doorbell pealed again, the deep tone melodic.

‘On my way.’ Seb pulled back the three bolts and twisted the giant iron key, making a mental note to oil the creaking lock. He swung open the giant door to be confronted with the sight of his future mother-in-law, a huge and ominously full bag thrown over one shoulder, a newspaper in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.

Seb blinked. Then blinked again.

‘Goodness, Seb, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ She thrust the champagne and the newspaper at him, muttering cryptically, ‘Page five, darling. Where is Daisy?’

‘Good morning, Mrs Huntingdon...’

‘Sherry.’ She swept past him. ‘“Mrs” makes me feel so old. And we are going to be family after all.’

Family. Not something he knew huge amounts about
but he was pretty sure the tall, glamorous woman opposite wasn’t a typical mother-in-law. ‘Right, yes. This way. She’s just eating breakfast.’

He led the supermodel through the hallway, wincing as he noticed her assess every dusty cornice, every scrap of peeling paper. ‘My grandparents rather let the place go.’

‘It’s like a museum. Apt for you in your job, I suppose.’ It didn’t sound
like a compliment.

They reached the kitchen and Sherry swept by him to enfold a startled-looking Daisy in her arms. ‘Bacon? Oh, Daisy darling, the chances of you fitting sample sizes were small anyway but you’ll never do it if you eat fried food. No, none for me, thank you. I don’t eat breakfast.’

‘Mum? What are you doing here?’

Seb couldn’t help smiling at Daisy’s face. She looked
exactly as he felt: surprise mixed with wariness and shock.

‘Darling, we have a wedding to plan and no time at all. Where else would I be? Now hurry up and eat that. We’ll get you some nice fruit while we’re out. Page five, Seb.’

Seb glanced down at the tabloid newspaper Sherry had handed him and opened it slowly, his heart hammering. Surely not, not yet...

He dropped it on the
table, a huge picture of Daisy and himself smiling up from the smudged newsprint. ‘Hot Prof Earl and Wild Child to Wed’ screamed the headline. He stepped back, horror churning in the pit of his stomach, his hands clammy.

‘I knew it.’ Daisy’s outraged voice cut into his stupor. ‘They mentioned the expulsion. Why not my first in photography or my successful business?’

‘I expect they also
mentioned my parents’ divorces, remarriages, drinking, drug taking and untimely deaths.’ He knew he sounded cold, bitter and inhaled, trying to calm the inner tumult.

‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded small and Seb breathed in again, trying to calm the swirling anger. It wasn’t her fault.

Although if she wasn’t who she was then would they be so interested?

‘I’m sorry,’ she added and he swallowed
hard, forcing himself to lay a hand upon her shoulder.

‘Don’t be silly, Daisy, of course they’re interested. Seb is just as big a draw as you, more so probably.’ Sherry’s blue eyes were sharp, assessing.

‘Yes,’ he agreed tonelessly. ‘We knew there would be publicity. I just thought we would have more time.’

If Daisy hadn’t gone to Huntingdon Hall, hadn’t involved her parents...

‘The best thing to do is ignore it. Come along, darling. Show me the wedding venue. I don’t have all day.’

Daisy sat for a moment, her head still bowed, cheeks pale. ‘We have appointments at ten, Mum, so I only have half an hour. If you’d warned us you were coming I could have told you this morning was already booked up.’

‘You two head off, I’ll be fine here. There’s plenty to do,
just show me the venue.’

‘Honestly, Mum. I can organise this quite easily. I really don’t need you to do it.’ There was a hint of desperation in Daisy’s voice as she attempted to reason with her mother.

‘I know very well that you prefer to do everything alone, Daisy. You make that quite clear.’

Daisy pushed her half-eaten breakfast away and, with an apologetic glance at Seb, took
her mother’s arm. ‘Okay, you win. Seb, I put your breakfast back in the pan to keep warm. Come along, Mother. I don’t think even you can fault the Tudor Hall.’

Seb watched them go before sliding his gaze back to the open newspaper. He focused on the picture. He was driving and Daisy was looking back, smiling. It must have been snapped as they left the hall. How hadn’t he noticed the photographer?

Was this how their lives would be from now on? Every step, every conversation, every outing watched, scrutinised and reported on.

With one vicious movement he grabbed the paper and tore the article from it, screwing it into a ball and dropping it in the bin, his breath coming in fast pants. He wouldn’t, couldn’t be hounded. Cameras trained on him, crowds waiting outside the gate, microphones
thrust into his face. He had been five the first time, as motorcycles and cars chased them down the country lanes.

His father had driven faster, recklessly. His mother had laughed.

The tantalising aroma of cooking bacon wafted through the air, breaking into his thoughts. Seb walked over to the stove, his movements slow and stiff. The frying pan was covered, the heat set to low and inside,
warmed through to perfection, was his breakfast. Saved, put aside and kept for him.

When was the last time someone had done something, anything for him that they weren’t paid to do?

It was just some breakfast, food he had actually cooked, put aside. So why did his chest ache as he spooned it back onto his plate?

* * *

Daisy had to work hard to stop from laughing at the look
on Seb’s face. He stood in the Great Hall, staring about him as if he had been kidnapped by aliens and transported to an alternate universe.

And in some ways, he had.

Her mother had wasted no time in making herself at home, somehow rounding up two bemused if bedazzled volunteers to help her set up office in the Great Hall. Three tables in a U-shape and several chairs were flanked by
a white board and a pin board on trestles with several sticky notes already attached to each. A seamstress’s dummy stood to attention behind the biggest chair, a wreath of flowers on its head.

A carafe of water, a glass and a vase of flowers had been procured from somewhere and set upon the table and Sherry had proceeded to empty her huge bag in a Mary Poppins manner setting out two phones,
a lever arch file already divided into labelled sections, a stack of wedding magazines and—Daisy groaned in horror—her own scrapbooks and what looked like her own Pinterest mood boards printed out and laminated.

So she planned weddings online? She was a wedding photographer! It was her job to get ideas and inspiration.

If Sherry Huntingdon ever turned her formidable mind towards something
other than fashion then who knew what she’d achieve? World peace? An end to poverty? Daisy winced. That wasn’t entirely fair; both her parents did a huge amount for charity, most of it anonymously. The Benefit Concert might be the most high-profile event but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

‘There you are, Seb.’ Sherry was pacing around the Great Hall, looking at the panelling and the
other period details with approval. ‘Before you whisk Daisy away I need a bit of information.’

‘Whatever you need.’ His eyes flickered towards the arsenal of paper, pens and planning materials set out with precision on the tables and a muscle began to beat in his stubbled jaw as his hands slowly clenched. ‘Good to see that you’ve made yourself at home.’

‘I think it’s helpful to be right
in the centre of things,’ Sherry agreed, missing—or ignoring—his sarcastic undertone. ‘Your nice man on the gate tells me that there are weddings booked in both weekends so I can’t leave everything set up but we’ll have the hall to ourselves for the four days before the wedding so I can make sure everything is perfect.’

Daisy noticed Seb’s tense stance, the rigidity in his shoulders, and
interrupted. ‘It won’t take four days to set up for a few family and friends—and it’s such short notice I’m sure most people will have plans already.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course they’ll come. It’ll be the wedding of the year—rock aristocracy to real aristocracy? They’ll cancel whatever other plans they have, you mark my words. Now, the nice young man tells me the hall will seat two hundred
so I’ll need your list as soon as possible, Seb.’

‘List?’ The muscle was still beating. Daisy couldn’t take her eyes off it. She wanted to walk over there, lay a hand on the tense shoulder and soothe the stress out of it, run a hand across his firm jawline and kiss the muscle into quiet acquiescence. She curled her fingers into her palms, allowing her nails to bite into her flesh, the sharp
sting reminding her not to cross the line. To remain businesslike.