Lover's Touch [070-4.0]

By: Penny Jordan

Synopsis:

Cinderella wife A husband was the simple solution if Eleanor was to
keep her family's estate intact- and millionaire Joss Wycliffe seemed
the ideal candidate!  Until Eleanor fell in love with him and her
wedding plans became more complicated.  Suddenly she wanted more than a
marriage of convenience, she wanted to be his wife in every sense of
the word.

She'd known from the start that she wasn't Joss's type, but if she
changed her image would he have a change of heart?


CHAPTER ONE

Is that the bride?  Where on earth did she get that dress?  " Grama
demanded disparagingly.

"Honestly, Nell, if Gramps had known what you were going to do with
this place when he left it to you, he'd have had forty fits.  It's
so..."  she wrinkled her small nose 'so.  "

"Enterprising?"  Nell suggested drily.

They were in the book-room.  And the bride whose pretty white dress her
stepsister had so disparaged was making her way on the arm of her groom
beneath an archway of roses into the marquee that Nell and her small
staff had spent the whole of the previous day putting up and
organising.

"Enterprising or not, I still say Gramps wouldn't have approved.  And
you know it."

That was the trouble.  Nell did.  Her grandfather had been one of the
old school: a stiff; military gentleman, fiercely proud of the
tradition of his family and its service to its country.  Fiercely loyal
to everything he believed in, and that included an old-fashioned and
outdated belief that he owed a responsibility, not just to his
immediate family, but also to the small village that nestled less than
a mile away from Easterhay's front gates.

The village had been there long before the first Hugo de Tressail had
built his home there, but it had been under his auspices that the
shabby collection of untidy dwellings had been superseded by his
manorial hall, and the Norman church with its square tower that
overlooked the gentle roll of the Cheshire plain.

In the small church itself, a tomb marked the burial place of that
first de Tressail, his stone effigy lying at rest on top of it in the
classic medieval pose.  Alongside him lay his wife, a small dog curled
at her feet.

She had been a Saxon Thane's daughter, well born but poor, and it was
supposed to be from her that every now and then throughout the
generations a de Tressail woman would inherit her wheat-blonde Saxon
hair.

Nell had it herself, a straight waterfall of pale straw which she
privately thought colourless.  She would much rather have had her
stepsister's more vivid colouring, with its inheritance of Latin
ancestry.

"I wish I'd known you'd got one of these dos on this weekend," Grama
continued disagreeably.

"I'd never have bothered coming down."

"Then why did you?"  Nell asked her calmly.

At first sight many people dismissed her as timid and withdrawn, but
Nell had her own quiet strengths, her own firmly held beliefs and, so
some people considered, more than a touch of her grandfather's
notorious stubbornness.

"I need an advance on my allowance," Grama told her curtly.  She saw
Nell's face and said sharply, "Oh, for heaven's sake, don't look so
po-faced.  Joss won't mind..."

"Maybe not, but I don't like you taking money from him," Nell told her
stiffly.

"Why ever not?  He is our trustee and it is our money, although I'll
never understand why Gramps insisted on leaving everything tied up so
stupidly.  An allowance until I marry..  then a small lump sum.  I'd
rather have the whole lot now, and I've a good mind to tell Joss as
much."

"No, don't do that."

Nell spoke more sharply then she had intended.  Outside, the last few
remaining guests had gone into the marquee.  She had been rather
surprised at the success of her small venture into commercialism,
although as yet it was true that she had not made much of a profit,
barely enough to pay the wages of the staff, in fact; but it was a
start.  A first small step on the road to independence.  She and Grama
were so different, and not just in looks.  Grama had the fiery
temperament of her Italian parents, Nell's stepmother and her first
husband, and she also had her careless, insouciant attitude towards
money.

Her success as a model should have made it possible for her to earn
more than enough to live on, and not need the small allowance Nell's
grandfather had organised for her, but Grama had never seemed to
realise exactly what their financial situation was.  For all her
sophistication-and she was sophisticated, far more so than Nell
herself; who was three years her senior--she had appeared to have no
idea that the allowance she spoke of so glibly came not from their
grandfather's estate, but from Joss Wycliffe's own pocket.

But, most shamingly of all, Nell knew that if she were to tell Grama
the truth, she would not feel in the least mortified but would probably
make some mocking quip about Joss being able to afford to pay her ten
times as much as he did .  which of course was true.

There had been a time, some months before her grandfather's death, when
Nell had wondered if Joss's constant visits to Easterhay were perhaps
because he hoped to make Grama his wife.  It had seemed the only
explanation for the unlikely relationship which had sprung up between
her grandfather and the man who had no compunction at all about saying
that he had clawed his way up virtually from the gutter to achieve the
multimillionaire status he now had.

He had moved into the area three years ago, buying a house on the
opposite side of the village.  Nell had heard the gossip about him
before he moved in, but had scarcely expected that her grandfather
would make a close friend of him, not for any snobbish reasons, but
simply because her grandfather was a very reserved man, with few
friends and the kind of sharp tongue that made people view him
askance.

And if it hadn't been for that fateful fall, she doubted if Gramps
would even have met Joss.

Despite his age, and the handicap of a severe wound incurred during the
action that had earned his KBE, her grandfather had always insisted on
walking the five-mile perimeter of the parkland every morning after
breakfast.  The morning he first met Joss, just after the younger man
had moved into the village, it had been frosty, and despite Nell's
protests Sir Hugo had insisted on going out, taking with him the German
pointer that was his favourite companion.  He had been seventy-eight
then, crusty and irascible; and Nell had loved him desperately.  He was
virtually the only family she had.

There was Grama, of course, but she and her stepsister had never been
close.  Grama had been with her mother and Nell's father at the time of
the horrific road accident in Italy which had robbed Lucia de Tressail
of her life, and reduced Nell's father to a speechless, bedridden form
who never regained consciousness.  He had survived his father by a
matter of days, never knowing that he had inherited the earldom, and
died before Nell had taken in the shock of her grandfather's death.
Grama had rung from Italy to break the news, saying, "It's quite
convenient in a way.  That hospital must have been dreadfully
expensive, and it wasn't as though poor Daddy knew anyone, was it?"

Grama had been taken in by the Italian relatives her mother and Nell's
father were on their way to visit.  Nell had not accompanied them on
that trip, primarily because someone had to remain at home with her
grandfather.  Naturally, when the news came through of her stepmother's
death and the full extent of her father's injuries, it had been to her
grandfather and Easterhay that she had turned.

Easterhay had been her home for as long as she could remember.  Her
father, an army man like his father and grandfather before him, had
brought her there when she was little more than a few weeks old,
leaving her in the care of his father and unmarried aunt.

His wife, Nell's mother, had died at Nell's birth and she had grown up
here at Easterhay, unknowing of how out of date her grandfather's mode
of life was, because she had never experienced anything else.

She had been five when her father had remarried, but because of his
overseas postings Nell had been eight years old before she had ever
been able to spend anything more than a brief holiday with her father
and new stepmother.

Lucia had tried to be kind to her; she was naturally warm-hearted, Nell
recognised; but she, a child reared by a crusty retired general and his
maiden sister, had shrunk from Lucia's attempts to embrace and mother
her, both literally and metaphorically.  A shy, withdrawn child, she
had grown up into an equally withdrawn adult, quite happily giving up
her job in London to come home and nurse her grandfather when her aunt
died, and Gramps announced that she would have to return home to take
up her aunt's duties.

She had been just twenty then, and that had been over four years ago.

Four years during which she had been forced to mature abruptly, once
she realised how precariously balanced her grandfather's finances
were.

The care of his son had eaten into his last small reserves of cash, and
now with Gramps himself dead and the ominous threat of double death
dudes hanging over Easterhay, Nell had no idea how on earth she was
going to keep her promise to her grandfather.

Deathbed promises were like something from Dickens, she told herself as
she watched her efficient staff close the entrance to the marquee.

In a few mintues she would have to go down and preside over the buffet.
No matter how much Grama might choose to deride today's bride, her
parents had still paid and paid well for their daughter to have her
wedding reception here in Easterhay's beautiful parkland, and the pride
Nell had inherited from her grandfather, the sense of duty which living
with him had instilled in her, would not allow her to do less than her
very best for anyone.

"Promise me you will keep Easterhay," Gramps had demanded almost with
his last breath, and she, tears in her eyes and clogging her throat,
had agreed.

But she still had no idea how that promise was going to be kept.

Oh, she was doing what she could.  These weddings brought in a small
income, kept the staff busy and paid, and also allowed her to give much
needed weekend work to some of the youngsters from the village.

There was also her plan to take in weekend guests, but first some of
the bedrooms needed to be renovated.  She could hardly expect people to
pay to use the one cold and very draughty bathroom installed on both of
the two bedroom floors.  Deftly she added up her small profit,
wondering if she could manage to get three more bathrooms installed by
Christmas.  She had the work force to do it.  Gramps had insisted on
keeping on a large staff even though there was little enough for them
to do, other than to try to continually repair the fabric of the house
as best they could.

Peter Jansen, the estate carpenter, had made the tables for inside the
marquee.  Harry White, the gardener, had supplied the flowers and
helped her make the decorative arrangements.  Mrs.  Booth, the cook
housekeeper had organised the food, all of them only too glad to be
doing something to lift a little of the burden from Nell's shoulders.

Once, they and their children would have found well-paid work in
Manchester or Liverpool, but those days were gone.  Work wasn't easy to
come by anywhere now, and scarcely a week went by without Nell being
asked if it was possible for her to find a job for 'our Jane' or 'our
Robert'..

It was true that the staff lived relatively cheaply and well in the row
of cottages owned by the estate, but the cottages were in need of
repair, and Nell had no idea how on earth she was going to manage to
finance her wages bill once it was winter.

It had occurred to her that she could always hire out the ballroom for
private dances, but how many times?  This was a very quiet part of
Cheshire not favoured by the wealthy, and there was very little demand
for such affairs, especially with Chester and the very prestigious
Grosvenor Hotel so close.

Weddings were different, and there could be no better setting for a
summer wedding than the parkland of Easterhay, with the house itself as
a backdrop, sunlight reflecting on the ancient leaded windows set into
their stone mullions.

It had been a Jacobean de Tressail who had added the impressive
frontage and extra wings to the original house.  One wing connected to
the stable block, the other via a covered walkway to the orangery, now
sadly denuded of its glass and in a state of disrepair.

"I must go out and check on how thing are going..."

"Do they pay extra for having the " Lady of the Manor" serve them?"
Grama asked her with a sneer.

"They should do."

Nell lost her temper with her.  She had been under a constant strain
since her grandfather's death, and although she sympathised with her
stepsister, she couldn't stop herself from saying tartly, "You
shouldn't sneer at them, Grama, since it's people like the Dobsons who
have the commodity you seem to covet.  They're extremely wealthy."

Compunction swamped her when she saw the way that Grama's eyes filled
with tears.

"There's no need for you to be so horrid to me, Nell," she complained
tearfully.

"It's not my fault that I hate being poor.  Mama always said that..."

She broke off and bit her lip, and Nell guessed that she had been about
to say that her mother had always told her that the de Tressail family
was a wealthy one.

Sighing faintly, Nell dragged her attention away from the wedding and
turned to her stepsister.

"Gramps always liked to pretend that there was more money then there
was.  His pride wouldn't allow him to admit how bad things were.  And
then, when Dad died ... the death-duties..."  She saw Grama's mutinous
face and reflected that, in her way, her stepsister was as stubborn as
her grandfather.

"You must have noticed just from the house how bad things are, Grama,"
she counselled gently.

"I thought it was just Gramps being mean.  You know how he was..  if
things are that bad why on earth don't you sell this place?  It would
fetch a fortune.  It's not fair!"  she burst out passionately.

"Why should Gramps have left it all to you?  It should have been split
between us..."

Nell stared at her, her heart sinking.  She knew these temperamental
moods of Grama's of old, and winced mentally at the thought of the
fiery outburst to come.  Why was it that her stepsister always made her
feel like such a pale shadow, a mere reflection when contrasted with
her own glowing, brilliant colour?

Her stepsister had so many advantages..  She was young, beautiful,
intelligent..  She had an excellent career, every advantage, and yet
still she resented Nell.  And why?  Because she had inherited
Easterhay.

Nell bit down on her bottom lip, gnawing at it, worrying at it as she
tried to find words tactful enough to explain the reasoning behind
their grandfather's decision.

Grama and Gramps had never got on.  Gramps had never really approved of
his son's second marriage, and he had been even less pleased when he'd
learned that his second wife already had a child from a previous
marriage.  Where was the grandson who would inherit the title?  Where
was the next Sir Hugo?  he had demanded when the new bride announced
that she didn't want any more children.  That had shocked him, Nell
knew, and he had never really forgiven Lucia for not providing an heir
for Easterhay.

In her grandfather's eyes, Nell knew, Grama was not a de Tressail, and
that was one of the reasons he had left Easterhay itself solely to
Nell.

Now that title would go to Nell's son.  always supposing she had one.
Always supposing she met a man willing to marry her and shoulder with
her the problems of her inheritance.

At heart, she knew that Grama had a valid argument.  The property
should be sold either as a home to someone rich enough to afford it, or
perhaps even to a developer.  But Nell knew she would rather have torn
out her own heart than agree to such a course of action.  Perhaps after
all there was more of her grandfather in her than she knew.  Or perhaps
it was simply conditioning.  simply the fact that she had been brought
up to put Easterhay and all that it stood for before herself and her
own needs and desires.

Whatever the case, she knew that her grandfather had left her Easterhay
because he saw her as its custodian, that to him she was little more
than a trustee holding the house and its lands for the future.  But
could she hold it?

She had no idea.  but she meant to try.

Trying was one thing, succeeding was another.  Her initial approaches
to the National Trust on the advice of her solicitor had proved
fruitless.  If Nell only knew of the houses they were offered, but had
to turn down;

houses of far more national importance than Easterhay.

The trouble was that Easterhay was too large to be run as home without
wealth to support it, and yet too small to be developed in the way that
some of the more well known National Trust houses had been.

And so it was down to her to find a means of keeping the estate going,
to use what skills she had to bring an income into the bank account,
with perilously little in it, to cover the looming death-duties.

She was doing what she could.  These weddings that paid so well but
demanded so much..

Perhaps next year they might even invest in buying their own marquee
that would save money in the long run, and..

As always when money worried at her mind, she became totally engrossed
in the problems of maintaining the house, and it took Crania's sharp
voice to bring her out of her mental financial juggling.

"Well, if you won't be reasonable, I'm sure that Joss will... He is
here, isn't he?"

"If by here you mean in the village, then yes, I believe he is at home
at the moment," Nell acknowledged stiffly.

Grama laughed, her angry mood lightening as she teased, "Poor Nell,
you've never liked him, have you?  Far too much the rough diamond for
you, I suppose.  I must say, though, that he does have a rather
exciting aura of sexuality about him.  I wonder what he's like in
bed."

"Grama!"  Nell protested, her face suddenly hot.  It was true that she
had always felt uncomfortable in Joss's presence, but not because she
didn't like him--far from it!

"Poor Nell," Grama pouted.

"Honestly, you're like something out of Pride and Prejudice.  Sex does
exist, you know.  And so does sex appeal, and believe me.  Joss has it
by the bucketful.  All that and money too.  " She closed her eyes.

"Mmm..."  She opened them again and looked at her stepsister, saying
tauntingly, "You haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about, have
you?  You wouldn't recognise sex appeal if it... Honestly, you're
archaic.  I suppose you don't even approve of me going to see Joss. You
probably even think I should wait for him to get in touch with me. Poor
Nell--you've no idea what you're missing."

Oh, but she had, Nell acknowledged painfully.  She was all too well
aware of what Grama described as Joss's sexiness.  She herself would
have put it slightly differently, but in essence her stepsister was
right.  Joss had about him an animal quality of vitality and maleness
that no woman could fail to be aware of.  And Joss himself knew exactly
what he had .  and he used that knowledge ruthlessly.

He wore the beautiful girls who flocked around him as a hunter wore his
trophies.  He never seemed to be without some lissom beauty clinging to
his arm, and was often photographed on the society pages of the
newspapers with some scantily clad female clinging possessively to his
dark-suited arm.

Nell often felt that they were deliberately posed, those photographs,
for all their apparent artlessness; the girls were invariably blonde
and frail.  Joss invariably clothed in the dark formality of a business
suit, his face in profile so that the hawklike, almost cruel harshness
of his features was thrown into relief.

It was hard to imagine, looking at Joss today, that there had ever been
a time when he had been forced to steal to get food.  when his clothes
had been little more than rags.

Now only the faint burr in his voice betrayed him, and even that was a
deliberate policy, Nell was sure of it.  He was an excellent mimic, and
could quite easily have adopted the clipped, classless accent of her
grandfather and his kind had he wished.  But for some reason he didn't
choose to do so; for some reason, as she had good cause to know, he
seemed to delight in forcing people to remember the life from which he
had sprung.

Nell had once attended a local dinner party with her grandfather when
Joss had almost shocked one of the female guests senseless by replying
to her polite dinner-table queries about his life by telling her in
graphic detail exactly what could happen to small children, both male
and female, left to scavenge for a living on the streets of the
country's inner cities.  He hadn't minced his words and Nell herself
had winced, not due to any distaste for the forthrightness of his
speech, but for the vivid picture he was drawing.

Unfortunately he had misinterpreted her reaction, and had taunted her
for it during the drive home.

It seemed that she and Joss were destined to be at loggerheads with one
another, and now if Grama went to him to complain of the unfairness of
Gramps' will.  Nell could still remember the look on Joss's face when
the will was read; the tightening of his mouth that presaged anger; the
hard, flat look in his eyes.  Odd how well she could recognise every
slight nuance of his moods.  Or not odd at all, really.  her stomach
quivered and she suppressed the sensation as she had taught herself to
suppress every similar sensation and emotion that dwelling on Joss
brought.

"Well, I'd better get a move on if I'm going to see Joss...1 can take
your car, can't I?"

"Grama, I'd rather you didn't.  I think he's got visitors," Nell
responded stiffly.

"Visitors?"  Grama stared at her for a moment, and then burst out
laughing.

"You mean one of his women?  Oh, he won't mind me interrupting.  He's
probably bored with her already, knowing Joss."

"Grama, I'd rather you didn't talk about Joss's private life like
that," Nell interrupted her sharply.

She felt Grama turn to look at her, her stepsister's gaze sharpening.

"I don't believe it," she said gleefully, after a moment's pause.

"I

do believe you've actually fallen for him yourself!  Oh, Nell.  you
fool.  He'd never look twice at someone like you.  He goes for the
high-profile glamour types.  " She eyed Nell's plain skirt and blouse
contemptuously.  Her stepsister was attractive enough in her own
way--she had the most fabulous hair, and her oval face with its wide
grey eyes and straight nose had a tranquil beauty which might be out of
step with the times, but which was still very appealing.  The trouble
with Nell was that she had no idea how to make the most of herself, how
to package herself, so to speak.  With a modern, voluptuous hairstyle,
fashionable clothes, heels to give her slim frame height and something
fitted to show off her figure, she'd look a million times more
appealing..  but still not appealing enough to entice a man like
Joss.

"You'd be much better off with someone like David... How is he, by the
way?"  Grama asked carelessly.

Personally she found the young solicitor who handled their
grandfather's business deadly dull, but he would do nicely for Nell,
and he would be bound to want to persuade her to get rid of the house.
That would suit Grama very well.  Once the house was sold, Nell could
hardly refuse then to split the proceeds between them.  With her share.
well, the world would be her oyster.  She could travel.  see things. do
things.  enjoy the freedom and excitement that she deserved, instead of
having to pinch pennies and go cap in hand to Joss for more money.

"Look, I must fly," Grama announced.

"I've arranged for Terry to pick me up at four.  We're having dinner
with some friends of his at Aux Quatre Saisons tonight."

"Terry?"  Nell queried.

"You don't know him," Grama responded brightly.

"I met him at one of the shoots for the underwear commercial.  He's in
television.  By the way," she added mockingly, 'you do realise, don't
you, that what you're doing with the house won't get you into Joss's
good books?  He doesn't approve at all.  "

Crania's taunt and its implied hint that she, Grama, was far more
aufait with Joss's opinions than her dull, boring elder sister, set a
spark to the over-dry tinders of Nell's temper.  She had borne so much
these last eight months; struggled so hard to keep her promise to
Gramps; carried the dual burden of its responsibility and that of
knowing their true financial position, which she was sure Grama did
not.  The allowance she talked about so glibly for instance.  the money
she believed Gramps had left her.  That came from Joss, and it galled
Nell more than anything else on earth that she was forced to keep
silent, to accept his charity.

As her grandfather's executor, he was well aware of the exact state of
their finances, and probably had been beforehand.

It was odd in a way how much her grandfather had confided in him.  how
in those last few months, when it became apparent that he had not long
to live, he had drawn strength from Joss's presence.  had even come to
rely on him in a way that he had never relied on her.

But to Gramps she was just a woman a frail creature who need protecting
and directing.

Joss was different.  Joss was a man.  During those last months he had
called regularly two and sometimes three times a week, making time in
what Nell knew must be a hectic schedule to come and play chess with
her grandfather in the old-fashioned panelled library.  Yes, there was
very little about the de Tressail finances and the de Tressail family
that Joss didn't know.

Only the week before his death, still chuckling over some reminiscence
of when Joss had described his roving teenage years when he had
falsified his age and travelled the world working on the huge oil
tankers, Gramps had claimed, "He's cut out of the same cloth as the
first Sir Hugo, is Joss.  A man who makes his own rules.

A bit of a rogue perhaps, but tough enough to hold on to what he
considers to be his own.  Strong enough to stick by what he believes
in.  I like him," he had added staring fiercely up at Nell, as though
half expecting her to argue with him.

Now Grama's taunt about Joss's views on what she was trying to do to
bring money into the estate infuriated her, and she responded fiercely,
"Well, then, that's just his tough luck, isn't it?

Easterhay belongs to me, and what I choose to do or not do with it is
my business and no one else's, especially not someone like Joss
Wycliffe," she added with far more scorn in her voice then she really
felt.  The scorn in actual fact was for herself, for feeling hurt by
Crania's revelation that she and Joss had discussed her and Joss had
revealed his disapproval.  Although why she should feel so hurt, so let
down... " Unfortunately, that's not strictly true.  "

The dry, controlled male voice shocked her, making her spin round, her
hand going to her throat in an age-old gesture of self-protection.

"Joss...1 didn't hear you come in," she said weakly, knowing that she
was flushing to the roots of her pale hair .  knowing the contrast she
must make to Grama's vivid dark beauty, Grama who had no hesitation at
all in running lightly across the room and flinging herself into Joss's
arms.

Only she didn't quite make it.  He fielded her off very neatly just
before she reached him, holding her at arm's length while she pouted
and eyed him with wicked flirtatious ness

Oh, to be Grama and not her dull, boring self!

"Joss, the very person!"  Grama exclaimed.

"I need to talk to you desperately.  How on earth did you know I was
here?"

"I didn't," Joss told her flatly.

"I came to see Nell..."

"Oh, well, that can wait.  Besides, Nell's just about to go and do her
boring duty by the wedding party.  Honestly Joss, you ought to see the
fright of a dress the bride's wearing.  Home-made, I'm sure..."

Chattering blithely, linking her arm through Joss's she led him out of
the room.

Nell watched them, her face shadowed with pain.  What a striking couple
they made, both so tall and dark.  Joss lithely male in his casual
clothes, the leather blouson jacket he was wearing so soft that it
promised to feel like purest silk to the touch; Grama, dressed in
something wildly fashionable and no doubt wildly expensive, while
she..

She looked down at her serviceable tweed skirt and blouse.  They were
good-quality separates, but she had had them for about six years, and
they had not been bought for fashion's sake then.  What on earth had
prompted her to choose beige in the first place?  Her aunt, of
course.

Aunt Honoria had strong views on the dress and manners of young women.
Nell had been eighteen when those clothes had been bought.

Just leaving college and starting her first job at the small
publishers' run by an old friend of her grandfather, and the clothes
had been those Aunt Honoria had deemed most suitable for her business
life.

Like everything else in her wardrobe, they had simply become things to
put on so that she could get on with the business of living.  dull and
worthy, like herself.

The sound of Grama's excited laughter floated back towards her.  In the
dimness of the corridor, she could just see how Joss's dark head
inclined slightly toward her stepsister's, and a pain she knew she
ought to have learned to control three years ago knifed through her.

Joss Wycliffe .  the very last man on earth she ought to fall in love
with.  And yet she had.  instantly.  on sight.  and without any chance
of ever recovering from the blow that fate had dealt her.

It was just three years ago that she had first met Joss, and she would
never forget that heart- stopping moment when she had come to the door
in answer to its imperative summons and discovered Joss standing
outside supporting her grandfather, who had fallen over and hurt
himself while out for his walk.

Joss had been wearing brief running shorts and a singlet, his dark hair
sweat-slick, but still inclined to curl slightly.  He had been tanned,
his skin like Grama's, naturally far darker than her own.

The sight of him had totally overwhelmed her, and she had behaved, she
suspected, like an idiot, staring at him as though she had never seen a
man in her life before.  Who knew what foolish dreams she might have
started weaving in her head if Joss hadn't looked at her and said
coolly, "Yes.  Shockingly disreputable, aren't I, and hardly dressed to
make the acquaintance of a ladyV And he had stressed that last word
unmercifully, making her colour up painfully.

And she had seen in his eyes his contempt and dismissal of her; had
seen how totally unattractive as a woman he found her, and for the
first time in her life she had truly appreciated her Aunt Honoria's
training.  As she had gone on appreciating it ever since.  If nothing
else, it enabled her to act out the role life had designed for her:

the unmarried, unattractive daughter of the house who knew her place;
and to conceal from Joss exactly what effect he had on her, or so she
hoped.

CHAPTER TWO

by tuesday the wedding marquee had been taken down, the tables and
chairs packed away and the lawn restored to its normal pristine
splendour.

Nell was sitting in the library, working on her accounts.  She kept
these meticulously, amused to discover that she had quite a talent for
bookkeeping; but unfortunately, like all her other talents, it wasn't
enough to build a career on--at least, not the kind of career that
would support a house like Easterhay.  For that, one needed a business
empire to rival Joss's.

She looked again at her neat figures, her heart sinking.  It didn't
matter how many corners she tried to cut, how many economies she made,
she just wasn't making enough money.  Last weekend's wedding had been
the next to the last of the season.  So far she had managed to keep on
all the staff, but with winter approaching.  Her grandfather's pension
had died with him, and although Joss might have come to some
arrangement with her grandfather to ensure that Grama had her
allowance, Nell was damned if she was going to allow him to support her
as well.

Outside, her car sparkled in the autumn sunshine.  She ought to drive
into Chester to collect some supplies.

Her car was only two years old, an expensive model that she would never
have dreamed of buying, but which her grandfather had insisted on
giving her as a birthday present.  Each time she looked at it, she
mentally calculated how much she could get for it, but how could she
sell Gramps' last gift to her .  a gift she was sure he could barely
afford himself?

He had excused his generosity, saying testily that, since he was no
longer allowed to drive, she would have to act as his chauffeur, and
that he was damned if he was going to be driven about the place in one
of those poky modern things.

But a Daimler .  for someone in her financial position?  She leaned
back in the leather chair which had once been her grandfather's.  It
was too large for her, and not very comfortable.

She closed her eyes tiredly, only to open them again in shock as she
heard Joss saying tauntingly, "Finding the old man's chair too big for
you, Nell?  Just like his shoes, eh?"

"Joss!  What are you doing here?"

She sat up, flustered that he should have caught her off guard.  She
was already all too well aware of the most comical contrast she must be
to the women in his life.  beautiful, expensively groomed women.  She
hated him seeing her when she wasn't prepared.

"It's quarter day--remember?"

Quarter day .  of course.  Her grandfather still had stuck by the
old-fashioned calendar all his life, and he had left intructions in his
will that every quarter day she was to present her household accounts
to Joss, as first his wife and then his sister had once presented
theirs to him.

"Oh, yes, the accounts.  Well, they're all here."

She got up tiredly, so that he could take her seat and study the books
open in front of her.  As she stood, her body reacted to its tiredness
and she stumbled awkwardly, catching her hipbone on the corner of the
desk.  The impact sent a shock-wave of pain through her, making her
catch her bottom lip between her teeth.

She saw Joss frown, the amber eyes flaming as they always did when he
was annoyed.  Of course, her clumsiness would be offensive to a man
used to women who only moved with elegance.

"You look as though you haven't slept in a month, and you're too thin,"
he told her brutally.

"What the hell are you doing to yourself?"

"Nothing," Nell countered, adding pettishly for some reason she
couldn't define, "I wish you wouldn't allow Grama to believe that her
allowance comes from Gramps' estate.  Joss.  It makes it difficult for
me."

"You know she believes this place should be sold and the proceeds split
between you?"  he interrupted her.

Nell gripped the edge of the desk with slender fingers and agreed
bleakly.

"Yes."

"But of course your grandfather felt, as she isn't a de Tressail by
birth, that she should be excluded from inheriting from the estate.  A
court of law might very probably take a different point of view."

Nell swallowed painfully.  Was Joss telling her that he shared Crania's
view that Gramps had been unfair in not leaving the house to them
jointly?

"Gramps wanted the house to stay with the family.  He hated the thought
of it being sold."

She had to blink back emotional tears and keep her face averted from ^
him.  She wasn't like Grama, she couldn't cry prettily.  At Gramps'
funeral she had been too anguished to do anything more than simply
watch in frozen silence.  It had been Grama who wept, silent, pretty
tears that barely touched her make-up, her head rest ling vulnerably
against Joss's chest.

She had watched them, telling herself she was a fool for the jealousy
she felt.  Joss would never look at her.  In the three years she had
known him, the only time he had come anywhere near embracing her had
been the first Christmas.  He had arrived at the house on Christmas Eve
to see her grandfather.  Nell had let him in and his eyes had gone
briefly to the mistletoe hanging in the hall, and then to her mouth as
he stepped inside.  Even now she could still feel her pulses flutter
dangerously at the recollection of that moment when she had known he
was going to kiss her.

His mouth had been hard and warm and she had quivered in his arms,
unable to hold back the sensations storming her.  He had released her
immediately, stepping back from her, and she was sure she had read
derision in his eyes as her grandfather came into the hall to welcome
him.

He had not touched her since, and she could hardly blame him.  She was
not his type of woman and she never would be.

"I know," Joss told her dmy.

"One could almost say, in fact, that he was obsessed with it, to the
point where the continuation of the de Tressail name and the family's
occupation of this house were more important to him than anything else.
More important than you, for instance, Nell," he added cruelly.

"Yes..  he never really got over the fact that my father had no son,"
she agreed evenly, ignoring the look in his eyes.

"Do you know what his plans were, had he remained alive?"  Joss asked
her abruptly.

Nell looked at him.

"Plans for what?"

"For the continuation of the de Tressail family," Joss told her
mockingly.

"For your marriage, Nell, and the production of a great-grandson to
carry on the name."

"He had no plans," Nell told him huskily, frowning as she saw the
derision in his eyes.

"Joss, the days are gone when families arranged marriages."

"Are they?  Your grandfather was a desperate man, and desperate men do
strange things.  Six months before he died, your grandfather asked me
if I would marry you."

Nell was stunned, her white face giving away her feelings.

"Surprised, Nell, that he should even consider such a marriage?  With a
self-made man like myself with no breeding or background; no family
history stretching back for generation upon generation?  But you forget
one thing.  I have one valuable asset: I'm rich ... very rich.  I have
the money that Easterhay so desperately needs."

Nell wasn't listening.  She swung round, her face in her hands as she
murmured frantically, "How could he?  Oh, how could he?"

"Quite easily," Joss told her calmly.

"To him, it was an almost ideal solution to your family's problems."
Beneath the weight of her shame and betrayal that her grandfather
should humiliate her in such a way, she was desperately aware of how
amused and contemptuous Joss must be.  She was the very last woman he
would want as his wife, and no doubt he was now going to enjoy letting
her know it.

To stop him she said frantically, "The whole thing's absurd.  Poor
Gramps.  He was so ill towards the end that..."

"His mind was as sound as yours or mine," Joss interrupted brutally,
'and you know it.  What's wrong, Nell?  Having second thoughts now that
you're actually being called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice?  It
was all all right when you were playing at being the struggling Lady of
the Manor, proudly trying to keep things going, but when a real
solution to your problems presents itself, you flinch from taking it.

No need to ask myself why, of course.  I've no doubt that given your
choice, you'd much rather have someone like Williams as a husband.

"Unfortunately though, my dear, he has even less money than you do
yourself, and you'd never keep this place going with what he earns as a
country solicitor.  Make your mind up to it, Nell.  It's either marry
me or sell up."

"Marry you?"  Nell stared at him, her eyes dark with shock.

"Joss, you can't possibly be serious about this."

"Why not?"

"But why?  Why would you want to marry me?"

She missed the look he gave her.

"How very modest you are," he said silkily after he had controlled
it.

"Surely it's obvious, Nell?  I'm a self-made man who's made it
financially in life, but, like all self-made men, I now want to crown
my financial success with social acceptance.  Not just for me, but for
my children, especially my sons ... my eldest son," he added
meaningfully.

And then, in case she hadn't understood, he added coolly, "Marriage to
you will open doors which would otherwise have remained closed.

Our son will inherit your grandfather's title.  Surely, Nell, you know
how much men of my class yearn to become members of the aristocracy?
"

She was sure he was mocking her.  In all the three years she had known
him.  Joss had never once exhibited the slightest degree of envy for
her grandfather's social standing, and it stunned her to discover now
that he was actually contemplating marrying her for the reasons he had
just stated.

It was her grandfather's fault, of course.  He was the one who had
initially put the idea in his head, but Joss had obviously not been
slow to pick it up.

Unless, of course, he was simply making fun of her, constructing a
hugely elaborate joke at her expense.  Her common sense told her this
was hardly likely.

"Joss, I can't marry you," she protested, struggling to deny the
emotions churning inside her.  Our son .  our son .  the words seemed
to reverberate inside her head, until she couldn't hear anything else.
In those two words, he had conjured up such an enormity of complex
emotions and sensations within her that she could barely accommodate
them all.  To have a child by this man whom she loved so desperately.
To live with him here in this house.  To be his wife.  but she was
allowing herself to be swept away into a fantasy world.

Joss wasn't talking about marriage as she envisaged it; he was talking
about a coldly calculated business arrangement; a marriage that would
have no emotions, no feelings, no love, and that would be nothing other
than a mere exchange of assets.  His money for her title and home.

It happened, of course it happened, even in these enlightened times,
but not to her.  never to her.

"It was what your grandfather wanted, Nell," he warned her.

"An ideal solution to a problem which never ceased to worry him."

How dared he add to her guilt?  He knew what he was doing to her by
telling her that, although she didn't doubt for a moment that he was
telling the truth and that her grandfather had seen it as an ideal
solution to their financial problems.

"I can't," she whispered painfully.

"No...?  Then I'm afraid you leave me no choice.  As Grama's trustee, I
really have no alternative but to support her claim to half of your
grandfather's estate.  In the courts, if necessary.  Of course, if we
were married, I've no doubt r could come to some suitable arrangement
with Grama a lump sum in lieu of what she considers due to her..."

Nell stared at him in disbelief and then whispered frozenly, "That's
blackmail."

The dark eyebrows rose, and her mouth trembled as much with anguish as
with anything else.

"These days we call it gamesmanship ... the art of being one step ahead
of your rival."  He flicked back the cuff of the jacket he was
wearing.

"I've got to be back in London this evening, and I shan't be back until
the early hours.  I'll come over in the morning, Nell.

You can give me your answer then," he told her, ignoring her protest
that he already had it.

He had no mercy.  no mercy at all, Nell acknowledged half an hour
later.  She was huddled over the empty fire, her grandfather's dog at
her knee.

The pointer had been a birthday gift from Joss to Gramps, and with the
loyalty of her breed had attached herself to him devotedly.  She had
pined after his death, and although Nell walked her and fed her she
came way down the list in the pointer's affections.  She was a man's
dog, and never failed to place herself at Joss's feet whenever he came
to visit.  It was unusual for her to show such affection to Nell, but
today, sensing her despair, she had come to sit beside her and Nell
welcomed the warmth of her body, hugging her in her arms as she rocked
slowly to and fro, trying to come to terms with Joss's proposal.

Even now she could hardly take it in.  Joss wanted to marry her, and
how brutally he had made sure that she was not likely to harbour any
illusions about the reasons behind his proposal.

He didn't want her.  No, what he wanted was her home.  her name.  her
family title.  for his son .  their son.  And he had made no apology
for wanting them either; but then, why should he?  To Joss, everything
in life was a commodity with a price on it.  The price of the gift he
wanted to give his son was marriage to her.  It was as simple as
that.

The phone rang abruptly, making her jump.  It was the vicar's wife,
reminding her that she was bringing the Young Wives up to the house to
tour round the greenhouses later in the week.

If only there was someone she could turn to for advice and counsel.

Her closest friend throughout her schooldays was now married, with a
busy household, her husband being a doctor.  They lived near Cambridge,
and as well as her own baby girl there were also two older children
from Robert's first marriage.  It hadn't been easy for her friend to
make the decision to take on a widower with two young children, and
there had been many long telephone calls between Liz and Nell before
Liz had finally decided to commit herself to Robert.

Now she was blissfully happy, and fully deserved to be, and yet for all
the confidences they had shared over the years, Nell had never told her
how she felt about Joss.  Perhaps she had hoped that by keeping silent
she could somehow pretend that those feelings didn't exist?

But they did, and today Joss had scoured her soul by what he had said
to her; by the ruthlessness he had displayed; by his total lack of any
consideration of her own feelings.

How could she possibly marry him?  And yet, how could she not..

She had promised Gramps that she would do everything in her power to
hold on to Easterhay; how could she live with herself if she refused to
honour that promise?

It was easy to tell herself that her grandfather was the product of a
different age, that her promise need not be kept .  that no one would
blame her for refusing Joss, bearing in mind his reasons for marrying
her.  It should be the easiest thing in the world for her to simply say
"No', but she couldn't.  Conscience ... pride ... or just sheer,
stubborn love for her home and her family... She didn't really know
which, or if it was a combination of all three.  Or even perhaps if she
had inherited more from her reckless ancestress then just her blonde
hair, and, for the first time in her life, was actually going to throw
herself blindly into the arms of fate.

The morning papers brought in the shocking realisation that Joss wasn't
leaving anything to chance.  There was a photograph of him prominently
displayed on the society page of The Times, and underneath the caption,
"Millionaire entrepreneur Joss Wycliffe announces that he is shortly to
be married.  The bride is not Naomi Charters, the actress whom he has
currently been escorting, but the daughter of an old friend.  Lady
Eleanor de Tressail.  The couple will marry within the next few
months."

Nell sat down at the breakfast-table, feeling faintly sick.  How dared
Joss take her acceptance for granted like this!  He wasn't allowing her
anything .  no pride, no compassion.  nothing.

She pushed away her bowl of cereal and reached for the coffee-pot, her
hand trembling.

There was a large pile of mail beside her plate, and it contained far
too many ominous buff envelopes.  She picked up the top one, her heart
sinking as she recognised the familiar Inland Revenue stamp.  When she
opened it her heart sank even further.

It was a reminder that there were still death- duties to be paid, and
the sum seemed astronomical.  On the other side of the panelled
dining-room was a lighter piece of panelling where a Gainsborough had
once hung.  It had been sold when her grandmother died.  Now there was
nothing more to sell..  Other than herself.  She shivered tensely. 
Dear God, why on earth couldn't Joss have at least tried to make it
easy for her.  at least pretended to feel something for her, even if
they both knew it was a pretence?  This way .  this way.  he was making
sure that she knew exactly what it was he wanted out of their marriage,
and it wasn't her.

The phone rang, and she knew before she picked it up that it would be
Joss.

She was right; his clipped, slightly accented voice was abrasive on her
ear.

"I'm coming over at twelve, and I've arranged for Williams to be there
at one.  There'll be certain legal arrangements to be made and I
thought you'd want him there, seeing as he's your solicitor... He was
moving too fast.  Bullying her..  pushing her in a direction she wasn't
sure she wanted to go; but when she tried to protest he hung up on her.
She could picture him without even trying.  He would be standing in his
study, an anonymous square room, which like the rest of his house
looked more like an expensive hotel than a home.

He would probably be wearing one of those fine Savile Row wool suits in
some dark, formal fabric.  Joss liked good clothes and he wore them
well, but nothing could totally disguise what her grandfather had
described as his buccaneering quality; that arrogant maleness that no
amount of city suiting could tame.

His dark hair would be lying flat to his skull, thick and clean, his
mouth curled into that thin, taunting smile he gave her so often;

nothing like the smile he gave other women.

She got up unsteadily and called to the dog, Heicker.  She came to heel
obediently.  Joss had trained her.

Outside it was one of those crisp September days when frost and the
scent of woodsmoke mingled in the air and the sky was a clear pale blue
with the sun dappling yellow and bright through the turning leaves.

Deliberately Nell avoided walking past the greenhouses and the stables
which had once housed her grandfather's hunters.  She herself liked to
ride, but she did not enjoy hunting other than for its pageantry.  She
was too squeamish, too conscious of the purpose for which the hounds
were bred, and as a teenager she had always drawn a sigh of relief when
the day ended without the fox being caught.

Her grandfather had had no such qualms, of course.  To him, fox were
vermin and hunting a sport.  Right up until his death, the local hunt
had started their Boxing Day meet at Easterhay.  The traditional
stirrup cup prepared in the kitchen for the huntsmen came from a recipe
supposedly brought back from France by a de Tressail who had been
exiled there by Henry VII and whose French wife was supposed to have
been connected to the powerful de Guise family, uncles of Mary Stuart
through her French mother.  Whatever its true origins, it went down
well with the huntsmen.  She wondered if Joss would want to continue
the tradition.  Did he hunt?  she wondered.  Certainly not from birth
as her father and grandfather had done, but at some point or other in
his life Joss had taken enough time away from making money to acquire a
sophisticated degree of polish.

Despite Joss's taunts, Nell was no snob.

Although he didn't seem to realise it, she admired Joss for what he had
achieved, and her doubts about the wisdom of marrying him had nothing
to do with the fact that he had been born in a Glaswegian slum and she
in an expensive private nursing home.

Twelve o'clock, he had said.  it was gone ten now.  And then David
arriving at one..  He was determined to make her agree, then.  Even to
the extent of involving the family solicitor.  Poor David, how little
he understood the Josses of this world.  Nell suspected that David was
terrified of Joss, although he hid it beneath a stiffly formal manner
more suited to a man of fifty-odd than one of twenty-six.

Like her, David had been brought up in an old-fashioned tradition,
knowing almost from the cradle that he was destined to succeed his
father as a country solicitor.  There had been a time when she had
wondered if she might fall in love with him.  But that had been before
she saw Joss.

For some reason she couldn't entirely analyse herself, she chose to
wait for him, not in her grandfather's library, the room with which she
was most familiar in the house, but in a small, north-facing
sitting-room which three centuries before had been the preserve of the
ladies of the family, and which was now never used, as testified to by
the fine film of dust on the small French escritoire.  She touched it
idly, admiring the delicate marquetry work.  This desk had been part of
the dowry of the family's second French bride, Louise, a shy,
prim-looking child of fourteen who had died giving birth to her first
child, and whose portrait hung next to that of her husband in the long
gallery.

The air in the room was faintly musty.  A distinct chill penetrated
through Nell's thin blouse, and when she saw Joss drive up she shivered
violently, hugging her arms around her body.

He wasn't in his Rolls, but driving the Aston Martin.  Its rich plum
paintwork went well with his dark colouring, she noted idly, as after
swinging long legs from the car, he straightened up and closed the
door.

Even the way he moved had a certain animal assurance; no hesitation or
doubts there, Nell reflected wryly as he walked towards the main
entrance looking neither to his left nor his right, his head not down
bent as so many people's were when they walked, but tilted at an
arrogant angle.

Anyone not knowing him would think he was more at home here in this
house than herself, Nell acknowledged.

Her grandfather's staff were old-fashioned and set in their ways, and
she knew that Johnson, who had been her grandfather's batman and then
his valet, and who was now supposed to be retired, but who had begged
her to allow him to stay on at the house, rather than retire to the
estate cottage her grandfather had left him, would insist on announcing
Joss formally to her before allowing him admittance to the room.

Against one wall of the small room, painted to pick out the soft
colours of the faded blue silk wallpaper, was a small table decorated
with gilded flowers, and above it a matching mirror.

It gave Nell back her reflection with the cruel honesty of the room's
northern light.  Not plain precisely, but certainly not lushly
beautiful like the women she had seen photographed with Joss.  Her
features were neat and regular, surprisingly dark lashes surrounding
the clear grey of her eyes, her skin, that delicate, translucent, very
English skin that looked its best under softly rainwashed skies.

All her life, almost, she had worn her hair plaited, and the neatly
twisted coils lying flat against her skull heightened the delicacy of
her bone-structure, but Nell saw none of the rare delicacy of her
features, seeing instead only that she was a pale, washed-out shadow of
her stepsister's dark beauty.

As a teenager she had experimented with make-up, trying to copy the
effects she had seen in magazines, but on her the effects had been
garish, and so now she rarely wore more than pale pink lipstick.

Liz had tried to persuade her into Harvey Nichols the Christmas before
last when they had met in London for a shopping trip, telling her that
modern make-ups with their subtle colours were far more suited to her
delicate colouring than those which had been fashionable during their
early teens, but, all too aware of the fact that Grama was coming home
for Christmas, Nell had shrunk from inviting Joss's mockery by doing
anything that might be construed as an attempt to catch his
attention.

The salon door opened and Joss walked in, making her step back from the
mirror.

"Where's Johnson?"  she asked him huskily, flustered to see him
standing there when she had anticipated a few more moments' grace.

Something gleamed in Joss's eyes, something predatory and intimidating,
but when he spoke his voice was cool and distant.

"Since I'm shortly to become a member of the family, I told him there
was no need to stand on ceremony."

Nell gripped the edge of the table.

"You told Johnson that we're going to be married?"

"You object?  Why?  We are going to be married, aren't we, Nell?"

She looked mutely at him and then said sadly, "Do I have any choice?"

"No--and I haven't said a word to Johnson," he told her calmly.

"I'm not totally without awareness, Nell ... some of the rough edges
have been rubbed off, you know.  I know you will want to tell the staff
our good news yourself..."

There was an ironic look in his eyes as he said the words 'our good
news' and, despite her firm determination not to do so, Nell felt
herself flushing although surely there was nothing for her to feel
guilty about.  Joss was the one who had proposed their marriage.  Joss
was the supplicator, no matter how hard she found it to visualise him
in that role.  When she gave him her answer.  And then she realised
that she already had.  Her lips parted on an uncertain breath, and, as
though he read her mind.  Joss said mockingly, "Too late, you've
already committed yourself, Nell.

Besides' He broke off as there was a discreet tap on the door and the
housekeeper came in carrying a tray of coffee.

"Thank you, Mrs.  Booth."  Joss reached out and took the tray, giving
the older woman a far warmer smile than Nell had ever received from
him, making a faint flush of colour rise up under her plump cheeks as
she left.

"I didn't ask for any coffee," Nell told him once they were alone.

She had been astounded by the way he already seemed to have taken
control .  by the way the staff, her staff, were already responding to
him.

"No?  Just as well I did, then.  When Johnson told me you were waiting
for me in here, I thought we'd need it.  As I remembered it, this room
gets as cold as charity... No doubt that was why it was chosen by the
French martyr..."

He looked amused at the astonishment on her face.

"Did you really think me totally ignorant of the family's history,
Nell?  Your grandfather told it to me...1 am right, aren't I?  This
sitting-room was furnished by Louise de Roget, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Nell told him bleakly.

"Poor, unhappy little French child.  I believe she spent more time at
her prayers than in her husband's bed.  Our marriage won't be like
that, Nell."

She looked up at him, shocked by the note of steel certainty in his
voice.

"I know you want a son.  Joss," she told him with dignity.

"More than one," he told her frankly.

"And not just sons...1 want a family, Nell."

"And if I don't?"  she returned with spirit, but he ignored her
challenge, smiling that cruel smile, and taking her chin between his
thumb and forefinger so that she was forced to look directly at him.

"Ah, but you do," he told her softly.

"You were made for motherhood, Nell, and if you're thinking of Williams
as the father of your children, then forget him."

"David?  But..."

"Your grandfather seemed to think you might be fancying yourself in
love with him--forget him.  Nell, he might be able to afford you, but
he can't afford this house."

What he said was in essence true, but that didn't make it any the less
insulting, not just to herself but to David as well.

To cover up the tremor in her stomach, she said sharply, "That remark
is chauvinistic in the extreme."

But Joss only laughed.

"Give in, Nell.  Admit that marriage to me will solve all your
problems.  No more closed-off cold rooms... No more pinching and
scraping... No more nights lying awake, worrying about how you're going
to cope..."

How little he knew.  Now her sleepless nights would be spent worrying
about about how she was going to cope with loving him, living with him
and trying to hide how she felt.

"There's another thing," he said as he released her chin and she jerked
her head away.

As far as he was concerned, it was settled they were to be married;

and yet he had made not the slightest attempt to touch her.  to embrace
her .  to make her feel that he felt something for her other than a
mere desire to use her.

"You're going to need to buy yourself some new clothes.  I'll organise
a credit card for you so that the bills can be sent direct to me.

Fiona, my secretary, will help you.  You'll probably need to arrange to
spend a couple of days in London.  I'll get her to organise something.
"

Nell was furious.  She had heard the gossip in the village about the
relationship which was supposed to exist between Joss and the elegant
woman who worked for him, commuting each day from her home in Chester
to Joss's house.

But, even more than his assumption that she was not capable of choosing
her own clothes, she resented the contemptuous glance he had given the
outfit she was wearing, no matter how much it might merit it.  With
that single look he had made it more than clear how very unattractive
he found her.

"Thank you," she told him arctic ally 'but I really don't need any new
clothes.  Joss.  I already possess a perfectly adequate wardrobe.  "

"Yes," he agreed drily, 'and I'm sure it's as antiquated as its
contents.  What's the matter with you, Nell?  " he demanded, rounding
on her.

"What possible pleasure can it give you to dress like a retired
schoolteacher?  Tweed skirts ... twin sets.  Wake up, Nell; not even
the Royal family dress like that these days."

It struck her as she listened to him that he was probably ashamed of
her; embarrassed about how she would look in comparison with the women
he normally favoured; worried that the outside world might take one
look at her and know immediately why he had married her; and that
hurt.

"I'm sorry if my present appearance doesn't please you.  Joss," she
told him when she had control of herself.

"What a pity you can't simply wave a magic wand and transform me,
without all this tiresome fuss."

She saw that he was about to say something and hurried on bitterly, "Of
course, one other alternative would be to simply allow me to fade into
the background of your life.  After all, I can imagine how awkward it
will be for you... Joss Wycliffe having a plain, dull wife..."

"Oh, no, you don't, Nell," he interrupted her harshly.

"I'm not having you sneaking off with Williams behind my back.  I want
a wife who is going to play her full role in my life, in public and in
private."

Nell looked at him, astonished that he could actually think she was
romantically interested in David, but forbearing to say anything.  Let
him think what he liked, she decided rebelliously, still deeply
resentful of his insults about her clothes, even if she knew at heart
that they were justified.

"No need to look so tragic.  I thought you'd be more sensible than this
Nell.  Your grandfather was almost proud when he pointed out to me the
rich brides brought into the family through arranged marriage.  Even
down to the mill owner daughter whose father's millions came into the
family after Waterloo.  Pity her son turned out to be such a gambler
and lost the lot.  If he hadn't..."

She lifted pain-blinded eyes to his face, desperately seeking some
softness there, some glimmer of compassion, but there was none.  She
meant nothing to him, other than a means to an end, and she never
would;

she would die before she allowed him to guess how much she loved him.

She saw him glance at his watch.

"I have to leave immediately after we've seen Williams, and there are
several things we still have to sort out.  The staff... As far as I'm
concerned you are free to make whatever arrangements you choose, but
Audlem, my chauffeur, will come with me, and I'd like you to make sure
that there's always a spare bedroom ready for Fiona.  As you know, I
prefer to work from home when I can.  I suspect that the only place
we're going to be able to install my computer equipment is in one of
the cellars.  I'll get someone round to check on that...1 want it in
before we get married.  How much time will you need?  I thought a
month.  That will give Williams time to draw up the agreements..."

He saw her face and smiled mirthlessly.

"We may as well do this properly, Nell.  I'll make you a monthly
allowance, for yourself, and open another account for you to run the
house from.  You're going to find yourself very busy over the next few
months with interior designers and the like.  I want this place
completely refurbished."

"All of it?"  Nell demanded faintly.

"All of it," he confirmed.

"So, Nell, can you be ready in a month?

We'll have the wedding breakfast here, or course.  I'll give you a list
of the people I want inviting.  Fiona will help you with the invites,
etc.  "

"Joss... Surely a quiet wedding..."

"As though we've something to hide?  I think not."  He broke off as
David Williams drove up.

This time Johnson did announce the visitor, and David came in, looking
slightly flustered and concerned.

"Nell!"  he exclaimed, going towards her, and Nell suspected he would
have kissed her if Joss hadn't suddenly placed himself between them and
said forcefully, "You can congratulate me, Williams.  Nell has agreed
to become my wife..."

For a moment David looked too shocked to speak, and when he did it was
to Nell, not to Joss.

"Is this true, Nell?"

"Yes," she told him quietly.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Joss watching them narrowly and
then tranferring his attention to his watch, a slim, gold masculine
timepiece.  Odd, in someone so devoted to modern technology, that he
should choose a very traditional kind of watch; traditional and
expensive, but discreetly so; not for Joss the status symbol of the
'in' designer watch, she reflected acidly.

"We've a lot to discuss, Williams," Joss announced, coming between
them.  The shock of his hand resting proprietorially on her arm made
Nell flinch in surprise and then wince as she felt his fingers bite
warningly into her flesh before he released her.  She was trembling,
slightly horrified at how very vulnerable she was to him physically.

David looked dazed when Joss had finished telling him exactly what was
happening.

Nell felt equally dazed as she heard him name what seemed like an
impossible sum, adding carelessly that he was giving it to her as a
marriage settlement.

"And I take it that Nell will be free to take it with her, should the
marriage ever come to an end," David said stiffly.

Instantly Nell saw the golden eyes flash dangerously.

"Only death will end our marriage," she heard Joss telling him.

She knew why, of course, and she suspected that David shared her
knowledge, because when Joss had finished dictating to him the terms of
the various agreements, he burst out explosively, "Nell, are you sure
you know what you're doing?  Do you really intend to marry him?"

"Yes," she told him quietly.  There could be no going back.  She was
committed.  David looked at her unhappily and then turned angrily to
Joss, only to hesitate as Joss studied him, one eyebrow lifted in
mocking interrogation.

"You seem surprised?"

"Not that you want to marry Nell," David muttered, flushed and
obviously resentful, 'but I can't see why Nell would want to marry you.
I realise exactly what you'll get out of this marriage.  But what about
Nell?

What does she get out of it?  "

There was a tiny pause, and then Joss looked directly at her, his eyes
hard and brilliant.

"Oh, Nell will get me," he said in a very soft voice.

Her heart almost stopped.  He had known all the time..  He had just
been playing with her, a cruel, vicious kind of torment, when all along
he had known how vulnerable she was, how unable to refuse him anything
.  even though it meant sacrificing her pride and her self-respect.

"And, of course, my money," he continued, his voice less soft and very
cynical, and relief flowed through her as she realised he had not
guessed how she felt at all.

David left just after two.  Nell watched him walk to his car, his
shoulders hunched defensively.  He paused and looked up at the
window.

Nell hadn't realised Joss was standing so close to her and she
stiffened in shock as she felt his hands on her shoulders, drawing her
back against his body, one hand holding her imprisoned while the other
lifted to her throat, caressing the tender flesh as though he were
actually her lover.

When she felt his mouth against the other side of her throat she cried
out softly and then started to tremble violently.

No one had kissed her like this before, caressing the sensitive hollows
with knowing expertise, making her shiver and tense beneath the ripples
of sensation that ricocheted through her body.

In a daze she saw David stare at them, white- faced, and then get into
his car.  Behind her she could feel the hard muscles of Joss's body,
and when she tried to pull away, his fingers bit painfully into her
collarbone.

It was only when David had gone that he released her.

"Why did you do that?"  she stormed furiously, her face burning hot
flags of colour.

"Why do you think?"  Joss retorted.

"You're going to be my wife, Nell."

"You didn't do it because of that.  You did it because David was
watching us."

"Exactly," Joss agreed curtly.

"As I just said, you're going to be my wife."  He smiled thinly as he
watched her.

"Such delicate skin."  He lifted his hand and, thinking he meant to
touch her again, Nell flinched back, only to feel a resurgence of heat
burn her face as he simply looked at his watch and then said curtly,
"There'll be formal announcements to be sent to the papers ... but
Fiona will see to that."

Nell saw the look he gave her and her face burned.  Without saying so
in actual words, he had left her in no doubts as to how he viewed her
appearance.  Did he honestly think that new clothes would make any
difference?  She was as she was .  and, after all, he wasn't marrying
her for her looks or her dress sense.  How galling it must be for him,
though, to have to acknowledge as his wife a plain, too thin woman like
herself.  People would take one look at her and know exactly why he had
married her, and, for all his bluntness when discussing the terms of
their marriage, she suspected that he would not want others to know
exactly why he had married her.

He left at three o'clock, telling her not to walk to the front door
with him.

He paused at the door and her heart leapt.

"Oh, I nearly forgot.  You'll need a ring.  I'll sort something out.

I'm involved in business meetings in London for the rest of the week,
but I should be free on Friday.  With any luck, we'll be able to
finalise the wedding arrangements then.  I'll get Fiona to get in touch
with you.  "

And then he was gone, the Aston leaving a cloud of dust hanging over
the drive.

CHAPTER THREE

lady eleanor?  I'm Fiona Howard, Joss's personal assistant.  "

The voice was cool and self-assured, and immediately Nell pictured the
woman who owned it as glossy and elegant.  From her voice it was hard
to define her age.  She sounded sophisticated and mature, but there was
also an edge of something else in her voice that warned Nell that she
wasn't pleased about Joss's marriage.

In the days since their engagement had been announced she had been
besieged by reporters, telephone calls and visitors, and it had been
rather like being overwhelmed by a tidal wave.  Only that morning one
of the society magazines had telephoned, asking for a photograph to
accompany their announcement, and Nell's normal calm, was fast
beginning to desert her.

She gapped the receiver tensely, her voice betraying her stress.

"Joss asked me to call to find out when you'll be free to go to London
to buy your new clothes.  I'd like a few days' warning so that I can
clear my desk, and get us a hotel booking.  I think we'll be able to
get most of what you need in Knightsbridge, but I'm not sure what
you've got in mind for the wedding dress.  You'll want something
simple, I expect..."  she added with an edge of mockery under her voice
that immediately made Nell take fire.

She was not going to allow this supercilious secretary of Joss's to
bully her, or to show her up as the country mouse she undoubtedly was.
Generations of fighting spirit rose up inside her, and to her own
surprise she heard herself saying in a voice she distinctly recognised
as her formidable great-aunt's, "That won't be necessary, Fiona.  I've
arranged to spend a few days with an old friend, and she'll give me all
the help I need."

There was silence from the other end of the line and then a rather
curt, "Oh, I see.  Very well, then, I'll tell Joss."

Nell had no doubt that she would, and somehow she suspected that she
herself would not feature flatteringly in the telling.

Joss was coming round to see her in the evening, to bring her
engagement ring and check on the progress with the arrangements.  She
had done very little save to check with the vicar that a Saturday four
weeks hence was available for the ceremony.  She knew he had been
surprised by her news, but he was too polite to show it, and she also
knew that her engagement was the subject of much busy speculation in
the village.

When Joss came he would also want to know when she had arranged to go
to Cambridge.  She gnawed on her bottom lip and then picked up the
phone, dialling Liz's number.

"Nell..  how lovely...1 haven't heard from you in ages.  How are
you?"

"Engaged," she said bluntly.

There was a short pause, and then Liz said in a pleased voice, "Oh, my
dear, that nice solicitor.  I am pleased."

"No, not David," Nell told her flatly.

"Not ... then who?"

"Joss.  Joss Wycliffe."

There was a pause and then a quiet, "Oh, Nell.  Are you sure?  I
mean..."

"I know what you mean, Liz, and yes, I am sure, but I need your help.

Clothes..  " she added succinctly.

Liz had been before her marriage a complete clothesaholic; she also had
an excellent eye for colour and line, and Nell knew that, unlike the as
yet unseen Fiona, she would treat her sympathetically.  If she had to
have a new wardrobe, she would rather have Liz to help her choose it
than anyone else.

"How many?"  Liz asked crisply.  I "A complete new wardrobe.  Oh, and a
wedding dress as well," and for some reason she heard herself saying
firmly, "Something really stunning, Liz."

"I know the very place; they speciali se in
Cinders-shallgototheball-type things that are out of this world.

Look, how soon can you get down here?  I can park Lucy with Ma-in-law
for a couple of days and we can concentrate totally on getting you kit
ted out.  When is this wedding taking place, by the way?  "

"In four weeks' time."

There was a breathless pause and then, "Nell, you're not..."

"No," she interrupted, her breath catching high in her throat on a
hysterical laugh.  The thought of Joss being so overcome by desire for
her that he accidentally made her pregnant was so totally unlikely that
it caused her body to burn and tears to film her eyes.

"No, nothing like that..."  she assured her friend.

"And I can come down on Monday and stay for as long as need be..."

"Well, a week should do it; that gives us some time for fittings.  I
know how tiny you are, and whatever we buy is bound to need
alterations.  We're lucky down here... There are plenty of fabulous
shops.  What about attendants?"

"Only Grama, I expect, and I'm sure she'll have her own ideas on what
she should wear."

"I'm sure," Liz agreed drily.

"But the choice isn't hers, but yours..  I know the very thing.  Pink
the kind of baby pink that turns her kind of skin yellow and does
horrendous things to dark hair.  Yes..  I can see her in it now..."

"Liz," Nell protested, but laughing despite herself.  Liz had always
had this effect on her, her wicked sense of humour making Nell smile
even when she felt least like it.  Nell could picture her |g 64 LOVERS
TOUCH now, her red hair in untidy disarray, her too wide mouth curled
into a smile, her lissom body dressed in jeans and one of her husband'd
discarded sweaters, and, no matter what she dressed in, nothing could
disguise Liz's feminine sensuality.  It was no wonder that Robert had
fallen fathoms deep in love with her.

"How are the family?"  she asked.

"Well, your god-daughter is fine--noisy, impossible, and at times a
pest, but fine... Jane's OK, but we're both worried about Paul.  On the
surface he seemed to accept our marriage very well, but there are
problems at school.  It can't be easy for either of them, seeing
someone take their mother's place."

"But they love you, Liz."

"Yes, I know, and that makes it all the harder for them, poor loves.

In loving me they probably feel they're betraying their mother.  It's
not so bad with Jane.  I can talk to her, but Paul is just at that age
when he's finding it difficult to articulate his emotions.  How will
you travel down?  "

"I'll drive.  I should arrive some time after lunch."

"Excellent.  We can spend the afternoon doing a recce and that will
leave us with plenty of time on Tuesday for the serious shopping."

It was the final wedding at Easterhay on Saturday, and so Thursday and
Friday were busy with its preparation, which pleased Nell because it
gave her less time to think.

Joss arrived late on Friday evening, just when she had almost given him
up.  Nell was in the hall when Johnson let him in.  She had been
arranging the last of the Michaelmas daisies in an ancient blue and
white vase.  She was just standing back to study her handiwork when she
heard his car outside.

He came in moving with his usual lithe grace, but tonight it was
underlaid by tense, restless energy.  His shirt was unbuttoned at the
throat, revealing corded muscles and brown skin.

"Sorry I'm late," he apologised tersely, dropping his briefcase on to
the floor.

"I got held up with a business meeting, otherwise I'd have been here
after lunch."

"Is everything all right?"  Nell asked him.  She had seen Joss exhibit
that restless energy once or twice before, normally when he was.  in
the throes of negotiating a new deal.

"Fine," he responded, and then added mockingly, "What's wrong, Nell?

Hoping for a reprieve--been praying that financial disaster would
overtake me, have you?  "

"Why should I?"  she asked, keeping her voice deliberately controlled
and neutral.  She had lain awake almost the whole of the previous night
thinking about their future together.

Joss wasn't going to allow her to back out of this marriage, she knew
that.  It was imperative that he never guessed how she felt about him,
and so she had decided that the safest thing she could do was to adopt
a manner of cool selfcontrol behind which she could hide her real
emotions.

It was all very well to plan out in the sleepless darkness of the night
what she intended to do, but now, confronted by the reality of Joss,
she wondered whether she was going to be able to carry it off.

His eyebrows lifted in the questioning way with which she was so
familiar.

"Why should I want you to lose your money, Joss?"  she asked him
quietly.

"After all, I'm hardly likely to find a second millionaire willing to
marry me, am I?

He gave her a narrowed look, mouth hard.

"Oh, I don't know.  I suppose there must be any number of self-made men
willing to buy what I'm buying from you, Nell."

Johnson had disappeared discreetly the moment he had let Joss in, but,
conscious of the fact that he could reappear at any moment, Nell said
quickly, "I wasn't sure what your plans were.  It's Mrs.  Booth's night
off, but I could make us a cold supper, if you're hungry."

Something was it surprise?  flashed momentairiy in the golden eyes, and
then he said silkily, "How wifely of you, Nell.  No, thanks, I already
have a supper engagement."  She turned away quickly so that he couldn't
see her face.

Of course, she should have known, given the circumstances of their
coming marriage, that he would still continue seeing those other women
who hung so fragilely on his arm, but somehow or other she had managed
to forget, or perhaps had deliberately not wanted to remember that they
would continue to have their place in Joss's life.

"Of course," she said emotiomessly, "I should have realised that you
probably had a previous engagement."

"Should you?"  The dark eyebrows rose again.

"I didn't realise you were telepathic, Nell, or are you trying to tell
me something else?"

She picked up the few stems of Michaelmas daisy that she hadn't put in
the vase and fidgeted with them nervously.  When he was in this kind of
mood.  Joss reminded her of a caged lion, restless and also very
dangerous.

"Who exactly do you think I'm having supper with, Nell?"

She forced herself not to betray her feelings as she turned to look at
him, deliberately curving her lips into a remote little smile as she
said quietly, "Your private life really isn't any concern of mine.
Joss."

To her shock, he reached out and grabbed hold of her, his fingers
encircling her wrist with painful force.

"Isn't it?"  he demanded harshly.

"By God, Nell..."

He broke off abruptly when her face went white, releasing her wrist
with a mock-delicate care.

"I'm sorry," he apologised drily.

"For a moment I had forgotten that I am trying to turn myself into a
gentleman.  How right you are to remind me, Nell.  As a lady, you won't
wish to concern yourself with the sordid details of my life, other than
where it touches upon your own.  Fiona tells me that you've arranged to
go to Cambridge," he added abruptly.

Still stunned by the bitterness she had seen and heard, Nell said
hopefully, "Yes, I thought I'd spend a few days with an old
school-friend."

She badly wanted to touch her wrist where he had gripped it.  Her flesh
ached and throbbed, and, now that the warmth of his fingers had been
removed, her skin actually felt chilled.

"I thought Liz could help me refurbish my wardrobe."

"Liz?"  Joss frowned, and then his forehead cleared.

"Oh, yes, the redhead.  A few days away from this place would probably
do you good.

I'm sorry about all the hassle you've been receiving from the Press,
but only to be expected I'm afraid.  I told Johnson to let me know if
things threatened to get really out of hand.  "

Nell stared at him.  Johnson had not said anything to her about that.

"Keeping tabs on me.  Joss?"  she enquired bitterly.

"There's really no need, you know."

Once again anger flared in his eyes.

"When do you plan to leave for Cambridge?"  he asked tersely.

"Monday morning.  I've got a wedding here tomorrow, and then there's
the clearing up."

"I'll get Audlem to take you down in the Rolls."

"There's really no need," Nell told him coolly.

"I'm perfectly capable of driving myself there.  Joss," "And I'll have
to see about sorting out a new car for you as well," he added, as
though she hadn't spoken.

"Is there anything particular you fancy?"

"Nothing," she told him fiercely.

"I already have a perfectly good car.  Joss.  There's no need for you
to buy me another one."  She emphasised the word 'buy' and he looked at
her with cold eyes, a mirthless smile curling his mouth.

"Perhaps not," he agreed, 'but it's been a few years since I bought the
Daimler, and.  "

Nell couldn't help it.  Her face betrayed her.  She cried out sharply,
"What do you mean?  Gramps bought that car."

"No, I bought it," Joss told her.

Nell fell shaky and sick.  All this time she had been driving around in
a car Joss had bought, and she had never known.

"It hurts, doesn't it, Nell, to be the recipient of someone else's
unwanted charity?  Oh, yes, I know all about that feeling," he told
her, watching her face.

"I grew up on it, and it made me determined that one day I'd be the one
doing the giving.  Have you drawn up your guest list for the wedding
yet?"

"Yes," Nell told him tonelessly.

"It's in Cramps' study."  She walked into the room, knowing that Joss
was following her, for once not intimidated by the sensation of having
him so close to her.  The list was on the desk.  She picked it up and
handed it to him in silence.

"Very impressive," Joss said curtly when he had finished reading it.

"Perhaps we ought to be getting married in Westminster Abbey, not the
local parish church, so that even more people can know how well you've
done for yourself.  Joss.  Be careful, you might find they're laughing
at you, not envying you."  She meant because she herself was so
different from the lovely women he normally escorted, but he went white
with an anger surely far out of keeping with her taunt, his eyes flat
with rage and his mouth a hard, thin line.

"Laughing at me?  Why, Nell?  For aspiring to a higher social station
than that to which I was born, because I don't have the right accent
and I haven't been to the right school?  Maybe I don't have those
things, but my son will, and when he's at school with the sons of the
people who are doing the laughing, well ... let's just see how they
feel then."

Nell was appalled at the flood of bitterness she had released.  She had
had no idea that Joss felt his background so keenly, no idea how on
earth to reassure him that he was wrong, that she had never given the
supposed difference in their station a thought.

"Here," he said curtly, reaching into his pocket and extracting a small
square box.

"You had better have this.  After all, this is the reason why I am
here."

He handed it to her, not deigning to open it himself, but her fingers
trembled over the catch of the old velvet-covered box and she almost
let it fall to the floor.  She heard Joss cursing under his breath and
then he took it from her, flipping the lid back dexterously, so that
the ring inside it caught the light and shimmered.  As he handed it
back to her, she caught her breath.  She had no idea what she had
expected him to give to her as an engagement ring a very valuable
solitaire probably, something expensive but discreet like his own gold
watch but this was nothing like that.

The ring was old and heavy, the gold red and worn.  The sapphire, that
was its central stone, gleamed brilliantly, diamonds surrounding it, a
sea of white fire.  She stared at it in disbelief and heard Joss saying
to her, "Don't you recognise it?"

"Recognise it?"  She stared from the ring to him, bemused, and another
of his hard, cruel smiles curled his mouth.

"You don't, do you, Nell?  Has anyone ever told you how good you are at
destroying a man's ego.  Come with me."

He led her from the study to the huge formal dining-room that was
hardly ever used these days.  Over the fireplace hung a portrait of the
Countess of Strathmarr.  She had been a Macdonald before her first
marriage, and on the wrong side during the Rebellion of 1745.  She had
supported Bonny Prince Charlie, not just in secret with money and men,
but in public in the salons of London, where she had let it be known
how she felt about George of Hanover, the usurper on the English
throne.

She was married at the first time at sixteen to a man older than her
own father, one of the Glaswegian tobacco lords, who had died six
months after the wedding, leaving his young bride immensely wealthy.

After the Rebellion had been crushed and Bonny Prince Charlie had fled.
King George had the countess arrested.  It had been Nell's ancestor who
had saved her; one of Cumberland's men, he had fallen in love with her
on sight, but in those days she had been far, far above him both in
station and in wealth.  Now, with her lands proscribed and her wealth
filling the king's coffers and her person languishing, in one of the
king's prisons while she awaited trial, which would almost certainly
send her to her death.  Sir Henry had stepped in.  Despite the fact
that he strongly supported King George, he had hated the cruelties
inflicted on the Highlanders, and when Cumberland praised him for his
bravery during the battle of Glencoe and offered to reward the quick
thinking that had saved his own life with an earldom.  Sir Henry had
turned it down, and requested that instead he be allowed to marry the
Countess of Strathmarr.

Nell knew this story almost as well as she knew the story of her own
life.  She had looked at the portrait of the young countess at least a
hundred thousand times and, while she had often noticed the soft droop
of her mouth and the sadness in her eyes, until Joss stood her in front
of it and pointed it out to her, she had never really noticed the
sapphire she was wearing on her left hand.

"She was given that ring by her tobacco lord when he married her," Joss
told her, 'and your ancestor bought it back for her from the king
because it was the same colour as her eyes.  Your grandfather should
have given it to your grandmother, but he had to sell it to pay
death-duties.  How your family have suffered under that burden, Nell.
"

"Like many others," she told him quietly, but inwardly her heart was
beating frantically.

"I managed to trace the ring, and I think it fitting that you should
wear it as a symbol of our future together."

Nell smiled and thanked him mechanically, but all the time her mind was
on the countess and her story.  How ironic that a ring that should
originally have been given by her ancestor to the woman he loved should
now be given to her by a man who had no feeling for her at all.

"So polite and self-controlled," Joss mocked her.

"I shall expect more than polite words and smiles from you after you
are my wife, Nell."

"I'm not a child.  Joss," she countered.

"I know exactly what our marriage will entail, and there's really no
need to hold it over me like a threat.  You have already stressed that
you want a son."

"And?"  Joss prompted.

"And the days are long gone when women of my class were kept ignorant
and virginal until they married."

Something leapt in the darkness of his eyes.  She automatically took a
step back from him.

"What are you trying to tell me, Nell?"  he asked evenly.

Outside the room, the telephone in the hall rang sharply, splintering
the tense silence.  Glad of the excuse to escape from him, Nell opened
the door and hurried to pick it up.

It was Grama, which surprised her, as her stepsister very rarely rang
her up unless she wanted something.

"Nell, what on earth's going on?"  she demanded sharply now.

"You can't be engaged' to Joss."

"Well, actually, I am," Nell told her; her lips formed the words, while
her mind was occupied with a hundred different thoughts.

"I'm glad you rang, Grama.  The wedding will be at the end of the
month, here in the village, of course.  I didn't know if you'd want to
be an attendent."

"How brave of you, darling," Grama trilled at the other end of the
line.

"I suppose I shall have to be, shan't I?  I promise I shall try not to
outshine you.  Is Joss there, by the way?"

she added lightly.

"He left some papers here at my flat the other night when he came
round."  Nell stiffened, remembering how she had once thought that
Joss's visits to her grandfather might be because he hoped to marry her
stepsister.

"He is here," she said distantly.

"I'll just put him on to you."

She handed the receiver to Joss and turned away blindly, but she had
hardly taken three steps before Joss was replacing the instrument.

"Don't go, Nell," he demanded.

"We haven't finished our discussion."

"I'm afraid I must," she said coolly.

"I've got rather a lot to do for this wedding tomorrow, and you did say
something about having a supper date."

"How cool you are, Nell.  Cool and remote like a rarefied atmosphere.

What will you do when I take you to my bed?  I wonder.  Close your eyes
and tell yourself that you are doing it for the sake of the family? "

It hurt that he should think her so incapable of normal feelings and
emotions, but, even as the muscles cramped with the pain controlling
her reaction to his words, she knew that to deny them was the most
dangerous thing she could do.  So instead she offered him a brief,
tormented smile.

"You're the one who proposed this marriage, Joss," she reminded him.

"If you've changed your mind..."

"No..  and neither will you change yours.  Remember that, Nell," he
warned her as he walked to the door.

"You are committed to me now.

And if you try to avoid that commitment, I shan't rest until I've found
you.  "

As he left, she found herself feeling almost sorry for him.  Poor Joss,
how desperately he must want a son to inherit her grandfather's
title.

She marvelled at the lengths to which such a need could drive a man,
especially a man of Joss's intelligence, and then went sadly back to
the study and checked on the details for the morning's wedding.

CHAPTER FOUR

'you've arrived at last.  Come on in and let me have a look at you. "

Extricating herself from her friend's hug, Nell walked with her up the
path.  Liz's home was several miles outside Cambridge, an untidy,
rambling rectory she and her husband were halfway through renovating.

It had a large garden with herbaceous borders, almost totally overgrown
with weeds, and Liz's little girl lay asleep in a pram, under an apple
tree in the back garden.

"She's just gone down," Liz told Nell.

"So we've got at least an hour to chat and I want to hear everything,"
she told her friend warningly, 'and I do mean everything.  You and
Joss--honestly, Nell, I can hardly believe it even now.  How long has
it been going on?  I had no idea the two of you were involved.  What a
dark horse you are," she said affectionately.

"We're not--involved, I mean," Nell said flatly.

"It's what you might call a marriage of convenience."

"What?"  Liz put down the coffee-jug that she was filling with water
and stared at her friend.

"It's a business arrangement, Liz," Nell told her doggedly.

"Joss is marrying me because he wants the family name and the house,
and because he hopes that one day our son will inherit Gramps' title,
and I'm marrying him because it means I can keep my home and the
staff."

"A marriage of convenience.  Good heavens!"  Liz exclaimed in a failing
voice, goggling at her.

"How very Georgette Heyer."  And then, more seriously when she saw
Nell's face, she said, "Nell, are you sure?

When you told me you were engaged, I felt sure it could only be because
you were head over heels in love, knowing you the way I do.  "

"I am," Nell told her painfully.

"I love Joss, but I know he doesn't love me."

"Oh, Nell."  Liz put down the coffee-jug and came over to her putting
her arms round her.

"Oh, my dear, are you sure you know what you're doing?  Life isn't like
a novel, you know, with the hero falling madly in love with the heroine
after he marries her.  Do you really know what you're letting yourself
in for?"

"Yes," Nell told her bleakly.

"Don't worry.  I'm not a complete idiot, Liz.  I know quite well Joss
is never going to fall in love with me."

"Oh, Nell, I wish you'd reconsider," Liz said sitting down beside
her.

"I know you.  You may be able to cope now, but are you going to cope in
the years to come?"

"I'll find a way," Nell told her.

"Must you go through with it?"  Liz pleaded.

Nell looked at her.

"Yes, I have to."

She saw the look on her friend's face and smiled.

"No, Liz, nothing like that.  But when Gramps died I promised him that
I'd do everything that I could to keep the house and the estate in the
family."

"A deathbed promise," Liz derided.

"Oh, Nell, how could he do that to you?"

"Liz, please," Nell protested, her voice wavering slightly.

"My mind's made up."

And, seeing the anguish in her eyes, Liz sighed.

"Very well.  I won't say another word.  Oh, Nell, marriage can be hard,
even when you are in love with one another.  I hate to think what it's
going to be like for you."

"I'll manage," Nell told her, and as she moved her hand Liz caught
sight of her engagement ring for the first time, her eyes widening.

In awe, she stared at it.

Glad to be able to change the subject, Nell told her the story of it.

"Good heavens, how romantic," Liz exclaimed.

"Nell, are you sure he doesn't love you?"

"Positive," Nell told her drily.

"He probably bought the ring thinking it would be an excellent thing
for our son to hand it over to his bride one day."

"It's a shame that it's still not possible to buy a peerage from a
poor, hard-up king," Liz commented.

"I tend to forget your title most of the time.  Lady Eleanor," she
teased.

A car arrived outside and Liz dashed to the window.

"It's Robert's mother," she told Nell.

"She promised she'd come round this afternoon and babysit for us so
that we could go out and do the recce."

"What about Jane and Paul?"

"Jane's going home with a friend after school, and as for Paul..."

She sighed faintly.

"Paul's staying with his aunt in Gloucester for a few days.  He's going
through a very difficult patch at the moment, Nell.  There've been
problems at school.  Complaints that he's taken to bullying some of the
younger boys, and that just isn't like him.  He has nightmares as well.
Poor boy, I wish I could do something to help, but Robert thinks the
best possible thing for him at the moment is a complete change of
scene.  Ellen is his mother's sister, and she's always had a soft spot
for him.  She and her husband don't have any children of their own and
he'd be able to respond to her spoiling in the way that he can't
respond to mine at the moment, because there'd be no guilt attached to
it."

How wise and compassionate her friend was, Nell reflected while she was
introducted to Liz's mother-in-law, a pleasant, plump woman in her late
fifties.

"We shouldn't be more than a couple of hours," Liz told her
mother-in-law.

"Don't you worry.  Take just as long as you like," she smiled.

"Now' Liz began as she emerged breathlessly from her car, having parked
it in the centre of Cambridge.  Nell had had to wait several minutes
while she had gathered together all her belongings, and then another
few seconds when she remembered that she had put her car keys in her
handbag and to get them out so that she could lock the car.

Liz had always been like this, slightly dizzy and disorganised.

"I know exactly where we're going for your wedding dress," Liz informed
her, 'so we'll leave that for today.  What I need to know now is
exactly how much wardrobe renovation is taking place.  "

"Joss wants me to replace everything," Nell told her flatly.

"Apparently my existing clothes don't fit in with the image he wants
his wife to portray."

If she expected Liz to sympathise with her, she was disappointed.

"Let's face it," Liz said brutally, 'they don't fit in with any image
other than the outdated one of a spinster schoolmarm.  Honestly, Nell,
with your figure you could wear anything.  Why on earth you hide it in
those awful sweaters and baggy skirts, I'll never know.  "

"They're good quality," Nell protested mildly.

"I can't afford to spend money on fashions, Liz, you know that."

"Who's talking about fashion?"  Liz demanded.

"You could go into a chain store any day of the week and come out with
at least half a dozen outfits smarter than the one you're wearing, and
just as good quality.  What about the honeymoon?  What will you need
for that?"

Nell stared at her.

"I've no idea," she admitted.

"Joss hasn't mentioned a honeymoon."

Liz's eyebrows rose.

"Since your husband- to-be stipulated a complete new wardrobe, we'd
better oblige him, hadn't we?  What sort of life will you be leading
once you're married, Nell?"

"I'm not really sure.  I expect Joss will want us to do a certain
amount of entertaining, and then there'll be business dinners, that
kind of thing."

"And the local social scene..."  Liz prodded.

"Hunt balls, charity dos?"

"Well, yes," Nell agreed.

"Mm...I think I'm beginning to get the picture.  Pity we didn't keep
your car and driver," she added with a grin.  Despite Nell's
protests.

Joss had had his way and she had been driven down to Liz's in his Rolls
by his chauffeur.

"I rather like the idea of a uniformed chauffeur driving behind us in a
Rolls-Royce, picking up our packages, don't you?"

She saw Nell's face and laughed.

"Poor Nell, but I do so enjoy teasing you.  Ah ... now here's a shop
that will be well worth' a visit," she exclaimed, directing Nell's
attention to a double-fronted shop tucked away down a small alley.

"They speciali se in really good quality German separates, Mondi,
Escarda, that kind of thing."

She saw Nell's blank look and laughed again.

"You'll like them," she promised her.

"Escarda is very elegant, very county.  Mondi's younger, more fun. Both
are extremely Well-made and hard-wearing.  We can go in now and have a
look, if you like--get your eye in, so to speak."

The shop was much larger than it appeared from the outside, taking up
two floors and stretching quite a way back.  The extent of the Mondi
range of separates stunned Nell, who had been visualising one or two
skirts and perhaps half a dozen or so shirts and sweaters to go with
them.  Instead she was confronted by a bewildering array of colours,
styles and designs.

"This red would look good on you," Liz exclaimed, reaching for a
beautiful stitched-down pleated skirt.

"I never wear red," Nell protested.

"I'm far too pale."

"Nonsense," Liz told her.

"This skirt and I think this blouse and oh ... definitely this
sweater."

Ignoring Nell's protests, she turned to smile at the assistant, quickly
explaining what she had in mind, and before she could say a word Nell
found she was being hustled into an immaculate changing-room with a
smiling assistant behind her.

The skirt, in the smallest size they had, did look surprisingly good on
her, its neat lines accentuating her slender shape.  The soft wool
blouse felt lovely against her skin, although she did try to murmur a
protest when the sales girl offered her the sweater that Liz had
chosen.  It was the same bright red as the skirt, with a design
appliqued on it, and was surely far too young for her.  The sales girl
persuaded her to try it on.

As soon as she was outside and being paraded for Liz's critical
inspection, she realised she was fighting a losing battle.  While the
sales girl and Liz discussed alterations and time scale Nell glanced
round the shop.  In the mirror on the other side of the room, she could
see someone wearing the same outfit as her.  On this other woman it
looked stunning; the pleated skirt falling gently to mid-calf,
accentuating the tiny, delicate ankle bones, the red warming her pale
skin.

It was only when Liz spoke to her and she turned her head, the movement
setting the pleats swirling, that Nell realised that the woman in the
mirror was herself.

"What are you looking so bemused about?"  Liz questioned her, but Nell
wouldn't tell her.  However, seeing herself like that and not realising
who she was had given her confidence a well-needed boost, and once the
first outfit had been decided upon she found it astonishingly easy to
agree with Liz that she must have the grey Escarder outfit, and that
the very dark blue suit, with the tiny velvet collar and fitted jacket,
would be ideal for any formal lunches she might attend.

Sweaters, scarves, belts, even jewellery, all added to what seemed to
be a huge pile of things on the table in front of them.  In addition to
the bright red Mondi outfit, she chose another, but this time it was
her own choice, although both Liz and the sales girl instantly
approved: a very neat, straight skirt that would have to be shortened
in a very dark, greeny-bluey-grey non-colour with a toning knitted
tabard in a pale dove-grey.  It had an attractive button detail at the
back, which the sales girl told her would have to be taken in to hang
properly over her very slim hips.  There was even a jacket to go with
it: dove-grey again, cut on the bias, with a tiny mandarin collar and
the kind of shape that made it swing out around her with every step she
took.

"That's a fabulous start," Liz approved, when they were outside in the
street again.

"But it is only a start," she warned Nell.

"You're going to need a good top coat, a raincoat and boots, not to
mention evening clothes, and then, just in case Joss does take you away
on a honeymoon, you're going to need beachwear."  She gave Nell a very
direct look.

"Not to mention all those other things that brides always buy for their
honeymoon, Nell."

Nell's eyes met hers in startled comprehension.  She started to shake
her head, but before she could make a denial Liz said practically,
"Look, I'm not suggesting anything particularly exotic, or frivolous,
but I always feel extra specially good when I've got new undies to go
under my new clothes.  There's a small shop, not far from here, that
specialises in exactly the kind of thing that you'll like."  She
glanced at her watch.

"We haven't got time to go today, and tomorrow morning I want to take
you to the dress shop where I think you'd be able to get your wedding
dress.  We might be able to fit it in after that.  Thank goodness for
mother-in-law," she added in a heartfelt voice as she led the way to
her parked car.

They were just ten minutes over the two hours Liz had promised when
they got back to the house.  Lucy, her little girl, had just woken up
and was sitting placidly on her grandmother's knee.  When she saw her
mother, her face broke into a beaming smile and she stretched out
chubby little arms towards her.

"Here you are, you hold her for me for a moment, god mamma while I show
Joan out to her car," Liz told her, dumping the little girl in Nell's
arms.

She felt surprisingly heavy to Nell, who hadn't held her since the
christening.  That had been over eight months ago, and she had grown a
good deal since then.

Liz had rung her to tell her proudly less than a month ago that she was
already starting to walk, and Nell experienced evidence of this as she'
squirmed in her arms, obviously wanting to be put down.  She was just
starting to get fractious when Liz came back in.

"She's a darling," Nell told Liz honestly.

"Sometimes," Liz agreed with a smile, 'and at others..  " She pulled a
face and Nell laughed.

"Wait until you've got one of your own, Nell, then you'll know exactly
what I mean.  Will you and Joss try for a family straight away?"  she
asked frankly, deftly holding Lucy in one arm while she started to
prepare a meal for her with her free hand.

"All right then, you can go down," she told her squirming daughter,
'but only in your playpen.  "

The moment she was on the floor, Lucy struggled to her feet, holding on
to the frame of her playpen and then beaming in delight.  She teetered
unsteadily on her toes.

"I expect so," Nell confirmed.

"After all, one of the main reasons Joss is marrying me is because he
wants a son."

"How will you cope with that, Nell?"  Liz asked her gently, turning to
face her.  They had been friends for a long time and, as teenagers, had
had no secrets from one another.  Nell had been the recipient of all
Liz's outpourings as she first fell in love with Robert, and so she
didn't resent the question.  What she was desperately hoping was that
Joss's indifference to her would enable her to retain her own cool
reserve.  Any physical intimacy between them would be an act of
procreation, not an act of desire.

She had no fear that Joss would hurt her in any way or force her.  She
suspected that sexually he was extremely experienced and probably
extremely skilled.  It would be in his own interests, as much as hers,
to make it easy for her to accept him as her lover.

These were uncomfortable thoughts and best not dwelt on, Nell told
herself firmly, a decision which she stuck to resolutely while she
helped Liz to bath Lucy and then put her to bed.

Robert arrived home just after seven o'clock, greeting his wife with a
warm hug and a kiss, and Nell with a smile.

She had only met him on a handful of previous occasions: the wedding,
Lucy's christening and then on a couple of brief visits when she had
been able to get away for a few days, but Nell had taken to him on
sight.  He was a good counterweight for her volatile friend and, having
married young the first time while still at medical school, at thirty
three he was only seven years older then Liz.

Nell tried to make the excuse that she had things to do in her room to
give them some time on their own, but Liz laughed, seeing through her
subterfuge, and telling her with a grin that included her husband,
"Nell, Robert will be only too pleased to sneak off into the
sitting-room and have a quiet drink and relax.  Believe me, he hates it
when I bombard him with chatter the moment he walks in the door."

She made a face and laughed, but Nell could see from Robert's slightly
shamefaced expression that her friend wasn't completely exaggerating.

Dinner was an easygoing affair, eaten without formality in the small,
sunny breakfast-room off the kitchen.

"One day, when I've got the house organised properly, we'll be able to
eat in the dining-room," Liz promised, and then it was Robert's turn to
tease his wife, asking if Nell had yet seen the havoc she had wreaked
upstairs.

"I started decorating the bedrooms," she explained to Nell
defensively," and then when I became pregnant with Lucy the smell of
paint made me feel so terrible that I had to stop."

"Ah, yes, but what she doesn't tell you is that she was decorating all
the bedrooms," Robert added slyly.

"I've finished one of them," Liz countered with an air of injured
martyrdom.

"That's the one you're in, Nell."

Nell had already admired the pretty lemon and blue colour scheme.  Liz
had always been deft with her needle, and the soft furnishings in the
room gave evidence that she had retained her skill.  The walls had been
sponged in a pretty shade of lemon on white and a stencilled ribbon
border applied at cornice-level.

"The walls in this house are so bumpy that traditional wallpaper is out
of the question," Liz confided.

"I went on one of these three-day decorative painting courses, Nell.  I
really enjoyed it.  You should try them.  Think of the money you'll be
able to save Joss if you do your own decorating," she added wickedly.

Nell laughed, but in reality she was aching inside.  She and Joss would
never share the camaraderie and love so very evident between her friend
and her husband.  She would never have the pleasure of lovingly
decorating their home.

Joss would probably insist on the most expensive interior designers,
and he would probably tell her that he was sending Fiona out to choose
the colour schemes, she thought acidly.

"You wouldn't realise it to see her sitting there looking sweet as
milk," she heard Liz telling her husband, 'but when we were at school
together, Nell could be as stubborn as the proverbial mule when she
wanted to be.  "

Stubborn.  Yes, perhaps sometimes she could be, Nell allowed, and it
struck her that if she was not to be totally swamped in her marriage
with Joss she was going to have to re-activate that stubbornness and
hold out for her own rightful say in those decisions that affected them
jointly.

The redecoration of the house was a case in point.  Although he hadn't
actually spelled it out to her, Nell had sensed that, once the house
was redecorated.  Joss would want to show it off to his business
colleagues and friends, but she was damned if she was going to allow
him to turn her home into a larger version of the soulless, glossy
place where he lived now.

If that was Joss's idea of how a home should look, well then, she was
going to have to let him know that it wasn't hers.

"Come back," Liz teased her.

"Where were you?"

"Redecorating," Nell admitted with a smile.

"I think I'm going to need to pick your brains a little, Liz.  Joss
wants the house redoing, and I suspect our ideas are going to clash.  I
want to make sure I'm fully armed before I tackle him about it.  Any
suggestions?"

Liz had, plus a list of contracts and firms who specialised in period
work.

The two of them spent the whole evening discussing the merits of
restoring what was already there and replacing what wasn't to lift the
rather gloomy Victorian air from the house and yet keep its unique
character.

Nell went to bed feeling happier than she had done since Joss had asked
her to marry him.  Talking with Liz had restored her self-confidence
and made her see how those last months with her grandfather had worn
her down and suppressed her natural exuberance for life.

Her future was in her own hands.  She could put aside her love for Joss
and make their relationship work on a business footing, devoting
herself to their family and the estate, developing her own interests
and acting as Joss's hostess whenever he required, thus building her
own individual life 'that would barely impinge on his; or she could let
herself dwell on her feelings for him, and succumb to the self-pity she
sensed lying in wait for her, and in doing so become an object of
contempt, to herself as much to anyone else.

It was gone midnight when she went to bed, but her mood of optimism
didn't last.  No sooner was she tucked up beneath Liz's beautifully
appliqued duvet cover than her mind began to torment her.  How would
she cope with the reality of having Joss as her lover, while at the
same time knowing that he didn't love her?

Would she be strong enough to subdue her own responses, to force her
reactions to be those of a distant, passionless stranger?  Because that
was what she would have to do.

Once she allowed her true feelings to break through her de fences she
wasn't going to be able to stop herself from revealing the truth to
Joss.  Their marriage would be easier for her to endure if there was no
physical aspect to it, but Joss wanted a son.  And she too wanted
children.

"Come on, sleepy-head, we've got a lot to do today."

Guiltily Nell struggled through the layers of sleep that had engulfed
her with the dawn, to find Liz standing beside her bed holding a mug of
coffee.

"Oh, Liz," she murmured contritely, "I'm so sorry.  How awful of me.

You shouldn't have brought me a drink .  you've got far too much to do.
"

"Not this morning," Liz told her cheerfully.

"Main-law arrived early and swooped up Lucy, so we've got the whole day
to ourselves.

However, it might be a good idea to make an early start.  "

Within an hour they were on the road, Nell at Liz's persuasion wearing
one of her new outfits the red one, since the skirts for the others
were being shortened.

"We'll have to do something about your hair," Liz told her forthrightly
as she parked in Cambridge.

It was a clear autumn day, crisp and warm in the sun here in Cambridge,
but during the drive they had passed fields in which the mist lay thick
and white, and the weathermen were forecasting frost by the end of the
week.

This was far from the first time that Liz had commented on her
hair-style, and Nell touched her plaits defensively.

"I need something that's easy to look after, Liz.  My hair's so
straight and fine."

"I agree ... but I've made you an appointment with my hairdresser for a
consultation.  You'll want a different style to go with your wedding
dress, anyway," she reminded her.

This was all news to Nell, but nevertheless she followed Liz docilely
while she led her into an almost frighteningly sterile-looking
hair-salon.

Paul, the stylist, was bearded and older then Nell had expected.  His
smile eased some of her apprehension, but when he unwound her plaits
and studied her hair, she found herself saying shakily, "I don't want
it cut."

"I should think not," he agreed, 'but if I could suggest a trim of the
ends, and then we can talk about the kind of options that are open to
you.  Long hair is very "in" at the moment, and there are several
different styles I can think of that would suit you.  "

He gave her some books to study while her hair was shampooed.

The women in them looked impossibly glamorous and soignee, and never in
a lifetime could Nell imagine her hair looking like theirs, but when
she and Liz stepped out of the salon into the autumn sunshine just over
an hour later, she was forced to confess that Paul had practically
performed a miracle.

Her hair was drawn sleekly back into her nape, revealing the delicacy
of her face.  He had twisted her hair into a soft chignon, which was
now confined in a pretty snood.  A bright red bow secured the snood and
picked up the colour of her outfit, and Nell had been forced to admit
that the style was so easy that she should have no trouble copying it
herself.  And it looked .  well, it looked a world away from her normal
plaits.

"For the wedding ... well, we shall see when you have chosen your
dress," Paul had told her, 'but I have a couple of ideas in mind.  "

And she and Liz had been forced to be content with that, promising to
return once the dress had been chosen.

He had even given her a small leaflet showing several easy styles for
long hair; all of them stunningly chic and yet amazingly simple to
achieve, and although Nell herself didn't realise it there was a new
spring to her step as she walked alongside her friend.

"If you must wear your hair in a plait, then I suggest this," Paul had
told her, demonstrating a style that gathered her hair into one plait
which he then doubled length ways and decorated with a large bow.

"This is the kind of style you can wear with jeans.  A country style,"
he had told her.

Liz had burst out laughing, saying, "I doubt that Nell has ever owned a
pair of jeans in her life, have you, Nell?"  She hadn't.  Her
grandfather and her aunt had never approved of women in trousers.  A
heavy tweed skirt with flat, fur-lined boots had been her winter wear
for tramping the estate, but now Liz was already talking about the
rival merits of various styles of jeans, promising her that before she
left Cambridge she would have several pairs in her luggage.

Liz had also made an appointment for them at the wedding-dress salon,
and the owner herself welcomed them inside.  She was a pretty girl in
her mid-twenties, with dark brown curly hair, and an efficient
manner.

"Nothing too fussy," Nell told her nervously, as she offered them both
seats.

"Don't listen to her," Liz chimed in.

"This is going to be some wedding and she's going to be its star... You
had the most heavenly satin creation in the window the other day..."

To Nell's relief, Susan Marchant shook her head.

"It is lovely, but it would dwarf you," she explained to Nell.

"I've got something in mind... but it's rather different from the type
of dress that's popular at the moment."

She went to one of the glass cases and withdrew a white linen dress
bag, unzipping the cover and revealing the dress.

"It's Italian," she added, hanging it so that they could see it
properly.

"Oh, Nell," Liz breathed, 'it's fantastic.  "

And it was.  White silk jersey, embroidered with crystals and pearls,
cut in the simplest of twenties style and ankle-length, the hem fringed
and slightly higher to one side than the other.

"It's the tiniest size, but I think ideal for you," she told Nell.

"Would you like to try it on?"

Nell nodded, her mouth dry.

Tiny shoestring straps supported the dress, the bareness of her skin
shadowed by an almost translucent silk top that covered her shoulders
and upper arms.

The dress was unbelievably heavy, and a perfect fit, right down to its
length.  As she walked into the room to show it to Liz, the light
caught the embroidery, dazzling the eye.  When she moved, the silk
jersey moved sensuously with her.

It was a dream of a dress, and when she looked at her reflection in the
mirror.  Nell had to caution herself against the folly of aching to
have Joss turn and look at her in it, his eyes warm with love and
desire.

But she would never see that hot leap of need in Joss's eyes--at least,
not for herself.

"Of course you'll have to have a different hairstyle," Susan was saying
practically.

"Something pre-Raphaelite, I would suggest, and perhaps just a simple
wreath of fresh flowers..."

"Oh no ... I'm too old," Nell protested, but both Susan and Liz swept
her objections aside, and somehow or other she found herself giving way
to them.

They left the salon just in time to have a late lunch at a popular wine
bar, full of well-groomed young men and women, most of them a little
too old to be undergraduates.  Liz told Nell that they were probably
involved in one way or another in the computer industry that had boomed
in Cambridge in the sixties.

After lunch she insisted on taking her to several more small shops, and
by four o'clock they had to make a trip back to the car to rid
themselves of their carrier bags, and Nell's new wardrobe had swelled
considerably, to include three pairs of jeans, and casual tops to go
with them, another dressy suit, two dresses which could be dressed up
or down, and two evening dresses, including one in black velvet that
fitted her like a glove and had a soft silk satin frill that started at
the hips and dipped to an attractive V at the front and back, the back
V adorned with a bow that formed a provocative bustle, the satin then
frilling gently down to the hemline.

"Just shoes, accessories and undies tomorrow," Liz puffed as they
unloaded their purchases.

"And now, I think, back to Paul, to consult him about your wedding-day
hairstyle."

"I can hardly come all the way here to have my hair done," Nell
protested, but Liz was adamant.

"No, but he can show you the kind of style you should have."  And
rather reluctantly Nell found herself retracing her footsteps to the
salon.

Paul knew exactly what style she should have.  He showed her a
photograph of a young woman with a mass of artlessly waved long hair
that floated around her like a veil.  It was exactly right for the
dress, but surely far too exotic for her?

"Not at all... Look, come in tomorrow morning first thing and I'll show
you.  Maria, the make-up artist, is in tomorrow," he added casually.

"Why not have a consultation with her at the same time?"

Nell wanted to protest, but she could see mat Liz was not going to let
her, and so recklessly she agreed.  After all, since she appeared to
have stepped into an unreal AliceinWonderland-type world, why not
simply let the flow carry her with it?

It had been years since she had spent her time so self-indulgentfy, and
she was discovering that she quite enjoyed it.  It was a little
unnerving to rediscover this unexpected sybaritic streak, and as they
hurried back to the car Liz noticed with fond amusement that her friend
was already walking with a jauntier step, almost subconsciously
preening herself when they drew second looks from other people.  And
why not?

Nell had stood in the shadow of her flamboyant stepsister for too long.
It was her nature to give generously of her time and her self, and in
Liz's opinion she had allowed her grandfather to impose dreadfully upon
her.

Initially when Nell had told her what she was doing she had been
horrified, dreading how the kind of marriage Nell had described to her
would affect someone of her friend's extra-sensitive nature, but now
she was beginning to think that it was the best thing that could have
happened to her.  Already Nell seemed to have grown, to have
rediscovered those facets of her personality that had been suppressed
during the years of living with her grandfather; already she was
developing new strengths.

She realised suddenly that Nell had fallen behind, and looked back to
see that her friend had paused outside a shop selling antique china and
glass.

"Fabulous, aren't they?"  Liz sighed "But out of the question for me.

Can you imagine what havoc two teenagers and a baby would wreak on this
little lot?  "

"That dinner service is exactly like one at home, only ours is more
complete..."

Liz frowned as she stared at the item in question.  In her opinion it
was rather ugly, being very ornate and rich, the white china decorated
with a gold-leaf frieze and dark purple bands.

"Are you thinking of buying it?"  she asked Nell cautiously.

Nell laughed.

"No, I think it's horrible.  I was just wondering, though..."  She bit
her lip and looked directly at her friend.

"Liz, you know that Joss is paying for all my new clothes ... and the
wedding.  I hate that..."  She looked away, all her joy in her new
things draining from her.

"I was just wondering how much they were selling this service for, and
if it was worth trying to sell ours..."

"Can you do that?"  Liz asked her.

"Oh, yes.  Gramps left the house and all its contents to me...1 must
admit I'd reached the point of wondering about having the more valuable
items of furniture valued, but many of them were designed especially
for the house, and they are family heirlooms, but this dinner service
is Victorian and nothing like as pretty as the Sevres one..."  She
smiled as she caught sight of Liz's startled expression and said
apologetically.

"Yes, I know that is worth much more, but it's lovely, and I couldn't
bring myself to sell it; but this... It would be so marvelous to tell
Joss I can buy my own clothes..."

"Well, there's only one way to find out' Liz told her briskly.

"Let's go inside."

Half an hour later they both emerged from the shop, dazed.  It had
turned out that the dinner service in the window had been sold to an
American who had fallen desperately in love with it.  A telephone call
to the hotel where she was staying had elicited the information that
she would be more than pleased to buy an additional service, since her
dining-room sat thirty.  The price agreed had made Nell's mind spin.
Perhaps it was only a drop in the ocean if set against the death-duties
.  but to have several thousand pounds at her disposal.  to be able to
tell Joss that she could buy her clothes herself.  Arrangements had
been made for the dealer to call and inspect the service, and it had
been agreed that if everything was satisfactory the deal would go
through.

"A very satisfactory day all round," Liz exclaimed happily an hour
later when she and Nell were sitting in her kitchen playing with the
baby who had just been returned by her doting grandmother.

"What time will you have to leave tomorrow?"

"Mid to late afternoon.  Joss said.  He's going to send Audlem and the
Rolls to collect me."

"Well, that gives us enough time to collect the alterations, and do
everything else, but we'll need another early start."

Nell groaned, and her friend laughed unsympathetically.

CHAPTER FIVE

despite the very severe lecture Nell had given herself, telling herself
she was being extremely foolish, she couldn't quite suppress the tiny
quiver of pleasure that ran through her when she studied her reflection
in the bedroom mirror, prior to Joss's chauffeur's arrival.

Liz had persuaded her to change into some of her new separates to
travel home in, and there was no doubt about it; the sludge-green and
dove-grey outfit, so potentially dull when described, looked stunning
against the paleness of her skin and hair, adding a fragile, ethereal
quality to her features that made her study them in vague surprise.

"You look fabulous," Liz pronounced, coming in to check on her
progress.

"All you need now is a touch of that new eyeshadow and..."

Nell sighed faintly, wondering if she had been quite mad to allow Liz
to persuade her into buying so much new make-up.  It had been one thing
when the girl in the salon applied it, but to achieve the same effect
herself.  "It's easy," Liz promised her, reading her mind.

"All you need is a little bit of self-confidence."

"And an awful lot of skill," Nell finished for her.

Liz laughed.

"Not an awful lot...1 promise you, it isn't that difficult, Nell.

Watch.  "

It certainly didn't seem it, but Nell still felt dubious about being
able to achieve for herself the same magical transformation of her
features that Liz had wrought.

When she said as much, Liz said wickedly, "Do you know, Nell, I've
always itched to do this ... to make you shine in your true colours,
instead of hiding yourself away behind that mask you use ... I know you
feel you can't hold a candle to Grama, but that's nonsense."

"Liz, I can't compete with Grama," Nell objected, interrupting her.

"You aren't competing," Liz told her gently.

"You are yourself, Nell, in your own way every bit as attractive as
Grama, and in my opinion a dam sight more lovable.  You've got
everything, haven't you?"  she added briskly, seeing that she was
embarrassing her friend.

"I'll come to you a couple of days before the wedding, and I'll bring
the dress... You'll organise something for Grama to wear, will you?"

She broke off as she heard a car, going over to the window and looking
out.

"Wow, I love the Rolls," she exclaimed.

"It might be rather a conspicuous example of life's goodies, but it
definitely has a certain something..."  She paused and then said
incredulously, "Nell, I thought you said Joss was sending his chauffeur
for you..."

"Yes, he is," Nell agreed, a hard knot of agitation suddenly twisting
her stomach.

"Well, he hasn't.  He's come for you himself."

"Probably to make sure I don't try to renege on our arrangement," Nell
told her quickly, suppressing an instinctive urge to rush over to the
window and see for herself that her fdend was right.  Her stomach was
doing somersaults, and she had to give herself a very severe lecture,
reminding herself of exactly why it was that Joss was marrying her, and
warning herself that if she was going to react like this just at the
thought of seeing him then she was going to have a hard time
maintaining her supposed indifference to him once they were actually
married.

"Come on.  We'd better go down," Liz urged her.

Although she had only met Joss on a couple of previous occasions, it
was Liz who greeted him with an easy warmth that Nell envied, welcoming
him in with a smile and a friendly kiss of congratulation on one lean
cheek.

"Nell told us you were sending your chauffeur for her," she commented
as she led the way to her sunny kitchen.

"That was my intention," Joss agreed carelessly, 'but I found I had a
free afternoon, so I decided to drive down myself.  "

Just being in the same room with him was making Nell's head spin.  He
was dressed casually in jeans, the neck of his checked shirt open
beneath his sweater; he looked fit and healthy, a man more used to
living outdoors than working in an office, his skin tanned and moulded
firmly to his bones.  Every movement he made was lithely efficient; he
didn't fidget when he sat down, or betray any of the other nervous
mannerisms Nell knew were hers.  In fact, he looked as though he felt
more at home in Liz's kitchen then she did herself.

"Well, now that you are here, why don't you both stay and have dinner
with us?"

Nell knew he would refuse.  He must obviously want to spend as little
time in her company as possible.  Once they were married, she expected
she would barely see him.

"Marvellous, but insist on being allowed to take you and Robert out.

Can you recommend anywhere good locally?  "

So far he had done no more than merely acknowledge her presence, Nell
reflected, listening to the brief argument between Liz and himself as
to who ought to pay for dinner.  He won, as Nell had known he would.
What had she been expecting?  That he would take one look at her in her
new clothes and be transfixed with amazement at the change in her?

"Shopping all done?"  he asked her at length, turning to look at her.

"I think so."

Why on earth did she have to sound so strained and tense?  She was
behaving like a piqued child, betraying to a man of his sharp
intelligence the very thing she wanted to conceal.

"Oh, we've done marvellously well," Liz told him, coming to her
rescue.

"Yes," he agreed, giving Nell a narrow-eyed look.

"I can see that.

Congratulations.  "

"Don't congratulate me," Liz told him, instantly nettled.

"It wasn't very difficult.  After all, I did have excellent raw
material."

To Nell's astonishment.  Joss said urbanely, "I agree.  And I wasn't
congratulating you on the effect you've achieved, but merely on
persuading Nell to allow the transformation to take place.  My
wife-to-be possesses an extraordinarily determined stubborn streak upon
occasions."

"So do most women if they think they're in danger of being treated like
doormats," Liz returned crisply.

Joss's eyebrows rose and he looked directly at Nell.

"Is that what you think, Nell?  That I'm going to treat you like a
doormat?"

To her horror, she flushed uncomfortably and couldn't meet his eyes.

"No, of course not," she told him in a husky voice.

"Good.  Because I certainly intend that our partnership shall start off
on an even footing.  Of course, which one of us manages to wrest a
major share of it from the other during the course of our marriage
remains to be seen."

A subtle threat to warn her that he intended to be the dominant partner
in their marraige?  If so, it was unnecessary; she already knew it, and
he had an advantage he didn't even dream yet that he possessed.  That
he would never know that he posssessed, if she had anything to do with
it.

The four of them dined at a small local restaurant which Liz had
recommended.

To judge from the others' appetites, the food was excellent, but Nell
barely touched hers.  She still wasn't at ease in Joss's company; she
didn't feel engaged to him .  didn't feel as though she was going to
become his wife.  She turned her head slightly and studied him out of
the corner of her eye.

Robert and Liz were talking and, under cover of their conversation.

Joss said quietly to her, "What's wrong?  Checking to make sure I'm
using the right cutlery?"

Colour stung her face.

"No," she told him in a choked voice.

"It's all right, Nell," he told her quietly.

"You needn't keep watching me like an anxious sheepdog.  Poor Nell," he
mocked her.

"Life's full of unexpected pitfalls, isn't it?"

Before she could say anything, Robert had broken off his conversation
with Liz to address Joss, and soon the two men were engaged in a
discussion of their differing childhoods.

Robert had been brought up by elderly parents and had rebelled by
leaving home as young as he could to go to medical school.

"Of course, I was wildly out of my depth.  I thought I was adult, but
in fact I was totally naive.  I look around me at some of the kids I
see today.  They're terrifyingly adult.  Too adult.  I don't envy
them."

"I grew up in the tenements of Glasgow," Joss told them, 'as I'm sure
Nell has already told you.  " He looked sharply at her, but Nell said
nothing.

"My mother was sixteen when I was conceived.  My father the same age. I
was brought up by my grandparents and I was only two years younger than
my grandmother's youngest child.

"My mother left home when she was eighteen.  She's living in Canada now
married with children.  We keep in touch in a desultory sort of
fashion, but there's no real closeness between us.  My father was
killed in a motorbike accident when I was five.

"My grandmother had eight children while I was growing up, and my
grandfather was out of work.  I ran wild ... despite the thrashings I
got from my grandfather.  I was lucky enough though to have a
schoolteacher who thought he saw a glimmer of intelligence behind the
belligerence.  He..."

Nell blinked away the tears threatening to blur her vision.

She could picture him so easily; a small, lonely, aggressive little
boy, dirty and perhaps a little scruffy, treating life with defiance
because it was his only means of defence.

"Not hungry, Nell?"  he asked her.

She gave him a wan smile.

"Wedding nerves, I expect," Robert interrupted.

"I suffered from them myself.  In fact, I lost so much weight that
after we were married, Liz nearly had to carry me over the
threshold."

They all laughed but Nell felt drained and tired, and she wanted the
evening to come to an end.

If she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she was envious
of her friends' ability to get on with Joss much more easily than she
could herself.  He had opened up to them in a way he never had to
her.

To her relief, she saw him glance at his watch and announce that it was
time they were on their way.

Robert persuaded them to stay for a final coffee and liqueur.  Joss
refusing the liqueur since he was driving.

Nell recklessly allowed Robert to order a brandy for her, downing the
fiery liquid in four nervous gulps.  She didn't normally drink a great
deal since she had a catastrophically weak head, something she had
discovered in her teens.  This evening, though, she felt she needed the
numbing release of the powerful alcohol, and it certainly seemed to be
having an effect, she acknowledged drowsily as they walked back to the
Rolls.

"No, you get in the front with Joss," Liz told her, pushing her gently
towards the front passenger seat when she would have joined her friends
in the back.

It was only a few minutes' drive from the restaurant to the house;

Nell's shopping and suitcases had already been stowed away in the boot,
and, after having said their good nights and arranged when Liz would
arrive for the wedding, Joss turned the car in the direction of their
journey home.

Neither of them spoke, Nell because she felt too drowsy.  Joss, she
suspected, because he had nothing to say to her.  Why had he come to
collect her himself?  Had he really thought she might try to renege on
their agreement?  "

She would have had to return home some time.  Sleepily she snuggled
down in the seat, breathing in the rich scent of the leather, mingled
with the warm maleness of Joss's skin.  Her eyelashes fluttered softly
as she fought against the waves of sleep and then gave in to them, a
small, inarticulate sound half parting her lips as she subsided into
sleep.

As she slept, she turned away from Joss, and, catching the movement out
of the corner of his eye, he depressed the brake slightly and turned to
look at her, his face grim and shadowed, and for the first time in
recent weeks he questioned the validity of his own sanity.  He was
gambling more dangerously then he had ever gambled before.  And why?
Because.  He cursed as a car coming the other way cut the corner and
blinded him with its headlights, dismissing his private thoughts in
favour of concentrating on the heavy traffic.  It was too late now to
have doubts and second thoughts.  Aim high, his teacher had told him.
Aim as high as there is, and don't think about the consequences of
falling.

Twice before in his life he had been lucky.  Once in that teacher who
had selflessly and generously given him his time and attention,
teaching him, nurturing his intelligence until he was able to see for
himself that there could be a life for him beyond the confines of that
experienced by the rest of his family.  Over the years he had treated
them generously, tried to encourage them to reach out and grasp life's
opportunities as he had done, but they did not share his ambition, and
they were content to remain where they were, enjoying his generosity.

He felt alien to them now, and they to him.  He saw them rarely, and
when he did he sensed that that were uncomfortable with him.

Now that his grandparents were both dead there was nothing to take him
back.  He wondered what his grandfather would think if he could see him
now.  How many times had he prophesied that Joss would come to a bad
end, as he wielded the leather strap he kept for chastising his male
offspring.  There had been no sadistic cruelty behind the blows; it was
merely that his grandfather knew of no other way of disciplining an
unruly child.

Not really wanting to pursue such a potentially uncomfortable train of
thought, he switched his concentration to the future, and the faint but
disturbing rumours which had come to his ears that there were potential
problems with an American corporation he had invested heavily in.  This
gift he had for playing the stock and commodities markets was one he
treated with respect.

He drove on into the night.

The Rolls purred to a halt outside Easterhay.  Nell stirred briefly in
her sleep, murmured something unintelligible and snuggled back against
the leather.

Joss reached across to wake her and then changed his mind, instead
unfastening his seatbelt and then hers, and then striding round to her
side of the car to lift her bodily out of her seat.

Johnson had the door open before he reached it, and as he shook his
head at the old man's look of consternation, he whispered, "She's only
asleep.  I thought I wouldn't wake her.  Which is her room?"

As he told him.  Joss relected that despite the fact that he probably
paid his staff well over double what Nell paid hers he would never
command the affection and concern from them which Nell's gave to her.

Of course, they had been with the family for a long time, and staff
could be notoriously snobbish.  Doubtless there was far more to be said
to be working for Lady Eleanor then there was for plain Joss
Wycliffe.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he was breathing harder than he
had been originally, but Nell was hardly any weight at all.  In fact,
she was too thin.  He frowned slightly.  These last months had taken
their toll on her, visibly so.  Her bedroom door was open.  He walked
in, grimacing over its shabbiness and lack of heat.

The house had no central heating.  A needless expense, her grandfather
had called it.  He flipped back the coverlet and placed her beneath it,
pulling it round her still fully clad body.

And then, before quitting the room, he stood for several minutes
looking down at her.  Was he doing the right thing?  For himself or for
her?

Only time would tell.

Closing her door quietly, he set off for the stairs and then paused,
turning back.  He knew the layout of the house because her grandfather
had once shown him round it.  He walked down the corridor, and
hesitated for a few seconds before finding the door he wanted.

It opened into a large room positioned at the corner of the house, so
that its windows overlooked both the front and the side of the park.

The air in the room tasted of dust and emptiness;

the bed was stripped; the furniture unpolished.

Off this room were a bathroom, a dressing-room and a small
sitting-room.

It was the suite traditionally occupied by the master and mistress of
the house.

Nell's grandfather had moved out of it when his wife had died and, by
the looks of it, it had been empty ever since.

He tried to visualise himself sharing it with Nell and found,
depressingly, that he could not.  It was too late to turn back.  He had
promised her grandfather that he would look after her, and besides. His
mouth compressing, he walked out of the room and closed the door.

Downstairs, Johnson was waiting to let him out.

"I'll just bring in Nell's cases and parcels," Joss told him.

"Tell Mrs.  Booth to let her sleep in in the morning," he added
brusquely.

"She's not had an easy time of it lately."

Nell stared at the delicate face of the small travelling alarm Liz had
given her as a twenty-first present in consternation.  Ten o'clock!  It
couldn't be!

She got up and dressed quickly, dismayed by the state of her new
clothes.  She had no memory of arriving home or being put to bed, but
she suspected it must have been Joss who had carried her there.

No wonder he had left her fully dressed.

She pulled a face at herself as she put on one of her old skirts and
sweaters, shocked to discover how frumpish they were.  Those few days
in Cambridge had certainly opened her eyes.  She longed to put on her
new jeans and one of the bright tops, but they must still be in the
boot of Joss's Rolls.

She went first to the kitchen, demanding crisply to know why she hadn't
been woken at her normal time.

Mrs.  Booth looked flustered and, when pressed, confessed that it had
been Joss who had given the order that she was to be allowed to
sleep.

Compressing her lips, Nell refused her offer of breakfast.  Was it
silly of her to resent the fact that the staff were already paying more
heed to Joss's commands than to hers?

Making herself a cup of coffee, she went into the library to check over
the mail.  While she was there, the phone rang, and a cool, feminine
voice asked, "May I speak to Lady Eleanor?"

"Speaking," Nell told her.

"Ah... I've been asked to ring you by Mr.  Joss Wycliffe's secretary.

She's commissioned me to draw up some schemes for the interior design
of Easterhay, and I was wondering when I could come round to look over
the house.  "

Nell stared at the telephone in disbelief, too angry to speak.  How
dared Joss do this to her?  She was perfectly capable of finding her
own interior designer.  In fact, she was perfectly cap ^ < able of
doing the work herself.  She longed to I simply tell the woman her
services were not | needed, but she had been brought up from child|
hood to be polite and deferential, no matter what I her own private
feelings, and so she said calmly, , "Not at the moment, I'm afraid. May
I come back I to you?"  I When she did, it would be to tell her that
her ] services were not required.  She might be forced to marry Joss,
she might be idiotic enough to love him, she might have allowed her
friend, on his behalf, to revamp her wardrobe and her appearance, but
she was not going to allow someone else to dictate to her how her home
should be decorated and furnished, she decided wrathfully, completely
overlooking the fact that she had been contemplating doing just that
only a very short time ago.  That had been different.  Then the
designer would have been chosen by her instead of inflicted on her by
Fiona.

She had scarcely replaced the receiver when Johnson arrived to tell her
that a Miss Howard had arrived.

Nell looked at him blankly.

"I believe she's Mr.  Joss's secretary," he informed her.

Joss's secretary, here.

Before Nell could say a word, the elegant brunette was walking past
Johnson and into the room.

She gave Nell a dismissive look from frosty blue eyes, one dark eyebrow
lilting in elegant disdain as she surveyed the room.

"Joss said that the place was rather rundown.  Just as well you're
holding the reception in a marquee.  That's what I've come to discuss
with you, by the way.  I've brought menus from several caterers.  I
expect you'll want to have the usual Sloaney-type thing," she added
contemptuously.

"Watercress soup, salmon, strawberries and cream..."

She said it as though she decision was hers and hers alone; the menu
already a. fait accompli, and a burning shaft of anger exploded inside
Nell.

"You're a little out of date," she told her coolly, refusing to give in
to the intimidating frown turned on her, and added calmly, "Thank you,
Johnson, Perhaps you could ask Mrs.  Booth to provide us with coffee,"
thus dismissing their interested audience.

"That would be perfectly acceptable for a late spring or early summer
wedding," she added, 'but not for the autumn.  You must have been
reading too many out-of-date copies of the Toiler.  And as for holding
the reception in a marquee, it will be held in the ballroom," she
announced, her head held high.

As the words left her lips, she was astounded at her own temerity.

What on earth had happened to her?  It was plain from her face that
Joss's secretary was as stunned as she was herself.  Dark colour
streaked her elegantly made-up cheekbones, and she suddenly looked
older and harder.

"Well, then," she said brittly, 'what exactly do you suggest?

Although I must warn you that Joss has extremely demanding standards.

The business associates he's inviting to this wedding will expect to be
properly entertained.  "

Nell was furious, but she controlled her anger this time.  How dared
Joss allow his secretary to come here and attempt to browbeat her like
this?  Their wedding might be a business arrangement, but it was still
first and foremost a wedding, not a business meeting, and as such was
not going to be masterminded by Joss's secretary.

"I think the wedding breakfast menu is something you can safely leave
to me," she said calmly.

"And now, if you'll excuse me..."

"Joss has sent me down here for the whole day.  He said you would need
help getting organised.  I'll have to tell him, of course, that you've
rejected my advice.  He won't be pleased.  As I've already said, he
sets very high standards, and since it's his money that's paying..."

She stopped and smiled thinly.

"Is that what he told you?"  Nell enquired lightly, not letting her
real feelings show.  She saw a faint shadow of something darken the
other woman's eyes, and guessed that she had merely assumed that Joss
would be paying.  It gave her the courage to continue quietly,
"Actually, he's not.  Not that it's any concern of yours.  As to your
assisting me...1 really don't think that's necessary or desirable."

She sat down in the same dismissive manner she remembered her
headmistress using to good effect.

"I'm sorry you've had a wasted journey over here."

She was still shaking half an hour after her unwanted visitor had
left.

It was an hour after that that Joss walked into the library
unannounced, his face dark with anger.

Although inside she was terrified, Nell managed to keep her face
calm.

"Why did you send Fiona back?"  he demanded without preamble.

"Because I don't need her," Nell told him bravely.

"I'm perfectly capable of organising our wedding myself.  Joss.  I
might have no option but to agree to this marriage, but I will not be
bullied and told what to do by your secretary."

"She's extremely efficient and experienced."  .  "I don't doubt it,"
Nell murmured with a touch of cynicism that made his eyes harden.

"Just what are you trying to imply?"  he demanded harshly.

"Nothing," Nell returned promptly.

"Had you asked me first if I wanted your secretary's assistance, I
would have told you that I didn't.  Just as I would also have told you
that I am perfectly capable of finding my own interior designer if need
be.

"This wedding may be a business arrangement ... and I may be very much
the junior partner, but I will not be dictated to by your secretary.
Joss, nor by anyone else."  She saw him frown, and felt her temper ease
from her; sighing slightly, she said, "Joss, if you have so little
faith in my ability and so much in your secretary's, perhaps you should
be marrying her ... but then of course she can't provide your son with
a foothold in the peerage, can she?  I appreciate that it's no concern
of mine what role she plays in your life, but I won't have her
interfering in mine... whatever her relationship with you."

It was as close as she dared to go in telling him that she suspected
that he and his secretary were or had been lovers.  She had suspected
it from the moment she met the other woman.  There had been a certain
mocking challenge in those too calculating blue eyes; a certain
arrogant determination to let Nell know that she considered her
position very much inferior to her own; and from her attitude Nell had
come to the conclusion that she was far more to Joss than merely his
secretary.

"Whatever..."  His mouth snapped shut and he glared at her.

"Fiona is my secretary and nothing else, but, as you say," he added
cruelly, 'my relationship with her has nothing to do with you.  Jealous
of her, Nell?  "

She was shaking inside, but determined to hold herself together and not
betray what she was feeling.

She deliberately chose to misunderstand him and to use the weapon she
knew to be most lethal.

"Jealous?  Of someone who doesn't know that one never serves a summer
menu once the game season starts?"  She allowed her eyebrow to lift
slightly, and said indifferently, "Hardly."

"No ... she isn't of your class, Nell, and there's really no need to
underline that fact.  But then, neither am I, and when I bring my
secretary to this house, I shall expect her to be treated with
respect."

Nell turned to look at him.

"Respect has to be earned.  Joss.  It can't be commanded ... nor
bought.  Did you want to discuss anything else with me?"  she added
carelessly, when the silence had stretched for too long.  Joss was
looking at her almost as though he hated her.

Perhaps he did, she thought wildly.

"No," he told her harshly; and before she could say another word he had
left.

CHAPTER SIX

with less than a month to go before the wedding, Nell was determined to
prove to Joss that her powers of organisation were equal to the
combined efforts of his secretary and his interior designers, even
though she might exhaust herself in the process.

Perhaps it was as well if she did.  It would leave her less time to
think, to dwell on the enormity of what she was going to do.

A curt phone call from Joss had reminded her that he expected that they
would both inhabit the master suite of the house from the day of their
marriage, and, with the ideas and information garnered from Liz, Nell
called Mrs.  Booth into the library for a conference of what could and
could not be achieved.

Between them, the existing staff, who had learned to turn their hands
to almost anything and everything during the years they had worked for
her grandfather, confirmed that they could tackle all the renovations
and redecoration Nell had in mind.

She had worked long into the night for the three days since her return
from Cambridge, drawing up lists and making plans.

Telephone calls to suppliers in London had taken care of the ordering
of the wallpapers and fabrics she would need, and Mrs.  Knowles in the
village had confirmed that she and her daughter and niece together
could just about make up the fabric Nell had ordered in time for the
wedding.

The sketches and photographs culled from magazines that Nell showed her
had made her marvel a little, but she was a skilled needlewoman with
enough confidence in her own ability to boost Nell's flagging spirits.
After three days of non-stop endeavour, she was beginning to wonder if
she should after all have simply given in and allowed Joss to organise
everything.

But if she gave in now, what would her life with him be like?  If she
did produce a son, he would probably have the child taken away from
her, insisting on having him brought up by nannies and other hired,
qualified staff, and Nell was not going to have that.

In fact, Nell was discovering a fighting spirit she had never even
guessed she possessed.  It disturbed her to realise how very protective
she felt already of a child she had not yet even conceived.

She even found herself walking the length of the long gallery when she
ought to have been doing other things, studying the features in the
family portraits, wondering whether her child would take after her
family or look like his father.

Her child.  She shivered a little.  The child would not merely be hers,
but Joss's as well, and he would have his own definite ideas about his
upbringing.

At times when she ought to have been concentrating on wallpapers and
fabrics, she found herself dreamily wondering, picturing a baby with
Joss's dark features, a child whom she could love as much because he
was cast in his father's image as for himself, and then she caught
herself up sharply.  Their child would be an individual, not a
mirror-image of his father.  He would have his own traits and
characteristics, his own very definite personality.

Within four days of her return home, she had marshalled her work force,
and on Wednesday morning they began stripping the wallpaper from the
master bedroom and preparing it for redecorating.

She was on her mettle now, and determined to prove to Joss that she
could revamp the house as well as his interior designer.

Something in her, in fact, was actually enjoying the challenge.  The
money she had been so carefully hoarding against her uncertain future
could now be spent in the knowledge that the sale of the dinner-service
would replenish her bank account and more than cover the cost of the
wedding.

While her team of decorators worked upstairs, down in the kitchen Mrs.
Booth was organising the arrangements for the wedding breakfast.

She and Nell had pored over recipe books inherited from Nell's
great-great-grandmother in an attempt to find something not just
suitable but different enough to surprise Joss's friends.

Perhaps it was unworthy of her to want to do this, but Nell reflected
that everyone was allowed a little bit of ego-boosting every now and
again.

By Friday the master suite was ready for its new raiment; the walls
stripped of their dusty paper and dull hangings, the woodwork of its
old-fashioned, dark brown varnish.  It was amazing how light and airy
the room looked, Nell reflected, studying it.  Down in the village,
Mrs.  Knowles and her helpers were already working on the new hangings
for the bed; she had chosen a soft peach fabric with a design on it in
French blue.  The walls were to be papered in a companion paper in a
trellis design above the dado rail, and sponged in toning peach below
it.  A border that exactly matched the fabric just above the dado rail
would complete the redecoration, and she had decided to continue the
same colour theme throughout the entire suite.

Luckily her grandfather had never replaced the old Edwardian white
sanitary ware now back in fashion.  The bathroom was a good size and
the estate carpenter was making a matching dado rail for both the
bathroom and the dressing-room.

In the sitting-room, she was using a slightly more formal companion
paper, and here the curtains were to be plain peach lined with a subtly
patterned fabric in shadow stripes.

Mrs.  Knowles had promised that all the curtains, chair and settee
covers, cushions and bed hangings would be finished on time, and Nell
knew that she could rely on her.

Walking round the bare rooms, the furniture pushed into the middle of
them and covered in dusty covers, she tried to visualise how they were
going to look, praying that she had not made any errors.

It was too late now for cold feet, she told herself, leaving the men to
their work and going back downstairs.

Out of the downstairs room only two needed a minimum of work, one being
the library and the other the dining-room, its red Chinese silk wall
covering being, in her opinon, too beautiful to destroy.

Some of the rooms would have to remain untouched for now, but if she
could just prove to Joss that she was fully capable of organising the
work herself they could be tackled later.

She wandered into the drawing-room, wondering what he would think of
the colour scheme' she had chosen for the large south-facing room.

She was hoping that the subtle mixture of blues and terracottas; the
faded elegance of the pieces of antique furniture she had decided
should furnish the room, would meet with his approval.

On Friday she was on tenterhooks, wondering if Joss would come round to
see her, but he rang late in the afternoon, his voice cool and
impersonal, to announce that he would be out of the country for ten
days on business.

She gave a faint sigh of relief, and then wondered sadly how many
brides would have shared her relief at hearing such news.

Very few.

On Saturday, Grama arrived unexpectedly, a man Nell had not seen before
in tow.

Nell had reminded her about the marriage over the telephone, and, apart
from saying derisively that she could not imagine why on earth Joss
would want to marry her, she had made no comment.

Nell wasn't entirely surprised now to hear that Grama had changed her
mind about being a bridesmaid.

"In fact, darling, I might not be able to make it at all," she added
airily.

"Guy and I could well be in Sardinia..."

Nell made no comment, although she could see that her stepsister's
companion looked a little embarrassed.

Grama didn't stay long, seeking Nell out privately to ask her for a
small loan.

When Nell discovered that her idea of a small loan was several thousand
pounds, she was stunned, and had to refuse.

"Oh, come on, darling.  You can easily afford it now.  Don't tell me
Joss isn't paying very handsomely indeed to join the family."

How many other people had come to the same conclusion?  Nell wondered
miserably, when Grama had gone, leaving the house in a temper when she
discovered that Nell wasn't prepared to advance her the money.

Everyone locally knew her position; would they, like Grama, immediately
leap to the conclusion that the only reason Joss could be marrying her
was because she had something he wanted, and he could afford to pay for
it?  It was one thing to have to acknowledge to herself the basis on
which their marriage was formed; it was another to suspect that others
knew it as well, even thought she suspected she was being naive in
hoping they might have accepted that it was a love match.

Who, looking at her, would ever think that Joss was in love with her?

Oh, her new clothes, her new self-confidence, had improved her
appearance, but nothing could elevate it to match that of the women
Joss favoured.

Grama's acid comment denigrated them both.

She spent the rest of the day writing out wedding invitations, walking
down to the village to post them early in the evening, taking the short
cut through the park.

The scent of autumn crisped the air, the trees stark against the
horizon without their softening leaves.

A group of women chatting outside the post office turned to look at
her.  Nell knew them, normally would not have given their interest in
her a second thought.  Today though, her sensitivities rasped by what
Grama had said to her, she found herself instinctively tucking her left
hand out of sight, and hurrying past them with only the briefest
acknowledgement.

The weekend brought no contact from Joss, several telephone calls from
people who had already received their invitations, including Nell's
godmother, whose husband was Lord Lieutentant of the county.

They chatted for a while.  Lady Worboys wanting to know all the details
of their engagement.

She had met Joss once, briefly, at a small Christmas party held by
Nell's grandfather the year before he died.

1 suspected then that he was rather interested in you.  I'm so glad
you're not having a long engagement, darling.  They're never a good
idea.  Now .  is there anything I can do to help?  " she asked
practically.

Nell thanked her and said no.  She loved her godmother, but she was
rather inclined to view life through rose-coloured glasses, and Nell
was feeling far too sensitive to endure her well- meaning but painful
chatter above love and happy-ever-afters.

She was just on the point of going to bed when the telephone rang
again.  She picked it up listlessly, almost dropping it when she heard
Joss's vigorous voice demanding, "Nell, is that you?"

"Joss!"  she exclaimed faintly.

"When did you get home?  I thought you were in America."

"I am," he told her drily, adding, "They do have telephones over here,
you know, Nell.  How are things progressing?"

Instantly the happiness that followed her shock was destroyed by a
bitter awareness that the only reason he had rung was to check up on
her.  He was probably worried that her standards of organisation
wouldn't match up to those of his secretary, she thought wrathfully.

"Very well," she told him crisply, matching the businesslike tone of
her voice to his.

"I've sent out all the invitations.  Several people have rung this
weekend to accept.  Joss..."  A thought that had been niggling at the
back of her mind all week put to flight her chagrin.

"I noticed you hadn't included any members of your family on your
list..."

"I've already told you, Nell," he interrupted her harshly, 'my family
go their way and I go mine.  Even if I invited them, they wouldn't want
to come.  They wouldn't feel comfortable, you see, hobnobbing wi' such
grand folk he mimicked the Glaswegian accent of his youth, and beneath
the harsh words Nell sensed a fris son of pain.

"You've not changed your mind about marrying me, then?"

The curt words surprised her.

"Did you expect me to?"  she asked unevenly when she recovered from her
shock.

"Hardly."

If she closed her eyes she could actually visualise the cynical twist
of his mouth, its well-cut upper lip curling slightly.

"It's isn't in the de Tressail make-up, is it, to go back on their
given word, and besides, you can't afford not to marry me, can you,
Nell?"

Surely that couldn't be bitterness she could hear underlying the
drawled words?  Surely it couldn't be that Joss .  hard, unfeeling,
unemotional Joss was suffering from the same stinging self-awareness of
what others might read into their marriage as she was herself?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then, before she could
lose her courage, she said huskily, "Joss, are you on your own?"

There was a brief pause, during which she could almost feel his
surprise at her question.  "Yes," he said curtly.

"Why?"

"When ... when we get married, I'd like everyone else to believe that
it's that it's because we ... we care about one another.  I...1 think
it would be better for both of us if they did..."  She was stumbling
over the words now, her tension increased by his complete lack of
response.  The empty silence between them almost hummed.  What was he
thinking?  What was he going to say?  Would he reject her request?
Would he demand to know why she had made it.  Or would he understand?

"A love-match ... between you and me?  Do you really think the world
will be so easily deceived, Nell?"

She had to stifle her sharp cry of distress.  Perhaps he was right to
remind her that no one, other than perhaps her godmother, was likely to
believe for one minute that Joss Wycliffe could possibly have fallen in
love with plain Nell de Tressail, but surely, just this once, he could
have indulged her .  humoured her .  offered her a sop to her pride and
pretended that they might get away with it?

"No... No, I don't suppose they would," she agreed stiffly, her voice
dull.

As she replaced the receiver she heard him call out sharply, "Nell...
Nell..."

But she refused to respond, or to answer the telephone when it shrilled
imperatively five minutes later.

She was behaving emotionally, idiotically, given the circumstances of
their engagement and forthcoming marriage, but surely for once in her
life she was entitled to throw aside her great- aunt's teaching and
respond to her own inner' emotions.

She slept badly and woke up with a pounding head, exacerbated by the
smell of paint which was slowly permeating the house.

Her mood, a combination of dread, pain and irritation, seemed to have
afflicted the rest of the household as well as herself.

"Wedding nerves," Liz told her philosophically when she telephoned her
later in the day.

"How are things going apart from that?"

"Not too bad," Nell told her.

"The master bedroom is nearly finished.

Mrs.  Knowles is bringing the new curtains today and the carpets should
be back by the end of the week.  "

Thanks to Liz she had found a concern in London that specialised in
cleaning antique rugs and carpets.

"Is everything all right, Nell?"  Liz interjected quietly.

"You sound very tense."

"I'm fine," she lied brittly.

But she wasn't and she suspected they both knew it.  How on earth was
she going to cope with the reality of being married to Joss when merely
the thought of it was enough to have this kind of effect on her?

"It isn't too late to change your mind, you know," Liz told her
slowly.

Nell bit her lip.  Change her mind .  how could she?  And yet, for one
wild, panicky moment, she was sorely tempted.  It was too much .  Joss
was too much but then sanity reasserted itself and she said huskily,
"Liz, I can't.  I've given Joss my word, and besides, there's the
house."

"Nell, Nell ... for once in your life put yourself first.  And as for
the house, Robert was saying only the other night that you could
probably raise a bank loan on the security of it to pay off the
death-duties... Nell, I'm so worried about you.

Feeling the way you do about Joss, marriage to him will be hell for
you..  "

"Yes," she acknowledged sadly, but, as she had told Liz, it was too
late for her to change her mind.  Too many arrangements had been made.
too many things set in train.  And then there was Joss himself.

He would never forgive her if she humiliated him by ending their
engagement now.  He would never understand that she had done it because
she loved him.

"Mrs.  Knowles, they look marvelous," Nell praised as both she and the
seamstress stood back to admire the newly hung curtains.

Mrs.  Knowles had been as good as her word, and she and her girls had
arrived after lunch to hang the new curtains up at the master bedroom
windows.

The rich colours glowed against the newly decorated walls, highlighting
the delicate colour Nell had chosen for them.

From all over the house, Nell had culled the best of the most suitable
antique furniture for the suite of rooms.  A pretty inlaid bureau,
which had been a favourite of her grandmother's, stood against one
wall, a heavy chest of drawers against another.  The bed itself had
been polished until it shone, and a new mattress ordered to replace the
ancient, bumpy one which Nell guessed must have been at least forty
years old.  Now the mattress was obscured by the fabric heaped upon
it.

Not only had Mrs.  Knowles completed the curtains as she had promised,
but the eiderdown, bedspread, pillow-shams and chair-slips were also
ready.

"We should have the sofa-covers done by the middle of the week, as well
as the curtains for the sitting-room, but I thought we'd better see how
these looked up first."

"They look wonderful," Nell told her truthfully, glad now that she had
followed her advice and bought the extra yardage of fabric to allow for
extra width, as she saw how beautifully the curtains draped.

She remained in the room long after everyone else had left.

The estate workers had almost finished decorating the downstairs rooms,
and the silence that followed their departure was almost eerie.  Nell
had grown used to the bustle and noise of having them around, and now
she remembered how lonely the house had often seemed to her as a child.
She must make sure that her child never felt like that.  This house
needed more than one small baby to fill it.  It needed a family.

Of its own accord, her heart fluttered shallowly in her breast, her
stomach muscles cramping.

A family .  yes, that was what she craved more than anything else:

the sense of belonging that came from being part of an enclosed family
unit;

the pleasure of giving and receiving love.

Nell?  "

She tensed as she heard Joss's voice outside the bedroom door.

Joss was in America.  What was he doing here?  Confused and nervous,
one hand crept to her throat as she stood up and stared at the door.

She saw him frown and check as he walked in, saying abruptly, "Mrs.
Booth said you were up here..."

While his attention was on the room and not on her, she had the chance
to compose herself, to control the soft responsiveness of her body and
the eager warmth in her eyes.

"Yes ... we've just finished hanging the curtains."

He looked at her then, his frown deepening.

"WeT he queried.

"Mrs.  Booth told me that you'd been up here on your own for nearly an
hour.  From the way she said it, I suspect she imagines you were
indulging in some sort of romantic bridal fantasy."

Nell had to turn away to hide the stain of colour surging into her
face.

"Has it really been an hour?"  she said unsteadily.

"I had no idea.  I'd better go down."

She started to walk past him, and then tensed as he reached out and
stopped her, catching hold of her wrist with his fingers.  She saw him
look down at her clenched hand.

"Nervous, Nell?"

Something in the way he looked at her made the nerves flutter under her
skin.

"Just a little tense, that's all," she fibbed, adding desperately when
he refused to let her look away from him, "There's been a lot to do."

With her free hand she indicated their surroundings, and to her relief
he looked away from her and said calmly, "Yes.  You've done very well
in here."  He looked at the bed and added quietly, "I trust you realise
that we shall be sharing this room, Nell."

She couldn't help it.  A wild surge of colour flooded her skin and she
looked desperately away from Joss himself, trying to focus on
something--anything that meant she did not have to look at him.

She heard him laugh, a soft, very male sound that sent tiny fris sons
of sensation coursing over her skin, and into the silence that followed
she poured a torrent of husky, nervous words in a voice so unlike her
normal one that she barely recognised it herself.

"I didn't think you'd be back so soon... What was the flight like?

You must be tired.  When did you get back?  "

"I came back ahead of schedule, the flight was fine.  Yes, I am a
little tired," Joss responded imperturbably, before cutting across
another spate of nervous questions by saying quietly, "Nell, I've been
thinking.  You're right.  It would be better for both our sakes, as you
said, if we allowed the rest of the world to believe that this is a
love-match."

She focused on him then, too stunned to do anything else.  She had
expected that that tiny, betraying plea of hers would never be referred
to again, and to have Joss bring it up and, what was more, approve of
it, made her forget her embarrassment.

"There is just one thing, though," he added almost musingly.  His
fingers were still circling her wrist, and now subtly their pressure
increased, and became almost caressing as they found the place where
her pulse beat frantically against her blue-veined skin.

"At the moment I doubt we'd be able to convince anyone that we're in
love.

Lovers carry with them an aura of intimacy that's very easy to discern.
Lovers touch and kiss.  "

Imperceptibly he had drawn her closer to him, and Nell trembled as she
felt the heat and power of his body against her own.

She opened her mouth to protest, saying his name with a quick, husky
breath.

"It's all right, Nell.  I'm only going to kiss you.  We want to
convince the world that we're in love, remember."  He touched her mouth
with his own, a light, caressing movement of warm flesh against flesh
which demanded nothing but which still made her tremble wildly as she
fought the aching need inside her to throw caution aside and kiss him
back.

His mouth left hers, and slowly caressed the soft skin of her throat.

"Nell."  How husky his voice sounded against her ear, almost as though
he was as affected by caressing her as she was by his touch.

"We want to convince the world that we're in love--remember?  When I
kiss you, open your mouth."

His lips were so close to her ear, she could feel their touch.  The
warmth of his breath made her shiver, tiny waves of sensation tingling
through her body.

"Joss," she protested weakly, "I ought to go downstairs.  Mrs.  Booth
will wonder..."

"If we're making love?"

Her face burned.  That wasn't what she had intended to say at all.

Joss saw the shock in her eyes and his mouth curled cynically.

"How illuminating those eyes of yours are, Nell.  I wonder how I'm
going to like being married to a woman who can't quite hide her
distaste of me."

His accusation stunned her.  Incautiously she responded immediately,
"Joss, that isn't true."

"Isn't it?  Then kiss me properly, Nell.  Not like a little girl
obliged to kiss a much disliked relative."

His head bent towards her and she quivered tensely, closing her eyes.

She felt the warmth of his breath against her lips and tremulously
allowed them to part, waiting for the warm pressure of his mouth
against her own, willing herself not to make a complete fool of herself
and responded wildly to it.  But nothing happened.

Her eyelids fluttered and opened.  Joss was watching her, the golden
eyes gleaming fire.

"No, Nell," he said softly.

"This time, you kiss me."

Her shock showed in her face.

"Poor Nell... There's no need to look so terrified."

His taunt stung, and before she could think properly she flung tartly
at him, "I suppose the next thing you'll be telling me is that you
don't bite."

She saw his face change, his expression suddenly predatory and alien.

"Ah, but I do."

Something in her face must have given her away, because she saw his
eyes darken and blaze.

"Shall I show you, Nell?"  he demanded thickly.

"Is that what you want?  Underneath that cool, icy disdain do you
really ache, just like the rest of us?  Shall I find out?"

She was shivering, but not from fear or cold.

And then his mouth was on hers.  Not gently or lightly, but hotly,
demandingly, his tongue probing the parted outline of her lips and
tasting the sweetness within.

All her senses came alive at once, her body singing with pleasure, her
decision never to allow him to see how he affected her swept away as
though it had never been.

Her hands gripped his shoulders, smoothing their powerful breadth as
they slid beneath his jacket; she felt him tense and then gather her in
against his body so that she was aware of its physical arousal.

The knowledge both surprised and thrilled her.

"Ah, Joss ... there you are."

The cool, female voice tore into her fragile fantasy and, although it
was Nell who pulled back first at the sound of Fiona Howard's voice, it
was Joss who regained control first, his body apparently fully under
control, while hers shivered and ached.

"You said there were some letters you wanted to get off tonight, so I
thought I'd better come and find you.  There's that reception this
evening as well..."

She was speaking to Joss but she was looking at Nell, her eyes
hardening as she looked deliberately at the swollen fullness of her
mouth.

There was no apology for interrupting them, Nell noticed angrily; no
question of her right to invade their privacy .  no doubt in her mind
about which of them held the most power .  the most influence, and Nell
recognised that in refusing to allow her to mastermind the wedding.  in
snubbing her, she had made herself a bitter enemy.

But they would have been enemies anyway.  Yes, but she could have been
more subtle .  could have hidden her own jealousy, she acknowledged
wryly.  Now, as Fiona continued her unsubtle scrutiny, she tilted her
chin proudly, her eyes cool as she stepped past her and said distantly
to Joss, "I'd better go down.  I promised I'd go over the menu with
Mrs.  Booth."

"I see you've had interior designers in, after all," Fiona commented as
she and Joss fell into step beside her.  Fiona was standing much closer
to Joss than she was, Nell noticed miserably, but she allowed no trace
of what she was feeling to show in her face.

She had already betrayed herself enough for one day.  She just hoped
that Joss would put her response down to pure sexual arousal and not
guess at her real feelings.  The fact that he had been aroused himself
might incline him to such a conclusion.

The speed of his arousal had been something which had surprised her.

Surely a man of his experience.  Or perhaps he had wanted her to
believe that he desired her.  Perhaps he had even deliberately
manufactured a physical response to her.  The thought made her feel
faintly sick, and she didn't bother responding to Fiona's taunt.

Joss did, however, turning to his secretary and saying calmly, "You're
wrong, Fiona.  Nell organised all this herself.  It seems my fiancee
has hidden talents."  He turned to look at her and Nell felt her whole
body go hot under the sensual inspection of his scrutiny.

Fiona was obviously aware of it too, because, when Joss excused himself
to collect some papers he had left in the library, she turned to Nell
and hissed acidly, "I hope you're not going to be stupid enough to fall
in love with him.  The last thing Joss wants hanging around his neck is
a doting little wife."

Angry and unnerved by the extent of her physical response to him, Nell
responded sharply, "Fall in love with Joss?  Oh, I don't think so."

And then she turned on her heel and prepared to leave, only to stop as
she saw Joss himself standing just inside the door.

There was no doubt that he must have heard her.  His mouth was
compressed into a thin, angry line.  For a moment she was tempted to go
to him and explain, but she stopped herself.  She wasn't going to say
anything while Fiona was there, watching gloatingly.

But why was he so angry?  She knew they had agreed that they would at
least attempt to pretend that their marriage was based on love, but his
secretary was hardly like to be deceived, especially not since she and
Joss had been, and probably still were, lovers.

Tensing her body proudly, she walked past him, saying coolly, "Since
you've so much work to do.  Joss, I'd better not keep you."

It was only her early training instilled into her by her great-aunt
that prevented her from going upstairs and shutting herself away in her
room.

Instead, she very pointedly escorted them both to the front door and
then, when they had gone, she went upstairs to her room and sat and
stared at her wedding dress in its dust proof covering, and wondered
how on earth she was going to get through the rest of her life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

after Joss had gone, the day suddenly seemed flat, despite the fact
that she had not been anticipating seeing him.  She wondered what had
made him cut short his business trip, and then admitted to herself that
she was scarcely likely to find out.

When he had initially proposed to her, she had harboured in some deep
recess of her imagination the illusion that, even if he could never
come to love her, they could develop a deep and enduring friendship;

she had allowed herself to daydream of quiet, intimate evenings when he
would unburden himself to her and discuss with her the problems of his
business life.  Now she recognised how idiotic she had been.  Joss had
no need of her to unburden himself to; if fact, he should want to do
something so out of character, anyway, he had his faithful secretary.

Nell's mouth tightened.  She had as good as made a rod for her own back
by announcing to him that his relationship with Fiona was not her
concern.  Now she regretted those hasty words.  How on earth could he
even pretend to want to create an illusion that they were marrying for
love, when he was having an affair with someone else?

That kiss .  that passion.  had they been for her?

She felt physically sick and got up unsteadily.  In less than a
fortnight this familiar room she had slept in since childhood would no
longer be hers.  Instead she would be sharing the master suite with
Joss.  Sleeping next to him in the huge old bed that had been in the
family since the days of Charles EL She would not be the first female
member of her family to enter a loveless marriage--far from it, and
even these days, in moneyed and powerful circles, marriage were often
still very much paren tally instituted and approved, no matter how much
this might be glossed over.  So why did her heart rebel against what
she knew was an eminently sensible course; why did she so wish that she
could simply walk away?

If she was plain Nell Smith and not Lady Eleanor de Tressail, with no
particular family pedigree, no tide, no history stretching back over
the decades, nothing to offer Joss other than herself, would he then
want to marry her?

She knew the answer, and, more gallingly, she suspected everyone else
would know it as well.

For her pride's sake, she ought to tell him that the wedding was off,
but even as the thought formed she knew she wouldn't.  She loved him
too much.  That knowledge terrified her.  How could she even think of
putting herself through what she was going to have to endure as his
wife?

Oh, he would never be publicly or deliberately hurtful to her; he
wasn't that kind of man.  No, her pain would all be of her own
making;

it would come from knowing that, when he made love to her, it was out
of duty out of his need for her to conceive.  That when he pretended to
care for her, it was because he wanted others to believe it.  There had
been no pretence when he proposed to her; no attempt to persuade her
that he might genuinely care for her as a person.

If he had, would she have believed him?  Her heart gave a tiny jerk at
the thought of Joss playing the would-be lover.  She might not have
been able to believe him, but she would have allowed herself to seem as
though she did.  Possibly.  Where was her pride?  Where was her
backbone?

Work .  work was the only panacea, and there was plenty of that still
to be done.

Her appetite, never large at the best of times, seemed to have
completely deserted her, and she laboured over the evening meal Mrs.
Booth had provided in the solitary chill of the small dining-room.

This was a room off the cold, panelled ladies' withdrawing-room, and as
she studied its dull walls Nell tried to imagine how she might best
brighten it up.

So far she had simply concentrated on those rooms she knew they would
need to use.

Her grandfather had never approved of a heated dining-room and so there
was not even a basic electric heater.  After toying with her dinner,
she reloaded the tray Mrs.  Booth had left and took it back to the
kitchen.

The kitchen was as old-fashioned as the rest of the house, although
Mrs.  Booth claimed that she preferred the Aga cooker now that she had
grown used to it.

It was her evening off and Nell washed her own china and cutlery,
drying them methodically and putting them away.  A dishwashing machine
would be a necessity if Joss planned to entertain, and they could do
with a new freezer.  The existing one had been bought second-hand, when
Nell had deemed it a necessity so that they could store some of the
fruit and vegetables produced in abundance by the kitchen garden.

The kitchen did not have units, but huge oak dressers built into the
walls which housed the family china and glassware.  Provisions were
stored in the pantry, on shelves which ran all round the walls.

If she went into it, Nell knew she would find bottles of preserve and
fruit from her great-aunt's day, all neatly labelled and dated.

Although she and Mrs.  Booth still made jam and marmalade, the freezer
had proved a boon when it came to preserving their fruit.

The stone-slab bed floor felt chilly when she stepped off the rug, and
she shivered a little.  If there was enough money left over from the
sale of the dinner-service, she would find out about a more practical
and warm floor-covering for the kitchen.  Mrs.  Booth wasn't getting
any younger, and it was unfair to expect her to put up with such
uncomfortable conditions.

No doubt Joss's designer would have taken one look at the kitchen and
condemned the whole thing.  Just for a moment Nell allowed herself to
dream of a light, airy kitchen with pretty units and labour-saving
devices; and the kind of kitchen that was large enough to have a table
in it .  the kind of kitchen where she could work, and at the same time
keep an eye on their children.

All the muscles in her stomach tensed.  Joss's children.  Her body
pulsed and ached as though already it longed for them.  She must not
make the mistake of smothering them with the love she could not give
Joss.  She must allow them to be free.  She could see so many pitfalls
in the years ahead.  If they had sons, would Joss want to send them to
her grandfather's old school, or would he agree with her that
boarding-school was not always the best environment for children?

The pulsing ache turned to panic.  There were so many things they
hadn't discussed .  so much about him she didn't know.  She had no idea
even what he liked to eat, only how he liked his coffee.  What papers
did he read?  The Financial Times, no doubt.  Vague, confusing thoughts
whirled through her mind.

She heard the doorbell ring and went to answer it.  Joss was standing
outside.  He frowned down at her, and she bit her lip, realising she
was still wearing the same old clothes he had seen her in earlier.

He, in contrast, had changed, and as he stepped inside she saw that he
was wearing a leather blouson jacket in a dark jade colour, the leather
so soft-looking that she almost reached out and touched it.

He brought in with him the scent of woodsmoke and autumn, and when she
frowned, looking into the courtyard for his car, he said wryly, "I
walked.  After the transatlantic flight I felt I needed the
exercise."

As he stood towering over her, all her doubts and fears coalesced, and
without even knowing she was going to do so she heard herself saying
huskily, "I can't marry you.  Joss.  It won't work.  I don't know the
first thing about the way you live your life.  I'm not like your
secretary, I..."

"Nell."

The harsh warning note in his voice silenced her.  His mouth grim, he
looked up and down the hall.

"What's the matter with you?  You're practically hysterical.  Besides,
this isn't something we can discuss here, where we could be
overheard."

She walked towards the library door, but he stopped her.

"No, not there.  Is our sitting-room finished yet?"

"Our sitting-room?"  She looked at him.

"The one off the master bedroom."

"Oh, no.  Not quite."

"Never mind.  We'll go up there anyway.  We're not likely to be
disturbed there."

The look he gave her made her skin flush.

"It wasn't my fault we were interrupted this afternoon.  She's your
secretary."  And much, much more, her voice implied, but she held the
words back.

"Fiona hasn't accustomed herself to the fact that I'm going to be a
married man yet," he said smoothly.

"Is that why you can't marry me?

Because of Fiona?  " he asked her.

"Or is it because of Williams?"

They were at the top of the stairs and Nell tensed, but refused to look
at him.

"This has nothing to do with David.  Naturally I'm not too happy about
the obviousnesss of your relationship with Fiona," she agreed coolly,
'but no, that it isn't the reason.  The reason is the one I gave you.
We don't know enough about one another.  "

They had reached the master suite.  Joss opened the door and stepped
back, forcing her to precede him.

As he closed the door, he said calmly, "What is it you want to know?"

"Oh, Joss, it isn't like that.  You must know what I mean," she
protested huskily.

But he wouldn't let her continue, interrupting her harshly to say,
"What I know is that in ten days' time you and I are going to be
married.  No one welches on a deal with me, Nell," he told her curtly,
'and that includes you.  I'm sorry if you're suffering from an attack
of virginal timidity!  " He saw her face and laughed sourly.

"Oh, come on, Nell.  You didn't think I wouldn't know, did you?  I
promise you, if it's any comfort to you, that I could take you to bed
here and now and within a very short space of time indeed make you
forget what the very word doubt means, in spite of Williams."

His voice had dropped to a husky, almost mesmerising tone that made the
blood pulse hotly through her veins and her heartbeat increase into
frantic little thuds that robbed her of breath and made her tremble
slightly.

"Don't think I don't know what all this is about."  He looked at her
mouth, and to her embarrassment Nell found her lips were parting
softly.

"I could spend the next ten days telling you that there's nothing to be
worried about ... that I'm not a monster..  that I've no intention of
hurting you or frightening you, but I really think it would be much
easier to banish all those doubts of yours if I just showed you."

When he had come so close to her, Nell looked up at him and felt her
world lurch and spin wildly out of control as she saw the dark glitter
of his eyes: tawny-gold, predatory, the eyes of a male animal hunting
its prey.

"You and I will be married, Nell," he told her, his voice little more
than a whisper against her ear, but the words reverberated into her
heart.

"Did I frighten you this afternoon?  I didn't mean to."

And his lips caressed the soft shell of her ear, sending shock shivers
racing through her.

"I haven't forgotten how little you know about the male animal."

His mockery shocked her back to reality.  She attempted to pull away
from him and said huskily "I'm twenty-four.  Joss.  Hardly a child."

"But not yet truly a woman," he suggested delicately, and her defiance
fled.

She wanted to protest that there was more to being a woman than mere
sexual experience, but the words formed a choking ball in her throat,
as though she herself, in some deep secret place, feared that she was
somehow less of an adult because of her sexual inexperience.

"Perhaps that's what's actually bothering you," he suggested with a
tiny smile.

"Not so much bridal nerves as bridal impatience, eh, Nell?"

She froze and glared at him.

"So, first I'm frigid and then I'm sex-starved.  Well, it may interest
you to know.  Joss, that when I said I couldn't marry you because I
knew nothing about you, sex was the very last thing on my mind."

It wasn't quite the truth, but she was angry enough to ignore the tiny
flutters of her conscience.

"After all ... if I really want to know what you're like in bed, it
wouldn't be very hard to find out, would it?"

she added scornfully, knowing she was flirting with danger, but too
angry to care.

"I'm sure your secretary, for instance, would be able to furnish me
with a first-hand account of..."

She gasped as he grabbed and shook her.

"Why, you little... Fiona is not and never has been my lover," he told
her acidly.

"That's not what you said before," Nell challenged him, and nor was it
what Fiona's whole demeanour had told her, either.  The other woman had
made it plain that she considered Joss to be very much her private
property.

"I said nothing," Joss corrected her.

"You were the one who made the claim.  I simply..."

"Implied that it was correct," Nell cut in brittly.

"Joss, whether she has or has not shared your bed isn't really
relevant.  When you first proposed to me, I was too confused to think
it through properly."

"You mean you were too relieved to have the burden of worrying about
the tax bills lifted from your shoulders to think about having to
endure my lovemaking," he said harshly.

"Well, it's too late for maidenly shrinking now, Nell.  Do you really
think I'd let you make a fool of me by calling the whole thing off? Oh,
no..."

"You can't stop me," Nell told him bravely, and then quailed beneath
the look he gave her.

"Oh, I think I can," he said softly, and it was only when he reached
her for that she realised exactly what it was he intended to do.

She cried out as she felt the bed depress beneath her, trying to squirm
away from him, but the gold eyes held an implacable purpose that warned
her that there would be no escape.

"If our first child arrives a little early, I shan't mind, and you
won't take the risk of sullying the family name by giving birth to a
bastard, will you, Nell?"

"No, please.  Joss ... don't do this.  I will marry you.I..."

"Words, Nell, and you've already proved to me that they mean nothing.

This way, there'll be no more second thoughts.  " He imprisoned her
with one arm, while he stripped her with his free hand.  She refused to
struggle or to give in to the frantic fear thudding her heart.  She had
been weak and stupid enough already.  If he expected her to cry or
plead, if he expected anything from her other than unmoving acceptance
of his superior strength... When she had imagined their first night
together, she had pictured herself dressed more romantically; the scene
set with flickering candles, her body relaxed perhaps by champagne. Now
the only feeling she could experience was one of sheer shock, laced
with humiliation as she saw herself revealed to Joss's unreadable gaze
in the clean but most definitely unglamorous underwear that had been
chain store bought and was serviceable rather than attractive.  She
felt none of the arousal she had experienced during the afternoon. None
of the pleasure and excitement, only a shocked resignation, laced with
misery.

She refused to close her eyes, but looked steadfastly instead at a
point beyond Joss's shoulder, so that to feel the softness of the quilt
which unexpectedly covered her trembling body made her look directly at
him.

"There's really no need to be nervous.  I'm not doing this to hurt you,
Nell, but I won't take the risk of losing you now to Williams or anyone
else."

Of losing her.  Of losing the title, didn't he mean?  But she held back
the bitter words and swallowed painfully, doing nothing to correct his
apparent belief that she was in love with David.

She was free now, and could have got up quite easily, but she doubted
if she did that she would get as far as the door, and she wasn't going
to heap further humiliation on her own head by being dragged back to
the bed, which she was quite sure he would do.

Joss was ruthless; she had always known that, and at the back of her
mind perhaps she had also feared it.

She tried to blot out the alien sounds of a man undressing, refusing to
turn her head and look at him, even when she heard him laugh softly.

"Modest, Nell?  What an anachronism you are in these times.  Truly a
pearl beyond price."

Sure that he was mocking her, Nell turned her head sharply, her eyes
widening in shocked awareness of his maleness as he bent to flip back
the cover and join her on the bed.

His body was tanned, or at least almost all of it was, she
acknowledged, remembering that brief strip of paler flesh that had
drawn her gaze so betrayingly.  It was also packed with muscles that
moved and rippled beneath his skin, making him suddenly seem totally
different from the other men she knew.

As he moved close to her she was immediately aware of the scent of his
skin, and the clean, fresh smell of some masculine soap underlaid by a
more primitive, faint odour of maleness, musky and alien, heightening
her awareness of him, making him at the same time more vulnerable, as
human as she was herself, and also more intimidating in the way that
such a powerfully sensual man must always be slightly awe- inspiring.

He bent his head close to her own, so close that she could see the
pores of his skin and the shape of the bones that underlay it.

"Don't be afraid," he said as he had said before.

"I'm not doing this to hurt you, Nell, but you must see that I can't
lose you now."

Oh'yes, she could see it, and for the space of a heartbeat she
contemplated telling him the truth, letting him see how impossible
their marriage would be for her with the burden of her love for him,
but she stopped herself, seeing the relentless determination darken his
eyes, and wondering if he might not simply choose to use her love for
him as another means of binding her to him.

What must it be like to want something so much that no human feelings,
however intense, could stand in the way of that wanting?

Ambition.  Once, long ago, her forebears must have possessed it.  must
have fought for it and killed for it; but none of that need burned her
blood with its icy heat.  She had been brought up to uphold the
traditions of her name and family, but she knew that she would gladly
abandon them all if in doing so she could gain Joss's love.

His mouth touched her skin, his fingers featherlight as they smoothed
the hair back off her face.

"You're trembling.  There's really no need, Nell."

No need for him, maybe.

His hands traced the sharp jut of her collarbone, his mouth teasing its
way across the smooth curve of her jaw.

"You've lost weight," he murmured against her mouth.

She was surprised he'd noticed, but fore bore to say so.  Apart from
the light caress of his hands and mouth, he wasn't touching her at all,
and when she looked at him it seemed to Nell that just for a moment
there was a grave tenderness in his eyes.

"This isn't how I intended it to be, Nell.  But who knows ... maybe
it's for the best.  At least this way the ordeal will soon be behind
you.  What did they tell you about this when you were growing up, Nell?
That it was a lady's duty to submit to her husband and to provide him
with sons?"

The wry tone of his voice hurt her.  Did he really think her so cut off
from reality .  so archaic?  Did he actually believe that at twenty
four she had neither the intelligence nor the insight to form her own
views and beliefs?

"I might be physically inexperienced.  Joss," she told him quietly,
'but that doesn't mean that I'm not aware that sex can be one of life's
richest pleasures.  "

She chose the word deliberately, forcing herself to look directly at
him and not flinch beneath the look in his eyes.

"If that's so, why have you never experienced it, I wonder?"  She
hesitated for a moment and then said coolly, "I don't know.  Maybe
because as yet I haven't met a man who's made me want to?"

"Is that a challenge, Nell?  Because if so..."  She tensed as she felt
his fingers bite slightly into her arms.

But before she could even draw a breath to protest his mouth was on
hers, caressing it into sensuous recognition of his mastery as he
teased and coaxed from her an unwilling response.

She tried to fight back the tide of sensation beating through her, but
desire, once aroused, as she was beginning to discover, was not so
easily dammed.  Joss's mouth left hers, and she saw him studying its
soft shape before he traced it tantalisingly with his forefinger.  As
though it had a mind of its own, her flesh clung to his.  She made a
tiny sound deep in her throat, unconsciously trying to prolong the
physical contact, and, as though it was a sign he had been waiting for.
Joss moved, covering her body with his, saying her name huskily and
unevenly as he kissed her again.  This time not gently or carefully,
his hand sliding from her arms to her body, shaping it beneath him as
he sucked fiercely on her tongue, drawing it into his mouth, caressing
it, until Nell was driven by her need to reciprocate the caress, not
even realising what she had done until she felt the groan he stifled in
his throat vibrate against her fingertips.

She stopped abruptly then, shocked by her own lack of self-protection.
What had happened to her determination not to betray how she felt?  She
trembled tensely beneath the heat of his body, waiting for him to make
some flippant, taunting comment, but instead he moved her so that he
could slide his hand along her ribcage and cup her breast, his voice
rough against the ear.

"I want you, Nell."

And he moved so that she could feel the truth of his statement in the
arousal of his body, not intimidating at all, she realised in surprise,
but pleasurably awesome, making her feel intensely female and powerful
that she should be able to have this effect on him.

Beneath his light caress her breasts ached, her nipples tight and hard.
When he brushed one softly with his thumb, fierce darts of sensation
pulsed through her, making her insides ache in unexpected recognition
of her need.

"Joss."  She said his name uncertainly, an unspoken plea darkening her
eyes as she looked at him.  She had been prepared to want him, but she
hadn't realised it would be like this.  She hadn't realised that just
this brief physical contact would make her ache for him with an
intensity that went beyond pride and self-respect; that just that brief
taste of him would make her want to adore his body with her hands and
mouth.

She found it extraordinary that she had never felt like this before;

never suspected herself of being capable of this depth of physical
abandonment; never known how powerfully strong her own desires could
be.

"Shush," he told her.

"It's all right."  And his voice rasped slightly, raw and very
different from the cool, often remote tone she was used to.

"It's all right, Nell," he repeated thickly.

"I just want to look at you ... to touch you."

And he eased back the duvet so that the thin light from the new moon
filtered through the darkness and bathed her skin in a fragile silver
white beam that seemed to highlight all the shadows and curves of her
flesh, making them mysterious and alluring and, even to her own eyes,
unfamilar.

Had her waist always had that narrow, vulnerable curve; her breasts
that unexpectedly voluptuous fullness crowned with nipples whose
aureoles were surely darker and larger than she recalled?

Even the curve of her hip was offered up to the moon's mysterious
invoking light, the graceful line of her thigh and the delicacy of her
ankle-bone all known to her, and yet in some way unknown, and, against
their silvery paleness, absorbing rather than reflecting the light like
her flesh, was the male darkness of Joss's body.

She sucked in a shallow breath as she gazed at the indentation of his
waist, the flat hardness of his buttocks, the strength of his thigh
where it covered her own flesh; a statement of ownership and
possession.

She shivered suddenly, raising a rash of goosebumps from her throat to
her hip.

Her breath locked in her chest as Joss stroked her skin with one
finger, smoothing delicately over the sensitive flesh, from her
collarbone down over her breast.

When he reached its flushed crest it seemed to Nell that he
trembled--or was it her?  --and then he said thickly, "Oh, God,
Nell!"

And for the first time in her life she experienced the tumultuous
sensation aroused by a man's mouth against her breast, as Joss gently
sucked her nipple into his mouth.  She must have cried out, although
she wasn't aware of it.  Joss tensed and then released her, covering
her moist nipple with his hand, as though he couldn't bear to
relinquish all contact with her.

She was bathed in fine perspiration, her eyes dark and shocked.

"I never knew it would feel like that," she said huskily, barely able
to focus on him, conscious only of the intensity of what she was
feeling.

He caressed the swollen tip of her breast and she shuddered violently,
unable to control the response that convulsed her.

"It's all right," Joss told her.

"It's just that some women have exceptionally sensitive breasts, so
sensitive in fact that..."  He broke off, and Nell wondered if he knew
about the pulsing ache tormenting her lower body .  if he knew exactly
what effect he was having on her.  A wave of shame washed over her. How
could she be so uncontrolled, so, so.  As though he knew what she was
thinking.  Joss groaned and gathered her against him so that the
sensitive crests of her breasts rubbed against his chest, making her
moan softly.

"It's all right, Nell ... it's all right..."  he reassured her, but
Nell felt far from all right.  Her whole body ached and pulsed, and she
almost cried out with frustration when he slowly released her and moved
away from her.

He didn't want her, after all.  He had changed his mind about making
love to her.  Where she should have felt relief, she felt only
anguish.

She closed her eyes and then opened them abruptly as she felt Joss cup
her breasts in his hands, shuddering wildly, as he caressed one and
then the other with his mouth, sucking gently at first and then far
less gently as he felt her abandoned response.

Her spine arched, her nails digging into his shoulders, leaving tiny
crescent marks as she cried out her pleasure.

She was barely aware of Joss lifting her, moving her and even touching
her, other than to" dimly recognise above the fierce crescendo of her
need that the gentle stroke of his fingers against the most intimate
part of her soothed and comforted the tormenting ache aroused by the
hot drag of his mouth against her breasts.

It was only when he moved and lifted her on top of him that she
realised what he was doing, and tensed.

"It's all right, Nell," he told her.

"This way, you'll be the one in control.  You'll be able to see as well
as feel everything that's happening."

Never in her wildest imaginings had she dreamed her initiation would be
like this; that she would know the heady power of delicately absorbing
his flesh within her own, and seeing in his face what she was doing to
him.

And then abruptly their roles changed and she cried out as she felt the
sharp flash of pain, the sound silenced by Joss's mouth as he kissed
her and soothed her, seeming to know exactly when it faded, his hand on
her hips tutoring her body to the rhythm of his.

She felt within her an urgent reaching out, a desperate striving for
some unknown goal, which despite her need remained elusive even though
her body shook and trembled with her frantic attempts to reach it.

"Gently, Nell, gently," Joss said hoarsely against her ear, and
miraculously he was right;

as she allowed her body to respond to his tutoring, she felt the tiny
ripples begin and then swell until they surged and exploded in
mind-destroying eddies of pleasure that left her weak and drained.

She felt the pulsing release of Joss's body within her own, and
wondered vaguely if she would conceive.  It hardly seemed important in
the light of her discovery of how pleasurable physical satisfaction
could be.

But if she didn't love Joss, would she have felt like this?  Somehow
she doubted it.  The thought was instantly sobering.  She felt Joss
move beside her, and turned the head to see that he was getting
dressed.  Of course.  Now that his purpose was accomplished, there was
little point in him staying, she reflected miserably.  She was not what
he was used to and no doubt she had bored him.  She had often heard it
said that experienced-men did not particularly like making love to
virgins.

Joss was half dressed now.  She, too, ought.  but, as she moved.  Joss
stopped her, pulling on his shirt, and leaving it unfastened as he
leaned down and, wrapping the quilt round her, lifted her off the
bed.

"Joss... What are you doing?"

"Taking you to your room," he told her.

"Making love for the first time can be physically and emotionally
exhausting."

"That doesn't mean that I can't walk to my bedroom," Nell told him.

"True."  He smiled at her, and she had an overwhelming urge to trace
the curled line of his mouth, which she fought to resist.

"But, since I can't spend the night with you, allow me at least this
indulgence, Nell."

She looked at the bed, and bright colour flooded her skin as he said
calmly, "Don't worry.  I'll see to everything before I go."

He remembered which was her room, although Nell saw that his mouth
tightened as he looked round it.

"Why is there no heating?"

"Aunt Honoria didn't approve of heating in the bedrooms," she told him
primly as he put her down on her bed.

She wondered if he would kiss her, and was disappointed when he
didn't.

As he straightened up, he said softly, "It's too late for second
thoughts now, Nell."  His hand pressed lightly against her stomach, and
it was almost as though her womb actually contracted beneath his
touch.

She fell asleep still wrapped in the quilt, not waking until it was
daylight, wondering frantically what on earth Mrs.  Booth would have
thought if she had happened to walk into her bedroom.

Nell had never in her life slept in the nude.  had never in her life
had the kind of betraying small bruises on her skin that her body
displayed now.  Had never in her life experienced the enervating
lassitude that possessed her limbs, nor known this faint soreness.

All the time she was dressing she thought about Joss.  About how he had
touched her .  about how her had aroused her .  about how he had made
love to her.

And her heart sang.  Perhaps their marriage might work out, after all .
perhaps.

CHAPTER EIGHT

within hours Nell had come crashing back down to earth.  When she saw
the chauffeur-driven Rolls pull up in front of the house her stomach
muscles tightened pleasurably in anticipation of Joss's appearance,
only it wasn't Joss who stepped out of the immaculately polished car,
it was Fiona.

Stifling her disappointment, Nell went downstairs to meet her.

As always, the other woman was immaculately and expensively dressed.

Nell, who had been helping Mrs.  Knowles to fit the newly made covers
on to the old furniture, was wearing one of her new pairs of jeans and
a sweatshirt.

Under Liz's approving eye, the outfit had seemed both practical and
attractive; now with Fiona studying her with amused contempt, it merely
looked scruffy.

She had come, she explained, to get Nell's signature to some forms that
were required to open the bank accounts Joss was organising for her.

As Nell led the way into the library, she thought that Fiona looked as
smug as a cream-fed cat, and the other woman's self-assurance only
added to her own feelings of inadequacy.

Feelings which had doubled and tripled overnight to such an extent that
she was badly in need of Joss's reassurance.  As he had promised he
would do, he had left the bedroom pristine neat.

She signed the forms quickly, without speaking to Fiona, but something
must have given her away because she said in evident amusement, "Poor
Joss.  He was rather apprehensive about coming to see you today, after
last night."

Nell felt her heart thud and leap against her chest wall.

She kept her head bent over the papers, but she knew her hand shook as
Fiona studied them and pointed out where she had omitted one
signature.

She knew, too, that the other woman had seen the betraying tremor.

"Poor darling.  He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to go through
with it.  I told him, it's normally the woman who has to lie back and
think of England.  I told him to close his eyes and imagine that..."

Nell couldn't take any more.  She stood up quickly, scattering papers
all over the desk.  She was breathing quickly, and she knew her face
had lost all its colour.

Handing Fiona the signed papers, she said with quiet dignity, "I
believe you've got everything you came for.  Please leave."

And then she did something she did very, very rarely.  She touched the
bell beside the desk, and when Johnson appeared, looking rather
surprised and concerned, she asked him to show Fiona out.

She saw from the other woman's face that she was not pleased, and it
gave her a brief stab of satisfaction, but that soon disappeared once
she was alone and forced to confront what Fiona had said to her.

She could hardly believe that Joss had actually discussed something so
private and personal with his secretary, no matter what their
relationship, and Joss had told her that they were not lovers.  Had he
lied to her?  Not about that .  but perhaps, by omission, about Fiona's
feelings for him?  He must know she was in love with him and, knowing
that, he had voluntarily betrayed Nell to her.  How could he have
humiliated her in such a way?  Humiliated them both?

Last night, she had thought she had seen, if not love, then at least
tenderness and concern in his eyes; now she knew how cruelly
selfdecepdve she had been.

And it wasn't entirely Joss's fault.  He had told her why he was making
love to her, warned her that there was only one reason; but she, self
deluded fool that she was, had thought that the desire of his body was
for her as a person as a woman.

Now she knew she was wrong.  Oh, but how could he have discussed her
with Fiona like that?  Have allowed the other woman to know how little
he desired her, especially after they had agreed that they would behave
like any other couple in love?

She couldn't marry him now.  She wouldn't marry him now.  And then she
looked around the room and remembered her promise to her grandfather.

Her hand touched her stomach lightly and she trembled.  Supposing she
had already conceived Joss's child?  He was right, she was not strong
enough to bring up her child alone .  outside the bonds of marriage.

She admired those women who could, for their strength and their
self-reliance, but her strengths were not theirs.  There was no escape
for her.

Half-way through the morning a man arrived and announced that he had
been sent by Joss to install a central heating system.  Despite the
fact that, in the winter, Nell hated the cold dampness of the house and
her great-aunt's belief that cold fresh air was necessary and healthy,
she immediately felt resentful that Joss should have arranged something
without consulting her.

She got Johnson to show the man round and went back to her self-imposed
task of cleaning the silver.

Normally for wedding buffets she hired cutlery and china, but for her
own.  There were cast canteens of initialled family silver dating back
to late Victorian times.  The Georgian silver had been sold by her
grandfather and never replaced, but even the Edwardian sets would
probably be valuable now, she reflected as she and Mrs.  Booth worked
companionably side by side cleaning it.

Somewhere in one of the cupboards was the dinner-service which had been
specially commissioned for her great-grandmother's wedding.  She
suspected that it was probably packed away in the attic, and, as she
remembered from her great-aunt's stories, there had been over one
hundred and fifty guests at the wedding breakfast.  The days were gone
when people commissoned a dinner-service especially for one special
event, even if once it had been common practice among the wealthy.

Nell had never seen the service.  She knew it was Spode and suggested
to the housekeeper that they try to find it.  She had already had a
telephone call from the dealer who was going to view the china, and he
was calling round later in the afternoon on behalf of his client, so
that too had to be washed and displayed, and Nell chose to place it on
the table in the formal dining-room.

"Hideous, isn't it?"  she commented when she and the housekeeper had
finished this task.

"It's hard to believe it's so valuable.  Lucky for me," though.  "

Mrs.  Booth was as well aware as the rest of the staff of Nell's
financial problems, and, knowing that she was not the kind to gossip,
Nell added quietly, "You see, with the money I'll get from this, I'll
be able to pay for the wedding myself.  And for the work I've organised
on the house.  Perhaps it's old-fashioned of me."

If Mrs.  Booth found it odd that Nell should want to spend what little
capital she had when she was on the point of marrying an extremely
wealthy man, she kept it to herself.  Nell couldn't really explain even
to herself just why she felt she had to make this final gesture of
indpendence.  She only knew that she could not allow Joss to pay for
her wedding dress, for the new clothes she had bought, and the new
underwear that Liz had slyly insisted on adding to their purchases. Had
she been pressed to give a reason, she would have had to say that it
just wasn't the proper thing to do, but there was more to it than that.
Perhaps even a desire to prove to Joss that though he might have
bought the house and the title .  he could not buy her.

It was just after three-thirty when the antiques dealer arrived.  Nell
took him straight through to the dining-room where the china was
displayed, and then stood patiently to one side while he examined every
piece.

"It's excellent," he pronounced at length.

"My client will be delighted.  I'm empowered to offer you..."  and he
named a sum that made Nell almost gasp in delighted shock.

"That is for the full set, of course.  It's very rare to find one in
such good condition.  This one looks as though it has barely been
used."

Nell just stopped herself from telling him that me reason why it was in
such good condition was that no one had liked it; it seemed hardly
politic in view of the vast sum he was offering her for it.

She and Mrs.  Booth helped him pack it up carefully, the bankers' draft
he had made out in Nell's own name carefully locked away in the desk
drawer.

They were just wrapping the final few pieces, Nell on her knees at the
dealer's side, in the dining-room, when Joss walked in.

The sight of him, so unexpected when she hadn't expected to see him and
was unprepared for the jolting shock of pleasure seeing him always gave
her, robbed her both of colour and breath, so that she could only kneel
there staring up at him while he surveyed the chaos on the floor with
frowning concentration.

"What's going on here?  Doing a moonlight flit, Nell?"  he demanded
harshly.

Her colour flooded back, and the dealer discreetly got up, picking up
the last box.

"Thank you again, and if there's anything else you wish to dispose
of..."

He handed her his card, gave Joss a brief smile, shook hands formally
with Nell and was gone, hurriedly escorted away by Mrs.  Booth.

"What exactly is it you're disposing of Nell, and why?  I wonder.  Do
you suspect I'm going to make a mean husband?  Or is there another
reason ... a nest egg?  A little something tucked away for the
future?

Running away money, Nell?  Is that what this is all about?  "

He was angry, bitterly, furiously angry, and he had no right to be.

"Hasn't it occurred to you that morally, if not legally, the contents
of this house are now at least half mine.  Is that why you're selling
them now, Nell?  Before we're married?  What else are you arranging to
dispose of?  I wonder perhaps I ought to have done an inventory..."

The unfairness of his allegations silenced her.

"Do you really think I'm going to stand by and let you sell off our
son's heritage?  If you wanted money, Nell, you should have asked
me."

It was too much .  much too much.  Her nerves, strained already beyond
endurance, suddenly snapped, and with them her frail hold on her
temper.

It blazed up inside her wildly, gloriously, bursting past her
self-control, ignoring the eagle glare of Joss's eyes.

"How dare you dictate to me what I do with my own possessions.  Joss?

And besides--' she added scornfully, hating him for his autocratic
disdain, hating him for not loving her when she loved him, hating him
for his assumed right to dictate to her what she did, and hating him
most of all for betraying her to Fiona.  She wanted to hurt him.  she
needed to hurt him, and in the intensity of that momentary need,
fuelled by temper and exhaustion, she chose the most powerful weapon
she had, and said scornfully, "Besides, anyone with the slightest
pretensions to know H ledge could have told you that that particular
dinner-service is of no historic value at all.  In fact it's just a
vulgar, over gilded Victorian dinner service, of a type that no one
other than a too wealthy social climber would want to own.  As you
would have known if.  "

"If what?"  he demanded dangerously, and too late she realised just
where her temper and pain had led her.

"If what, Nell?"  he pressed, and the very quietness of his voice added
to her alarm, but she couldn't back down now.  Not entirely.

"If you knew anything at all about china," she finished bravely,
ignoring the fact that, until the dealer had told her, she herself had
had no idea of the dinner-service's potential value.

Seeing his silence, feeling the rage emanating from him, she added
huskily, "Joss, it was hideous.  If I'd been selling the Sevres, or the
Worcester, then I could understand your feelings..."

He hadn't moved, his body so tense it was almost rigid, his bones
standing out sharply in the harshness of his face.

"Could you?  But then a man like me could never be expected to know the
difference, could he?  Just as well you told me it was hideous, Nell,
otherwise I might have embarrassed us both by admiring it.

After all, it was old, and to people like me--common, ordinary people,
without the benefit of your kind of background--anything old must be
valuable, mustn't it?  "

She hated the cynical scorn in his voice.  Hated the way he was looking
at her, as though she were beneath contempt, but he had hurt her
bitterly by discussing her with Fiona, and there could be no excuses
for that kind of betrayal, none at all.

"I suppose that's why you got rid of my interior designer, was it?

You felt you couldn't trust her taste.  After all, I'd chosen her.  She
might have recommended all those neat little touches so beloved by the
nouveaux riches.  "

He saw her wince and eyed her savagely.

"Is that why you refused to speak to me on the telephone this morning,
Nell?  I thought at the time it was just maidenly confusion.  a little
probably very natural embarrassment..  but I was wrong, wasn't I?  Your
refusal was probably far more likely to have been made out of sheer
self- disgust at the thought of having actually enjoyed making love
with a man like me," he added acidly.

"Joss!  No!"  she cried out.

"You're wrong.  I..."

He stopped half-way across the room and looked at her.  There was no
mercy in the coldness of his eyes, no compassion or relenting.

"Am I?  I don't think so.  You were quite right, Nell.  You and I don't
know enough about one another, but it's too late to cancel things now.
You could be and probably are carrying my child..  / " And if I'm not?
" Nell asked him, through lips stiff with pain.

ledge could have told you that that particular dinner-service is of no
historic value at all.  In fact it's just a vulgar, over gilded
Victorian dinner service, of a type that no one other than a too
wsalthy social climber would want to own.  As you would have known if.
"

"If what?"  he demanded dangerously, and too late she realised just
where her temper and pain had led her.

"If what, Nell?"  he pressed, and the very quietness of his voice added
to her alarm, but she couldn't back down now.  Not entirely.

"If you knew anything at all about china," she finished bravely,
ignoring the fact that, until the dealer had told her, she herself had
had no idea of the dinner-service's potential value.

Seeing his silence, feeling the rage emanating from him, she added
huskily, "Joss, it was hideous.  If I'd been selling the Sevres, or the
Worcester, then I could understand your feelings..."

He hadn't moved, his body so tense it was almost rigid, his bones
standing out sharply in the harshness of his face.

"Could you?  But then a man like me could never be expected to know the
difference, could he?  Just as well you told me it was hideous, Nell,
othenyise I might have embarrassed us both by admiring it.

After all, it was old, and to people like me--common, ordinary people,
without the benefit of your kind of background--anything old must be
valuable, mustn't it?  "

She hated the cynical scorn in his voice.  Hated the way he was looking
at her, as though she were beneath contempt, but he had hurt her
bitterly by discussing her with Fiona, and there could be no excuses
for that kind of betrayal, none at all.

"I suppose that's why you got rid of my interior designer, was it?

You felt you couldn't trust her taste.  After all, I'd chosen her.  She
might have recommended all those neat little touches so beloved by the
nouveaux riches.  "

He saw her wince and eyed her savagely.

"Is that why you refused to speak to me on the telephone this morning,
Nell?  I thought at the time it was just maidenly confusion.  a little
probably very natural embarrassment ... but I was wrong, wasn't I? Your
refusal was probably far more likely to have been made out of sheer
self- disgust at the thought of having actually enjoyed making love
with a man like me," he added acidly.

"Joss!  No!"  she cried out.

"You're wrong.  I..."

He stopped half-way across the room and looked at her.  There was no
mercy in the coldness of his eyes, no compassion or relenting.

"Am I?  I don't think so.  You were quite right, Nell.  You and I don't
know enough about one another, but it's too late to cancel things now.
You could be and probably are carrying my child..  / " And if I'm not?
" Nell asked him, through lips stiff with pain.

His face darkened, the golden eyes glittering dangerously.

"If you're not, then it will by my duty to remedy that omission just as
quickly as I can.  After all, that is the whole purpose of this
marriage, isn't it, Nell?  That between us we produce an heir for this
house and my wealth?"

He said it bitterly, cut tingly as thought he was the one with the
grievance, as though it was she who was the betrayer and not him, and
it was only long after he had gone, and she was sitting wearily in the
coldness of the small sitting-room, reflecting on the savagery of his
reaction to the sale of a mere dinner-service, that she remembered that
that hadn't been the sole reason for his rage.  He had mentioned a
telephone call.  A telephone call she was supposed to have refused, but
which in fact she had never received.  A lie on his part.  or a
deliberate omission on someone else's.  His secretary's for instance.

Her whole body went cold.  She looked at the telephone on the sofa
table, and was actually reaching for it, before she acknowledged the
pointlessness of such an exercise.  What did it matter whether he had
telephoned her or not?  He had still discussed her with Fiona; had
still revealed to the other woman that they had spent the night
together.. Had still allowed her to believe that he had found no
pleasure in making love to her, even if he had not told her so
directly.

This afternoon she had seen with disastrous clarity what their life
together was going to be, and it had appalled her.  Joss had seen it
too, but he was refusing to let her go, and if there was a child.
Perhaps the wedding could be delayed until they could be sure.  but,
even as the thought formed, she knew that Joss would never agree.  He
was determined to marry her, and he wasn't going to allow anything to
stop him now.

On her way to bed, she changed direction and, instead of going to her
own room, went into the master suite instead.

Now it was almost finished: the carpet had been cleaned and re laid the
new bed-hangings were in place, the sitting-room furnished.

She walked up to the bed, touching it, finding it almost impossibe to
believe that it was here, on this bed last night that Joss had made
love to her .  had made her believe that he might actually come to care
for her .  that he did desire her.  And yet now she could barely
believe that any of it had-happened.  It was as though it had happened
to someone else, and not to herself.  All the pleasure and happiness
she had experienced in his arms was gone.

She felt empty and alone.  drained of the ability to do anything other
than merely exist.

CHAPTER NINE

'it still isn't too late to change your mind, Nell.  "

The quietly serious voice of her friend made Nell turn away from her
contemplation of the gardens to smile wryly at her.

"It's always been too late," she told her.  In less than three hours
she and Joss would be standing in front of the vicar, sharing the
solemnity of the marriage service, making promises and vows that they
both knew could not be kept.

"Nell, you look dreadful.  You're so thin and pale, and Joss doesn't
look much better.  What's happened between you?"

Liz and Robert had arrived the previous day.  Joss had joined them for
dinner in the evening and Nell knew that the strain between Joss and
herself must have been immediately and painfully obvious to her
friends.

Since the night they had made love they had barely spoken.  When he
came to the house, she offered him the coolness of her cheek to kiss
and not her mouth; when he touched her, however lightly, she
instinctively withdrew behind a brittle shell of politeness.  Where
another woman might have wept and stormed and finally demanded to know
how he dared to discuss their most intimate moments together with
someone else, Nell took refuge in hauteur and silence.  It was the only
way she knew of defending herself, and, and after the first couple of
occasions when she had coolly rebuffed him.  Joss had become as remote
towards her as she was to him.

And last night.  not even for the sake of maintaining some sort of
pretence in front of her oldest friend had she been able to stop
herself from shivering when Joss had greeted her with a kiss that had
punished her mouth for its rejection of him, while his hand against her
throat and jaw stopped her from turning away.

This morning, her wedding morning, she had been up and dressed long
before the rest of the household, inspecting the ballroom where she and
the rest of the staff had spent the best of the last two days preparing
for the reception.

The sprung floor gleamed; thin, sharp autumn sunlight shone through the
windows; the tables and chairs hired for the occasion were all in
place;

the team of florists had worked long into the late afternoon decorating
the room with swags of fresh flowers and silk ribbons, garlanding the
top table with them and putting soft posies of them on each table.

The church had been decorated in the same style: pretty, softly pastel
flowers in seemingly casually arranged bunches that had taken skilled
hands many hours to fashion.

Nell was determined that, above everything else.  Joss would have no
cause to complain that her organisation of their wedding was less
efficient than his secretary's.

And besides, working hard had kept her mind an all too necessary
heartbeat away from snapping under the burden of the knowledge she
carried.

Was Joss already steeling himself for tonight?  Knowing that he must
make love to her and also knowing that the only way he could do so
would be by pretending she was someone else?

The thought made her want to be violently ill.

"Nell..  it's time to go and get ready," Liz warned her, touching her
arm lightly.

Her dress was hanging in her room, her suitcase was packed beside the
bed for the honeymoon destination Liz had told her excitedly that Joss
wanted to keep a secret.  Liz had packed her clothes, not allowing her
to see what she had chosen.  No doubt the venue would be some expensive
holiday resort where they would be safely surrounded by other people so
that Joss would not have to endure her company any more than was
strictly necessary.

Liz had driven her into town straight after breakfast--a meal that Nell
hadn't been able to touch, despite everyone's complaints that she was
getting too thin--to have her hair done, and now it floated around her
shoulders in a soft, pale cloud.

There were to be no bridesmaids, a fact which had made Joss frown until
Nell pointed out to him that, with her own stepsister refusing the
role, she could hardly choose someone else.

Liz helped her dress.  Nell knew that downstairs the staff and everyone
who had helped in the preparations for the wedding were waiting
excitedly to see her, she also knew that she owed it to them to go
downstairs so that they could, but an odd inertia had enveloped her
and, as she stood docilely in front of the mirror while Liz fiddled
with her head-dress, she felt as though her life had suddenly come to a
full stop and that she would be more than happy if she never moved a
foot outside this room.

Like some sort of latter-day Miss Havisham, she reflected wryly,
remembering her Dickens.  only she of course had never married.  She
had been deserted before the wedding.  What if Joss chose to desert
her?  What if.

"Nell, it's time to leave."

She focused on Liz with difficulty, seeing the concern and worry in her
friend's eyes.

"The car's here."

She was travelling to the church in Joss's Rolls.  Her godmother's
husband, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, was giving her away.

Liz had.  tentatively offered Robert to perform this service for her,
and although Nell would have preferred him she had gently refused.

When Joss had asked her why, she had told him coolly that she had
thought he would prefer her to be given away by the Lord U^iiant.

He had given her an "^ look, she remembered, something that \va?  not
toe a frown, but rather a mingling of derisi0" sin pain.

But why?  He ^as the one who had wanted this lavish show.  this Age
wedding.  She would have much prefer^" a qiieter ceremony.

"Ashamed of me Ne11?"  he had asked curtly, when she had suggs^ 1(.

and so she had calmly followed his wishes' Nell She turned her lead at
the sound of her friend's voice.

Liz was unclasp irS ^iteming from her neck;

a fine, thin goldctai" Ay glinted in the light.  A tiny gold
heart-shaped locket hung from it, decorated with inin^ PAis.

"Something borrowed'^something old ... she said as she fastened11 " ""
Id Nell's throat.  Nell touched the lo^61 and smiled wanly.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me Joss Save it to me and told me to make sureyo^Ait.  He
said it belonged to his great-grantim^1" Absurdly, teaS^S "ito her
eyes.  She would never have imagiaetlJoss to be capable of such an act
of sentiiMli^y^e touched the gold again, feeling it^ the coldness of
her skin.  And she was cdi^Y ^ " You look berii111" she heard Liz
whisper, and she sensed hil her Voice that her friend wasn't far
fromtt^^ll.

"We'd better go down."

The staff, and the wives and children of the estate workers, were
gathered in the hall, and for the first time since getting up Nell felt
reality break through the distancing calm she had wrapped herself in as
she heard the soft cries of pleasure and admiration from the women.

Her godmother stood at the back of the hall, smiling warmly at her.

"Nell, darling, you look wonderful.  Such a lovely dress."

At her side the Lord Lieutenant blustered, "Yes, indeed.  Be proud to
give you away, Nell..."

He was a man of few words, but very kindhearted, and Nell had known him
since she was a child, but even so, that didn't alter the fact that
neither she nor Joss had one single close relative attending the
wedding.

There was a large crowd outside the church, the sun mellowing its
ancient stone facade.  The bells were pealing a clarion call of joy as
Nell walked through the ancient lych gate on the Lord Lieutenant's
arms.  I Inside the church, it took her several seconds to adjust to
the darkness after the bright sunshine outside.

The church was full, the groomsmen, all friends of Joss's, immaculately
formal in their mo ming-dress.

The organist saw her .  heads turned in an indistinguishable blur to
Nell as she walked slowly towards the altar and Joss.

He didn't look round.  His head was bent slightly, almost as though he
were deep in prayer.  The vicar smiled at her and reached out his hand
to draw her forward.  His flesh felt warm and dry, and she saw him give
her a quick look of concern as he touched her icy fingers.

The ceremony began.  Quiet words.  solemn words; hymns conveying joy.
prayers for the future.  Promises and vows exchanged .  the gold of
Joss's ring on her finger, a heavy weight, chaining her, the cool touch
of his mouth against hers; his eyes hard and wintry.  bleak and without
that fierce golden glow with which she was so familiar.

The vestry where she signed her maiden name for the last time.

Neither she nor Joss had wanted any photographs taken in the church,
and she was glad when she saw how much her hand trembled.

Her godmother, Liz and Robert witnessed then- signatures along with the
Lord Lieutenant, and then back into the main body of the church;

organ music swelling triumphantly to a fierce clamour, the cool dimness
of the church.  Joss's hand beneath her arm; the brilliance of the
sunshine outside; the noise of the bells.  people surrounding her,
laughing, congratulating her .  admiring her dress.  strangers.  none
of whom could touch that cold, bitter place deep in her heart where she
knew she had just desecrated the most moving ceremony there could be.
For the rest of her life, she would be surrounded by these strangers
and others like them, people alien to her as she was to them.  people
with eyes like cruel, sharp knives that stabbed into her, and then Joss
was clearing a way to the waiting Rolls, and she was cocooned inside
its warmth, her dress carefully tucked in with her by his chauffeur.

Joss himself sitting next to her, not looking at her, even when he said
quietly, "You wore it, then."

For a moment she thought he was talking about her dress, and then she
realised he meant the locket.

"Yes..."

And those were the only words they spoke, not just during the short
drive back to the house, but throughout the wedding breakfast that
followed.

The meal was everything that Nell had intended it should be, but that
knowledge gave her no pleasure, not even when she saw the looks of
surprise and in some cases chagrin in the eyes of Joss's colleagues and
their wives.

At the far end of the room wedding presents had been stacked on an
empty table.  Soon the speeches and toasts would be over and then would
come the nightmare of circulating among their guests.

The best man, to whom Nell had only been introduced earlier in the
week, as he had been abroad on business, gave a witty speech; at least
Nell assumed it must have been, because everyone else laughed, but she
didn't hear a word.  She felt as though all her senses were frozen; as
though she was somehow cut off from everyone else, and living in a
world completely her own.

The best man was reading telegrams, and Nell stiffened suddenly as she
heard him saying, "To Joss and Eleanor with our love and best wishes
for their future.  From all the family" --and it's signed with far too
many names for me to read out.  "

Joss waited until the speeches were over to ask her curtly, "How did my
family know about this?"

"I wrote to them," Nell responded defiantly.

"They are your family.

Joss.  As you said, they didn't want to come to the wedding, but I'm
hoping that they will come and visit us later.  "

"Visit us... ?  here?  God, have you any idea how out of place they'll
feel?"

"Only if we make them," Nell told him, persisting stubbornly.

"Joss I wanted to get in touch with your mother, but..."

"Forget it," he told her harshly.

"She's built herself a new life in Canada with a new family, and she
doesn't want to be reminded of the past, and especially my role in
it."

He saw her face.

"Save your pity for someone who genuinely needs it," he told her
drily.

"She might be my mother, Nell, but only anatomically.  There's no
emotional bond between us.  She was sixteen when she gave birth to me,
for God's sake... only a child herself.  There's no point of contact
between us, and both of us prefer it that way.  My grandmother was my
mother, and I mourned her far more than I did the girl who gave me
birth."

"But, Joss..."

"I said forget it.  Have the rest of my family here if you must..  if
you can, but leave it at that, Nell."

She fell silent, wondering if he was telling her the truth or if he
secretly did feel hurt by his mother's indifference towards him.

Probably not, she acknowledged, remembering a woman she had known who
had spent several years of her life looking for her own mother, only to
discover when she did that she had far, far more in common with the
adopted parents who had brought her up, and who had confided in Nell
that she sincerely wished she had left the past alone.

They circulated among the guests, together and then separately.  David
Williams approached Nell uncertainly.  He had a glass of champagne in
his hand, and she realised as he came up to her that he was slightly
tipsy.

"So, he's got you then, Nell," he said, slurring his words slightly.

"All nice and legally bought and paid for..."

"David..  please..."

She reached out to touch his arm, but suddenly Joss was there between
them, glowering at her.

"I was just congratulating Nell on her good fortune," David told him,
trying to focus on him.

"You could have done that without touching her," Joss replied, and Nell
was astounded by the muted savagery in his voice.

As he led her away he told her curtly, "Forget him, Nell.  You're
married to me, and whatever he might have meant to you before..."

"He meant nothing to me," Nell protested, too shocked to lie.

"He was just a friend.  Joss..."

He looked at her, and as though something in her face told him she was
telling the truth he said drily, "To you but I doubt that he would have
put his feelings for you under the heading of friendship.

Don't encourage him, Nell.  "

"I wasn't," she told him crossly, glad of the opportunity to escape
from him when a business colleague claimed his attention.

David seemed to have gone, and although there were several people she
ought to have sought out, to talk to and thank, instead Nell sought
refuge in the protective shadow of one of the deep windows.

Three women walked past her, their clothes spelling Knightsbridge and
designer boutiques, elegant, enamelled women of a type she found
particularly intimidating.

"Clever Joss," she heard one of them purr.

"It took Alan hundreds of thousands of pounds and fifteen years to get
a peerage in the Honours List;

and of course it isn't hereditary.  Joss has managed it in less than a
tenth of that time and probably only had to spend half as much.  "

So much for convincing the rest of the world that they had married for
love, Nell thought, watching them walk right past her without even
realising she was there.

"Nell."  She looked round to see Liz standing beside her, looking
anxious.

"It's time you were getting changed."

She allowed Liz to lead her upstairs like a docile doll, obediently
putting on the light wool dress she had put out for her.  Not one she
recognised as having bought; it was bright red, with a matching,
slightly shorter coat with a tiny black velvet collar.

"It's Valentine," Liz told her.

"Joss chose it for you himself.  He rang me a couple of weeks ago and
asked me what size you are."

Nell stiffened, aching to tear the dress off and throw it on the floor.
She didn't want to wear clothes bought for her by Joss.  God, wasn't it
enough that he had bought her home..  her family name.  herself. did he
have to make it clear to the world just what she was by buying her
clothes as well?

"Nell, is something wrong?  Don't you like it?"

She forced a smile.

"It's lovely," she said unemotionally, and it was .  quite the most
beautiful outfit she had ever seen, and it fitted her perfectly, the
red wool stunningly vibrant with her hair and skin.

Her hair no longer floated round her shoulders but had been brushed and
confined in a pearl studded snood and, as Liz offered her a lipstick
that was almost exactly the same colour as her outfit, she reflected
bitterly that Joss had left nothing to chance.

"Be happy, Nell," Liz whispered tearfully as she bent to kiss her.

"And don't forget, I want to be god mama to your first..."

Nell gave her a wan smile, pausing at the door of her bedroom to look
round it.

When she and Joss returned from wherever it was he was taking her, this
would no longer be her room.  This place that had been her refuge in
times of despair while she was growing up..  She swallowed hard on the
uncomfortable lump in her throat and proceeded through the door.

Joss was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.  He, too, had
changed, into a fine silky wool suit with a discreet self-stripe and a
cotton shirt which she suspected must have been made for him.

Unlike the majority of the male guests she had invited, he had no old
school tie to discreetly sport against his shirt, but the tie he was
wearing was silk and striped, and the formality of his clothes made her
even more aware of the abyss between them.

They said their goodbyes together, Nell only faltering once, when
Joss's secretary came up to them, and kissed Joss full on the mouth.

Her lipstick had smeared his skin and she produced a pretty lace
handkerchief and made a flamboyant show of wiping it off.

Joss was frowning, and Nell had the distinct impression that he wasn't
pleased, but if Fiona was aware of his displeasure she gave no sign of
it, smiling triumphantly at Nell and then ignoring her to link her arm
through Joss's and press up against his side while she said softly,
"I've got your address..  so if anything should need your
attention..."

Nell saw several of the guests giving them speculative looks, and her
skin burned hot and then cold with resentment.

When they were out of earshot of everyone else she said coldly to Joss,
"Was that really necessary?"

"What?"  he asked her blandly.

"That ... that display with your secretary."

She deliberately made her voice sound cold with distaste, refusing to
allow her hurt to show through.

"Jealous, Nell, because she knows how to act like a woman and you
don't?"

After that she couldn't do more than force herself to give a rather
shaky smile at the last dozen or so of their guests who had come to
wave them off.

They were travelling in the Rolls, but without the chauffeur.  Joss
might have made his way up the ladder from the bottom; he might not
have had the advantages of birth, money and position that many of her
acquaintances shared, but some things were either instinctive or simply
not there, and could not be learned or assumed: like the easy way with
which Joss dismissed his chauffeur and thanked the staff for their hard
work; like the way he behaved to people around him, treating them with
courtesy and consideration, whatever their position in life.

She had noticed that about him almost from the first time they had met;
to her it was worth more than any amount of money, or centuries of
family history.

So why, when it came to her, was he so icily polite.  so.  so hard?  He
must realise how diffcult all this was for her.  In fact, she knew he
did.  Was this abrupt change in his manner because he now realised how
very difficult their life together was going to be.  because making
love to her had opened his eyes to what a marriage without desire and
certainly without love would mean?

She had been tempted to get into the back seat of the Rolls, but Joss
opened the front passenger door for her.  She looked up at him and saw
the hardness of his mouth.  His eyes seemed to be warning her that they
had a fiction to maintain, although she was miserably sure that very
few people had been deceived.

"I should try and sleep if I were you.  We've got a long drive ahead of
us," he told her briefly as they pulled away from the house.

In other words, he didn't want to talk with her.  He wanted to be left
alone.

Nell couldn't sleep.  She was far too tense, but at the same time she
was conscious of being achingly exhausted.  The interior of the Rolls
was warm, and she wanted to remove her coat, but she felt she simply
did not have the energy.

Where were they going?  she wondered restlessly, her lacklustre gaze
resting sombrely on the grey uniformity of the motorway.  Heathrow most
probably, and then a flight to some undoubtedly exotic and fashionable
location, where they could simply pretend to be just another bored
married couple.  She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes,
obedient to Joss's suggestion.

A jumble of images danced behind her closed eyelids.  Her own
reflection in the mirror in her wedding dress .  the noise of the
reception.  the unfamiliar faces .  the bright, artificial chatter of
the conversation of the men, deep-voiced discussions on financial
matters and deals, broken up by disjointed phrases from the marriage
service until it ran through her mind like a jumbled and meaningless
refrain.

What had she done?  Oh God .  what had she done?  Her eyes burned.  Her
body ached.  She felt slightly light-headed.  She yawned once and then
again, her eyelids heavy, the almost noiseless purr of the engine
distinctly soporific.

"Nell."

The hand on her shoulder was familiar and yet alien, drawing her into a
world she would rather not inhabit, and so she resisted it, tensing
against it as the voice insisted she wake up.

Outside it was dark, the scene unfamiliar.  They were in the car, and
to one side of them lay the bulk of a large boat.

"Where are we?  This isn't Heathrow..."  she said, confused.

"No.  It's Dover.  We're just about to board the cross-Channel
ferry."

"Where are we going?"

She was still confused, still half asleep and unable to assimilate what
she was being told.

"Northern France," Joss told her, his voice clipped.

"The Chateau des Fleurs."

He saw that the words meant nothing to her, and as he set the car in
motion to board the ferry he explained that he was taking her to a
chateau he had rented in northern France, where they would spend their
honeymoon.

"A chateau?  I thought we'd be going somewhere like the Caribbean."

"Is that what you'd have preferred, Nell?"

They were on board now, and she allowed him to help her out of the car.
;

She dozed for most of the crossing and the drive that followed it,
waking up properly only when the car stopped.  It was dark outside.

She could see a pathway of silver cast by the moon, and the shapes of
formally clipped yews bordering a gravel path.

She felt stiff and uncomfortable, her head aching slightly.  At her
side Joss said curtly, "Just in case you're interested, this chateau
was once the home of one of your ancestresses, Catherine de Chambertin.
It's still owned by a branch of the Chambertin family, although it
isn't their main home.

It's one of several chateaux which one can rent complete with staff.

Since not to have had a honeymoon would have caused unnecessary
comment, I thought you would prefer this to a more commercialised
venue.  "

He had gauged her tastes exactly, and in different circumstances--if
she had never heard those spiteful words of Fiona's for instance--she
would have been thrilled at the thought that he had taken so much
trouble in choosing this chateau.

As it was, all she could feel was an aching relief that here at least
she would be under no pressure to play the role of the deliriously
happy bride.

She got out of the car, refusing Joss's aid, watching the way his mouth
tightened in anger at her rebuff with a tiny spurt of rebellious
satisfaction.  Let him see what it felt like to be rejected, if only in
a very small way.

The chateau was behind them, small and turreted, its sharp roofs
glinting under me moonlight;

a fairy-tale place of silver roofs and golden walls set against a
backdrop of gardens whose splendour she could only imagine in the
darkness.

The door opened and a man came out.

"Monsieur."  He gave Joss a brief, formal bow and then introduced
himself.

"I am Henri.  My wife, Gabrielle, and I will take care of you while you
are with us."

As he spoke, he removed their two suitcases, so ill-matched that Nell
suspected he must either guess that they were newly married or suspect
that they were lovers escaping for an illicit holiday together.

"If you will come this way..."

The hall was oval, with a marble-tiled floor and a curling flight of
white marble stairs.  The silk on the walls was fading in places, but
was still very beautiful, the wrought-iron banister rail rich in fleur
de lys and other emblems of heraldry, and as she studied it Nell
remembered vaguely that there had been a suggestion that one of
Catherine's relations had borne a child by a prince of the ruling
family of France.

As they climbed the stairs, Gabrielle came to meet them.  She was dark
and very French, her glance snapping sharply over Nell's outfit,
approving and admiring it.  Her English was not quite as good as her
husband's.

They had given them the state apartments, she told Nell.  A light
supper had been prepared for them as arranged by monsieur, and if there
was anything else they required then they only had to ring.

Petit dejeuner would be served in the morning when they requested it,
she added diplomatically, with a faint smile that made Nell's face
burn.

The state apartments consisted of a sitting- room, a dining-room, a
huge bedroom with two dressing-rooms and a bathroom, all of which were
decorated in rich reds and gold, the Aubusson carpet in the
sitting-room woven with the arms of the family.

Nell suspected that visitors were not normally given such opulent
surroundings, and she wondered a little cynically how much Joss had had
to pay to secure this special concession.

Why had he done it?  To show her that there was nothing his money could
not buy?  Not even her family's past.

A cold buffet had been laid out in the dining room, but the sight and
smell of it made Nell feel acutely sick.

"It's been a long day.  Joss," she said huskily.

"If you don't mind, I think I'll go straight to bed."

If he didn't mind?  Of course he wouldn't mind.  He'd probably be only
too delighted, or so she thought, but she was wrong.

"If you're trying to tell me in a delicate and lady-like fashion that
you want to sleep alone tonight, Nell, then I'm afraid you're going to
be disappointed.  In the first place, these rooms possess only one bed.
In the second, despite the due pomp and ceremony with which we were
married this morning, until our marriage is consummated, it cannot
legally exist."  He saw her wince and his face hardened.

"Unfortunate, I agree, but a necessity, none the less.  I shall
endeavour to be as brief as possible," he added with fine irony, and
Nell thought bitterly of the many women who must have begged him to
prolong every second they spent in his arms.

"I'll go and get undressed, then," she said quietly, as polite and
distant as a child.

He turned his head and she saw the gleam of mockery in his eyes.

"Surely that is the bridgroom's prerogative, Nell..  4o undress his
bride."

"Perhaps," she agreed bravely, 'in a different kind of marriage.  As
you have already said, where we're concerned there seems little point
in prolonging things.  "

She saw that she had made him angry, although she had no idea why.

Just for a second she thought he was actually going to reach out and
take hold of her, but he pushed his hands into his pockets and turned
away from her instead.

Her suitcase was on a small cupboard several feet away from the bed.

Joss had primed Liz well, she recognised as she saw the clothes her
friend had packed.  Her new separates, a couple of semi-formal dresses,
low-heeled shoes, suitable for the country but still smart, a warm
jacket and then, beneath her top clothes, several layers of underwear,
but not underwear that Nell had ever bought.

She flushed slightly, her eyes widening as she removed the wispy satin
and lace garments.

There was a nightdress-tn dusky rose satin, cut on the bias, and cut
very low at the back, the bodice tiny cobwebs of the most exquisite
lace through which her skin must surely be almost completely visible.

There was another.  different in style but every bit as revealing.

She picked up the rose satin one with hands that trembled and went into
the bathroom.

The bath was enormous, easily large enough for two people.  Her body
went hot at the thought and she refused to give in to the temptation to
soak in the luxury of gallons of perfume-scented hot water, and
showered briskly instead, rubbing her skin almost roughly with a towel
until it glowed and stung slightly.

Her hair, released from its chignon, fell straight and shining; the
nightdress slid easily over her head and clung to her skin.

On her, it was even more revealing than she had anticipated, dipping
almost to the base of her spine at the back, the lace bodice cut to
mould her ^breasts, the pearly sheen of her skin clearly discernible
beneath the lace panels, the lace flowers that comprised the bodice
designed in such a way so that two of the tiny pieces of lace that were
the central stamens of the flowers were centred over her nipples, the
panels so small that they didn't quite manage to cover the entire
aureole of flesh.  A deliberate oversight, Nell felt sure.

Had Liz been aware of that when she chose it?

She heard Joss moving about in the bedroom, and wondered wildly if she
dared dress in her clothes, but no.  he would be expecting her to be
undressed, to be.  Taking a deep breath, and suppressing the panic
inside her, she opened the bathroom door.

Joss was standing with his back to her, facing the window.  He had a
glass in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.

Although she hadn't said a word, he must have heard her, because he
turned round and said harshly, "It's normally the bride who needs the
fortifying glass of champagne, not the groom."

He studied her body in its provocative veiling of satin and lace.

"Liz chose it," Nell told him huskily, not wanting to think that she
was stupid enough to believe that she could make him want her by
wearing something so provocative.

"Wrong," he told her succinctly.

"I chose it.  I thought about how your skin would look against it,
Nell," he told her, ignoring her shock.

"Of how it would gleam like mother of pearl, iridescent as silk, warm
and sweet as honey.  But there's no warmth inside you, is there, Nell?
At least not for me.  Tell me something, my wife," he demanded with
sudden savagery.

"Does it really give you pleasure to look at me with such cool
contempt?  Is that your revenge for our marriage, Nell?  Or perhaps
this is how all well-bred wives behave.

Like hell," he ground out fiercely.

"Oh, you can look at me with your cool, disdainful eyes, but let me
tell you something about your peers, my lady... Once between the sheets
they're as hot and willing as..."

Nell couldn't stand any more.  She cried out sharply, "Stop it!  Stop
it.  Joss.  You were the one who wanted this marriage."

"And you were the one who needed it," he reminded her brutally, pouring
himself a glass of champagne and drinking it quickly.

He held out the bottle to her, but she shook her head.

"No?  Want to get the ordeal over with as quickly as possible, do
you?

Well, you'd better pray that if you aren't carrying my child already,
by the end of tonight you are.  "

He poured another glass of champagne and drank half of it, and then
with a grimace he put the glass down.

"I've only ever had to do this once before drink before I could make
love to a woman.  And she was my first.  Take off your nightdress,
Nell."

He saw her shock and laughed unkindly.

"I thought you wanted to get this over as quickly as possible.  If you
keep that on that's not going to be possible.  When I bought it for you
it was with the intention of tasting every millimetre of flesh it
exposed before I took it off you.  Pathetic what traps our imaginations
lay for us, isn't it...?"

He was, if not drunk, then at least tipsy, Nell recognised with shock,
but then, like her, he had eaten nothing all day, and he was normally a
very abstemious man.  It made her skin crawl with self-disgust to
realise that he had to get drunk before he could touch her.  She had
read about such things, but never anticipated she herself would
experience them.

But Joss seemed unaware of her self-contempt.  He was still looking at
her, his eyes glittering hotly as he slowly studied her body.

He reached out and traced the delicate silk of one shoulder-strap with
his thumb and, although he had not touched her there at all, Nell was
uncomfortably conscious of the aroused tension in her breasts, her
nipples pushing against the tiny shells of lace.

Even her breathing betrayed her agitation, she recognised frantically
as she fought to control her response to him, trying to step back, but
finding that doing so only brought him closer as he closed the gap
between them.

"I knew you would look like this.  Feel like this," he said thickly,
and, as though he knew exactly what she was feeling, he slowly traced
the outer petals of the flower that covered her breast teasingly,
narrowing the tormenting circles until the pad of his thumb touched the
tiny ring of almost bare flesh that swelled against the lace stamens.

She wasn't cold, but she was shivering, Nell recognised, and so was
Joss.  That shocked her and she looked up at him.  His eyes burned hot
gold.

"Nell," he muttered thickly, and she cried out as she felt his mouth
close over her tormented flesh.  Her whole body seemed to contract, her
eyes unwittingly registering her shock and confusion that he could so
easily arouse her.  She forgot all the promises she had made to herself
and clung desperately to him, making incoherent sounds of need and
pleasure.

A long time later--or was it only minutes?  -they lay together on the
vast bed in a tangle of pleasure-sated limbs, the last tiny
reverberations of sensation still pulsing through her body..

In the morning it was different.  In the morning she remembered all
that she should have remembered before letting Joss make love to her,
and she was deliberately cool and distant with him, lashing herself
with painful reminders of how much champagne he had had to drink before
he could make love to her, and how the fierceness of his possession was
a tribute to whoever he had been thinking about when he did make love
to her, and not her herself.

The day was overcast, and dragged, both of them treating one another
with the cool politeness of two strangers forced to endure one
another's company.

After lunch Joss announced that he had some work to do and Nell, taking
the hint, announced that she would explore the gardens.

It was too cold to stay out for very long, and when she got back Joss
was on the phone, frowning as he asked several brief questions.

When he replaced the receiver he was still frowning, but Nell didn't
ask him if anything was wrong and when, later in the day after several
more telephone calls, he announced that he was going to have to cut
their honeymoon short and fly to New York, she made no demur.

CHAPTER TEN

'you're not pregnant, then?  "

Nell looked at her stepsister and fought against betraying the painful
kick of pain twisting her stomach.

She and Joss had been married for eight weeks, and, as Grama had so
rightly announced, she was not carrying his child.  But then, it was
hardly likely that she would be, not when he had not made love to her
since their return from France.

In fact, he was hardly ever at home, spending long days in London,
interspersed with increasingly frequent trips to New York.  He looked
tired and tense, and Nell suspected that he was bitterly regretting
their marriage.

"Not yet," she responded with false calm.

"Where is Joss, anyway?  I thought he'd be here."

"He's in New York."

"Again?  Perhaps he's got someone else there," Grama suggested
spitefully, adding when she saw Nell's colour change, "Oh, come on,
Nell, surely you don't expect him to be faithful to you?"  She
yawned.

"Well, I wish I'd known that before I came down here.  I was hoping to
coax him into giving me a sub.  I've seen this darling fur coat-sable..
and it is almost Christmas.  I wonder if Joss will spend Christmas here
or in New York," she added maliciously.

"I really have no idea," Nell retorted, her patience snapping.

She felt both relieved and guilty when Grama had gone, but her patience
had been worn thin by the pressures within her marriage, and sometimes
she didn't know which was worse, having Joss at home, or having him
away.  When he was at home he was distant with her, and, although they
shared the same bedroom, since their honeymoon he had made no attempt
to touch her.  When he was away she ached for him to come home, hoping
each time that somehow a miracle would occur and that he would come
back wanting her, but of course it never did.

She was in the sitting-room making a list of Christmas cards when she
heard the car.  Thinking it might be Joss, she rushed to open the door,
but it was Fiona who stood there, her appearance for once less than
immaculate.

She came in, bringing with her the coldness of the November night.

"I know Joss isn't here...1 just want to leave this for him.  My
resignation," she added with a wintry smile.  She saw Nell's surprise
and laughed harshly.

"You do know that he's going to be declared bankrupt, don't you?"  And
then she said softly, "So, he hasn't told you.  I did wonder.  Of
course, he's been hoping to stave off complete disaster, but he's made
several serious losses recently on the futures market.  The banks are
calling in all his loans, and he won't have the collateral to cover
them.

"Poor Joss..  now he'll just be another ex-millionaire..."

And as she said it Nell knew that the thought pleased her.  She felt
sick, and impotent, wanting desperately to refute what she was saying
and yet knowing that she couldn't.  Why hadn't Joss said something to
her.  shared his problems with her.

"I must go--I've got a flight out to San Francisco at eleven.  I've
been offered a job there.  Oh, by the way.  Joss's solicitor says that
there shouldn't be any problem getting the divorce through ... not in
the circumstances..."

With a final malicious smile she was gone, leaving Nell standing sickly
against the door.

What divorce?  Her own, of course.  Joss was divorcing her.  Well, she
had been expecting it, but she had expected him to discuss it with her
first .  to tell her himself that it had been a mistake and not just
simply let her find out from his secretary.  his ex-secretary.  And
then she remembered what else Fiona had said to her.  Joss was going to
be declared bankrupt.  She knew all too well what that would mean to
him.  It would destroy him.  There must be a way it could be stopped.
She knew less than nothing about Joss's financial affairs.

All right, so he may have made several wrong decisions, but surely if
he could just weather this crisis, he could recover..  His bank would
surely stand by him--and then Nell remembered Fiona saying that his
banks were calling in his loans, because he didn't have enough
collateral.  Nell knew all too well what that meant, and then she
remembered something else.

This house.  this house could be used as security.  She must find Joss
and tell him .  or better still tell the bank.  It was almost ten
o'clock at night.  hours before she could contact the bank, she
acknowledged fretfully.  If only she knew where Joss was.  If only he
would get in touch with her, but he never contacted her when he was
away and she had been too proud to ask him for an address or a
telephone number.

Fiona might have known, but she was somewhere on her way to Heathrow.

Nell couldn't sleep.  She was awake at dawn, and long before nine
o'clock she was parked outside Joss's bankers' offices in Chester.  The
girl on the enquiries counter didn't turn a hair when she asked to
speak to the manager, even when Nell told her she didn't have an
appointment.

"It is very urgent that I see him, though," she stressed, praying that
she would be able to do so.

Her prayers were answered.  The manager came out of his office and
smiled warmly at her.  Far more warmly, surely, then a bank manager
would smile at the wife of a potential bankrupt?

The moment she was in his office, Nell told him breathlessly why she
had come.

He heard her out in silence, and then said noncommittally, "I see."

"Is it..  is the house worth enough to..  to cover my husband's
liabilities?"

"Er..  yes.  More than enough, I believe.  But are you sure you want to
do this.  Lady Eleanor?  The house is in your sole name, you know.

It is your property," he stressed.

"And Joss is my husband," Nell responded fiercely.

Something almost approaching a smile touched his mouth.

"Very well.  There'll be certain arrangements we'll need to make.  I
suggest you go home now, and we'll be in touch."

"And Joss won't be declared bankrupt," Nell pressed.

"I think I can safely assure you of that..."  He paused and smiled
again, and said gently, "You must love your husband a great deal.

Lady Eleanor.  "

Nell averted her head.

"Yes," she agreed huskily.

"I do."

She refused a cup of coffee and thanked him for his time.  He escorted
her off the bank's premises and then went back to his office and picked
up his intercom.

"Get me Joss Wycliffe at that New York number he left for us, will you,
Jane?"

"Ah, Joss," he said genially some ten mintues later when his secretary
put the call through.

"I've just had a most extraordinary interview with your wife."

Joss arrived home without warning, just after Nell had finished toying
with a meal she didn't really want.  She was in the library reading the
Financial Times, trying to look for some clue as to what had actually
happened, but there was no mention of Joss's name.

She stood up uncertainly as he opened the door, and then gasped out his
name in surprise as he covered the distance between them and picked her
up in his arms, kissing her fiercely.

It was a dream..  a mirage.  it had to be, but that didn't stop her
from responding ardently to the urgent pressure of his mouth, or from
pressing herself eagerly against the aroused hardness of his body.

"Just one question, Nell," he told her, releasing her mouth.

"Despite everything I've said and done..  despite what's happened
between us.  Could you ... do you love me?"

Her face gave her away.

"Oh, God, Nell," he swore thickly.

"Why haven't you said so?  Why did you let me think you didn't care?"

"Because I thought that was what you wanted," she told him, raising
bemused eyes to his face.

He had lost weight and looked far more vulnerably human than she had
ever seen him look before.  She touched his jaw with fingers that shook
a little, gasping softly when he caught hold of her wrist and lifted
her palm to his mouth, placing a kiss in its cupped hollow.

"What I wanted..  what I still want is you.  Not the public Lady
Eleanor, Nell, but the real you.  I've glimpsed her once or twice.

I've even managed to warm the coldness of my life in the heat of her
compassion.  I used to watch you with your grandfather and envy him.
"

He felt her start and smiled grimly.

"Didn't you guess how I felt?  He did, and in his last months he took
pity on me and told me that when he was gone, he hoped I would marry
you and take care of you and Easterhay."

"But you told me you were marrying me for the title."

"It was the best excuse I could find.  I was desperately afraid I was
going to lose you to Williams."

"David?  But, Joss, how could you have thought that?"

"Very easily.  Men as deeply and hopelessly in love as I was then are
possessive and jealous.  Besides, Grama told me she thought you would
marry him.  Do you remember?  She came home the weekend before I
proposed to you.  She mentioned it then, when she was asking for an
advance on her allowance."

"But Grama knew how I felt about you.  She guessed from something I
said.  She warned me that you'd never look twice at someone like me,
and I thought she was right.  Oh, Joss, how can you love me?  I'm not
beautiful, or sophisticated.  I..."

"You are beautiful," he corrected her huskily, 'and not just
physically.  How many girls of your age would have given up their
independence, as you did, to nurse a bad-tempered old man?

"I fell in love with Cheshire when I spent a few days here on business.
Up until then I'd lived in London.  So I bought myself a house here,
never dreaming that it was going to lead to the most painful and
self-destructive period of my life.  When I first moved up here, I
considered myself impervious to dangers like falling in love.

The way I'd grown up had toughened me, Nell, and clawing my way up the
ladder via commodity- dealing finished off the process.

"If I ever thought about marriage..  about sharing my life with one
person, it was with a sense of contempt for those people I knew who
were idiotic enough to commit themselves in such a way.

"And then I met you, and you turned every belief I had upside-down.

At first I couldn't believe what I was feeling.  How could I have
fallen in love with a woman who would barely bring herself to say my
name, who turned her head and refused to look at me every time we met,
who disappeared like woodsmoke in the sunlight whenever I tried to pin
her down?  "

"I thought you came here to see Gramps," Nell told him painfully.

"I

thought that if I was always hanging around you would guess how I felt
about you and.  and be amused by it.  "

"Oh, Nell..  what idiots we've both been."

The words were muffled against her hair as he held her.

"When you made love to me that first time ... I wanted to tell you
then.  I thought you'd probably guessed..  and then when Fiona came
round and told me that you'd told her what had happened and that you'd
had to force yourself to make love to me..."

He felt the shudder that convulsed her, and tightened his hold of her
slender body.

"She was lying to you," he told her gruffly.

"She must have guessed what had happened.  I think I rather gave the
game away that morning by acting like a lovesick eighteen-year-old.  I
telephoned you..."

Nell shook her head, silencing him, and said quietly, "No--you asked
Fiona to telephone me."

She saw comprehension dawn in the gold eyes.

"That bitch!  he swore bitterly.

"It's just as well she's already left the country."

"She loved you.  Joss," Nell told him, prepared to make allowances for
the other woman now that she herself was so gloriously secure in Joss's
love.

"Not me," he told her, correcting her.

"It was my money she loved.  Do you know that you're the first person
in my entire life who's ever wanted to do something for me..  who's
ever been prepared to make a sacrifice for me and such a sacrifice,
Nell."

He looked down at her and she could have sworn it was tears that made
his eyes glitter.

"Would you really have done that?  Mortgaged this place as security?"

"Ten times over," she assured him truthfully.

"Tell me the truth.

Joss.  How bad are things for you financially?  It doesn't matter," she
added quickly as he tensed.

"Whatever happens..."

"Oh, Nell, Nell.  Fiona lied to you.  I'm nowhere near the edge of
bankruptcy.  It's true that I could have lost a great deal of money on
a recent deal, but I didn't, I made a lot instead.  That's what being a
successful commodity-broker is all about.  But do you know something
I'm getting rather tired of the cut and thrust of dealing.

They do say that you begin to lose your edge once you're over thirty,
and I'm five years beyond that.  What would you say if I told you I was
considering retiring and concentrating on building up the estate .  on
becoming something of a "gentleman farmer" "

"Oh Joss..."

The delight in her face showed him exactly what she felt, the parted
warmth of her mouth too much temptation for him to even try to
resist.

It was a long time before he stopped kissing her, and then Nell asked
breathlessly, "But Fiona..  why on earth did she lie to me like that?
She must have known I'd find out."

"I don't think she thought that far ahead.  She wanted to lash out and
hurt us..  hurt me.  While I was in New York she turned up totally
unexpectedly at my hotel suite and announced that she thought it was
time she and I became lovers.  I told her then that there was only one
woman I wanted to make love to and that was my wife.  I should have
have guessed then that she'd want to retaliate, but she caught me off
guard, at a time when I couldn't get away from the deal I was doing,
and when all I wanted to do..  when all I ached to do was to be with
you, so consequently I was far less tactful then perhaps I should have
been..."

"She told me you'd been to see your solicitor about a divorce."

"Oh, Nell, she lied to you.  There was no way I would have let you go,
even if my conscience was telling me that was exactly what I should do.
You see, I thought that once I'd made love to you I'd be able to break
through your barriers;

that if we could share physical pleasure, in time you might come to
feel an emotional bond with me.  What I didn't bargain for was how
guilty making love to you made me feel.  I suddenly realised exactly
what I was doing to you; that by forcing you into marriage with me, I'd
stolen from you your right to fall in love.  "

"But I'd already fallen in love," Nell told him huskily, and then
added, "Joss, you haven't made love to me once since our wedding
night."

"Because I dared not.  I couldn't without telling you how much I loved
you, and I was terrified that if I did that, I'd frighten you off for
ever.  The title..  the house..  none of it mattered, Nell.  It was
just you.  Did you really think I was so shallow?  If I'd just wanted a
title for my son, there were other women I could have married."  His
hands cupped her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her bottom lip
and then probing the trembling corner of her mouth, parting her lips so
that she felt the roughness of his flesh against their softness.

She drew a shaky breath, intending to tell him how much she loved him,
but the words were lost as he bent his head and said slowly, "Oh, God,
Nell, if you only knew how I've dreamed of doing this..  and this..."
He kissed her slowly, and then added rawly, "Of making love to you
until you cried out my name with pleasure... Ah, Nell..."

She felt him tremble as she reached up and kissed him, a little
uncertainly at first and then with growing confidence as she felt his
unchecked response.

When they broke apart, she said breathlessly, "I hope you won't need
champagne to make love to me tonight, because I don't think we've got
any."

There was a silence while he looked at her in a way that made her body
burn, and then he said quietly, "That wasn't so that I could make love
to you.  It was so that I wouldn't.  Only, when I saw you in that
nightdress, I knew I was wasting my time... Nell, do you think a
husband suffering from jet-lag might quite reasonably go to bed at four
o'clock in the afternoon?"

"It's Mrs.  Booth's afternoon off," Nell told him obliquely, willingly
letting him draw her out into the hall and up the stairs to their
room.

"Oh, Nell, she's so beautiful.  I'd forgotten how adorable new babies
are.  It makes me feel quite broody.  What about Joss, though?  I
thought he'd set his heart on a boy."

"Joss spoils her to death," Nell grinned as she and Liz both looked
down at the baby in her ribbon-festooned crib.

"I heard that," Joss announced, coming into the nursery in time to hear
Nell's comment, and then unwittingly confirming what Nell had just said
by bending over the crib and crooning nonsense over his sleeping
daughter.

"See, I told you," Nell said wryly.

"I'm barely allowed to touch her."

Picking up the baby and cradling her against his shoulder.  Joss turned
to look at her and said softly, "Nell, as much as I love our daughter,
I could never love her as much as I do her mother."

"Hey, you two, break it up," Liz demanded.

"You're making me feel quite weepy, and in front of your daughter,
too... Joss, if you and Nell want to be alone..."

"An excellent suggestion," Joss agreed, ignoring Nell's protest to grin
at Liz, and hand over the soon-to-be christened Charlotte Louise to her
doting godmother--to--be.

"Why don't Nell and I leave you to become acquainted with your
god-daughter to be, while I become r^-acquainted with my wife?"

"Joss, what on earth must Liz be thinking?"  Nell protested huskily as
Joss deftly whisked her out of the nursery and closed the door firmly
behind them, silencing Liz's amused laughter.

"Oh, I expect she thinks I want to make love to my wife, and do you
know something?"  he murmured against her ear, taking her in his
arms.

"She's quite right."

Half an hour later, when Robert walked into the nursery in search of
his wife and hosts, he asked Liz curiously, "What's happened to Nell
and Joss?"

"Umm..  that, I believe, is a rather indelicate question."  She grinned
up at him, and said thoughtfully, "Robert, she's adorable, isn't she?
Now that Lucy is two..."

"Another baby?  God, Liz what are you trying to do to me?  Do you
realise that would mean we have four children?  It's positively
indecent..."

"Ah, yes, but think what it would do for your image," she teased him.

In their bedroom, sunlight fell across the bed, bathing Nell's body in
its warmth.

"We really ought to go downstairs," she protested drowsily as Joss drew
her down against him.

"Later..."  Joss told her, and, looking into the golden heat of his
eyes, Nell didn't demur.