Heiress on the Run (Harlequin Romance) (13 page)

Faith blinked. ‘She missed me?’

‘Oh, very much. We both did. Not just for the laughing at jokes thing.’ He gave her his trademark lopsided smile. ‘And then when I saw that business in the papers this morning...I understood. No jet lag then, I suppose?’ A blush heated Faith’s cheeks. ‘Shame you couldn’t bring Lord Beresford with you, really. I wouldn’t mind picking his brain on a few subjects.’

‘It’s not...we’re not...’ Faith swallowed. ‘It wasn’t how I imagine they made it look. Not really. And anyway, it didn’t end well.’

‘But it is ended?’ her father asked. ‘That’s a pity. He’s done incredibly well, really, given what he started with.’

Faith rather thought that Dominic had done incredibly well for anyone, but that wasn’t her main concern. She could see her father calculating what he could do with access to a fortune like the Beresfords’. How there might be the chance of a little loan, something between friends. She’d seen it before. But not again.

‘No. It’s definitely over,’ she said.

‘Ah, well.’ He shifted on the bed, kicking up his feet. ‘Your mother tells me you’re not planning on staying.’

‘That’s right.’ Faith sat down on the dressing table stool and took a sip of her too sweet tea. ‘I’ve just finished a job down in London. I should be able to pick up another one fairly quickly.’ As long as they didn’t want references from Dominic. Or Marco... ‘Once I’m sorted, I’ll move out again. But I might be able to send some money home, to help out.’ It would just go onto the gin budget, she knew, but at least she might feel a little less guilty.

‘What sort of a job?’ her father asked, curiosity in his gaze. When she gave him a look, he threw up his hands to protest his innocence. ‘It’s not like we have any idea what you’ve been doing for the last few years. Or even where you’ve been, except for the news that you apparently somehow fell in with Beresford.’

Guilt pinged at her middle again. Okay, so they’d been lousy parents for the most part, and it hadn’t really occurred to her that they might be worried about her whereabouts, but she could have at least dropped them a postcard, or something.

Except they’d have dragged her back. Although, right now, she wasn’t sure if that might not have been a good thing. She’d never have met Dominic. Never ended up in this hideous mess.

But she could never really wish not to have met Dominic.

‘I’ve been working as a tour guide,’ she said, reaching for her mug again. ‘In London, and in Italy.’

‘A tour guide?’ Her father looked fascinated. The idea of work had always been interesting to him. Just a shame he’d never had the desire to actually do any himself. ‘Showing people around things?’

‘And organising their hotels, their travel, looking after their needs, their trips and so forth. Yes.’

‘Sounds like being a servant,’ her father said, and laughed. ‘Did you have to wear a uniform?’

Faith nodded. Who was he to suggest that her job was below her station? At least she was doing more than sitting around drinking in a decaying relic of an earlier era. ‘I did. And actually it was fun. I liked it, and I’m good at it. So I’ll find another job doing the same sort of thing, uniform and all if required, and send some money home for the drinks cabinet. Okay?’

‘Whatever makes you happy, buttercup,’ he said, instantly making her feel bad for acting so defensive. It really was just like old times. ‘Only I was just thinking that it might be you don’t have to go all that far to find that new job of yours.’

Faith felt her parental sixth sense tingle. This wasn’t going to be good. ‘I was thinking London...close enough to visit, right?’ Not that she intended to. But if she could borrow the car to get to the station, she could commute from Fowlmere until she had enough cash to find a place of her own.

Her father shook his head. ‘I’ve got a better idea. You want to be a tour guide? You can do that right here. At Fowlmere!’

Faith thought of the entrance hall, with its dingy lighting and faded and fraying curtains in the windows. So different to the bright open halls and lovingly restored features at Beresford Hall. ‘Dad, I really don’t think anyone is going to want to tour Fowlmere at the moment.’ The whole house was in the same state. Who paid money to see mould and decay?

‘Not yet, maybe, but I’ve got a plan.’ He tapped the side of his nose.

Faith bit her lip to hold in a sigh. Just what she needed. Another one of Dad’s plans.

‘Perhaps, in the meantime, it might be better if I—’

‘You want to go to London; I understand that.’ Dad waved a hand around. ‘That’s fine. I need you in London. You can come to my meetings with me.’

‘Meetings?’ Dad’s meetings only usually took place in the pub, with men who knew exactly which horse was going to come in, really this time, honest.

He nodded. ‘I’ve met with a young guy who is helping me save this place—for a cut, of course. Still, it might fill the old coffers again.’

Because that was what it was all about for her dad, wasn’t it? Living the life he truly believed he was entitled to, even if they couldn’t afford it. ‘What does he intend to do?’ she asked, as neutrally as she could manage.

‘Do this place up. Use the land for corporate activities, events, the whole deal. Like Beresford did down at his place. I’ll introduce you tomorrow; he can tell you all about it.’

The image of Beresford Hall, all clean and crisp facilities, clashed horribly with Fowlmere in Faith’s memory. ‘I think it might take a bit more work than you’re anticipating, Dad. I’ve been to Beresford Hall. It’s pretty spectacular.’

Her father smiled a beatific smile. ‘That’s why it’s so wonderful that you’re home to help me. Serendipity, don’t you think?’

Fate was playing with her, just like it had at that airport bar in Rome. Her father looked so excited, so full of self-belief. But all Faith could feel was her escape routes closing in on her with every word.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T
HREE
WEEKS
LATER
and still the world didn’t seem ready to let him forget about Faith and move on.

The first week had been the worst. Once the picture of Dominic and Faith looking dishevelled together at the Greyfriars hit the Internet it was in every single paper by the evening editions. And then came worse—the photographer who’d caught them leaving the theatre hand in hand. Footage of Westminster Bridge that evening where someone’s camera phone just happened to catch them embracing in the back of a photo. An anonymous source—Dominic suspected Jerry—who detailed how long Faith had worked for him and claimed ‘they always seemed like they had some big secret. Like they were laughing at us behind our backs.’

There were more stories after that. Someone—presumably a friend Faith had spoken to when setting up the events that week—told the story of Faith talking her way into the job over drinks at the airport. It read as far more sordid than Dominic remembered the reality being, and even Sylvia had called him up and squealed at him, demanding to know if that was really what had happened.

And then Faith’s apparently numerous ex-boyfriends had started getting in on the act, and Dominic had stopped reading the stories.

But he couldn’t avoid the headlines. Ridiculous puns and alliterations that no one showed any sign of getting bored with. ‘Runaway Heiress, Runaway Bride?’ was the latest one. Dominic hadn’t quite managed to restrain himself from reading the entire speculative article that followed that one, suggesting that Faith had left him just after he’d proposed marriage.

The worst of it was, with every article he learned something new about Faith—although he’d probably never know for sure what was truth and what was pure fabrication.

He’d learned about her family, finally making sense of the bits and pieces she’d told him. No wonder she’d hated being at Beresford Hall. By all accounts, her father had spent his way through the Fowlmere fortune in record time. He must have been a constant reminder of what she’d lost.

He’d followed the story of her misspent youth, too. The media had happily mined the photo archive with every article, although Dominic had barely recognised his Faith in the scantily clad, drunken society girl falling out of nightclubs and being caught on camera with the hot young celebs of the day.

His Faith. That was one thing she’d never been, not really.

In fact, if the papers had it right, if she was anyone’s Faith it was Jared Hawkes’s, the married rock star with a notorious drug problem who had, apparently, left his wife and kids for Faith, before she skipped the country.

She looked more like he remembered her in the photos of her leaving the hotel with Hawkes, which somehow made things worse.

He’d tried to keep his head down and focus on work, wait for it all to blow over like Matthew the PR guy advised. But even if Sylvia was reporting record numbers of visitors to Beresford Hall, the Americans had returned home leaving the contracts unsigned, after many awkward conversations and superior looks from Jerry. So now he was waiting. Waiting to see if his professional life could move past this scandal. Waiting to see when the next comparison piece between his mother and Faith would appear in the papers. Waiting, against reason, for Faith to suddenly appear in his life again, the way she had the first time.

Because, the truth was, London wasn’t the same without Faith. She’d already been gone longer than she’d been with him, but in three weeks that feeling of something being missing hadn’t faded. In the office, he missed her snarky emails pinging through every so often. In his apartment, he missed the idea of her sprawled across his sofa, tablet on her lap, sipping whisky. And in the city...well, that was the worst.

It seemed that everywhere he went there were reminders of her. A poster for a show she’d wanted to see. A view of Tower Bridge and the memory of the dress she’d worn to dinner that night. A tiny backstreet Italian restaurant that was never Lola’s, but often looked close. A pelican staring balefully at him in St James’s Park.

He seemed to be, inexplicably, spending a lot of time walking through St James’s Park these days. He couldn’t even remember how he used to get from one place to another, before Faith introduced him to the pelicans.

The most embarrassing part was that he kept thinking he saw her. All across London, any time he spotted a woman in a red cardigan, or wild dark hair, his brain screamed ‘Faith!’ Several times, he’d found himself halfway to accosting a curvy stranger before he realised that, even if it was her, she’d betrayed him, she’d run away from him, and they were done.

He had a list of things he wanted to say to her, though. A mental list he added to each night when he couldn’t sleep, remembering the feel of her body against his, under his.

It started with the obvious.
Why couldn’t you just do as I asked you for once?
If she’d just stayed, he could have fixed things. She knew that, surely? How desperate must she have been to get away from him that she ran anyway?

Just one night. That had been the agreement. Which led to the second item on his list.
Why didn’t you want to stay?

Except that sounded too desperate, as if there were a hole in his life waiting for her to fill it, even after all that she’d done, so he always mentally scratched that one off again.

The list went on and on, through anger, pain, loss and outright fury. But the last question was always the same.
Why couldn’t you have just left me alone in that airport bar?

Because if he’d never met Faith, his life wouldn’t be so disordered, so confused. And people wouldn’t be discussing his private life again, the way they had after the revelations about his mother’s affair.

And that, he had to admit, was the part that made him angriest of all.

But the dark-haired woman across the street, or the park, or the shop was never Faith, so he never got to ask her any of the things on his list.

No one seemed to know where she was, but Dominic assumed she’d skipped abroad again. The reporters had staked out Fowlmere for a few days after he checked out of the Greyfriars and it became clear she was no longer there with him. He’d read a brief statement from Lord Fowlmere saying that his daughter was just fine, thank you, but taking a little time off. No hint on where she might be doing that. Dominic couldn’t even be sure that the man really did know where Faith was.

The search for the runaway heiress had reached a dead end.

* * *

Until, unexpectedly, one evening, at a charity ball Sylvia had insisted he attend, the woman across the room really was Faith, and he didn’t even recognise her.

‘Look!’ Sylvia nudged him in the ribs, hard, just in case he’d missed her not-at-all-discreet attempt at a stage whisper.

Dominic straightened his dinner jacket. ‘Where, exactly, am I looking?’

‘Over there! Cream dress. Gorgeous skin. Hair pinned back.’

He followed her also-not-discreet pointing finger with his gaze. ‘Still not getting it,’ he said. Except he was. There was something. Not in the polite expression of interest on the woman’s face as she listened to some bore drone on. And not in the high-cut evening dress, complete with pearls. But underneath all that...

‘It’s Faith, you idiot!’ Sylvia prodded him in the ribs again. ‘You need to go and talk to her.’

Around him, the room was already starting to buzz. Whispers of his name and hers. Those looks he thought he’d left behind years ago, the ones that said:
We know your secrets.

What was she doing here? Shouldn’t she be in Italy or Australia or anywhere by now? Not standing next to her father at the most glamorous, most publicised and photographed charity ball of the year.

Had she really gone home? The journalists must have grown bored of staking out a crumbling estate in the middle of nowhere pretty quickly not to have noticed. But if her big plan was to go home anyway, why couldn’t she have just stayed long enough for him to fix things?

He had to leave. He’d drop a large enough donation to the charity to excuse his absence at the ball, and he’d be gone. No way he was providing entertainment to a room full of gossip hounds by actually talking to Faith.

‘People are starting to stare,’ Sylvia pointed out, as if he hadn’t noticed.

‘Let them.’ Dominic slammed his champagne flute onto a passing waiter’s tray. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Dominic, no.’ Sylvia grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and held on, her brightly polished nails digging into his arm through the fabric. ‘Look, the only way this blows over is if you and Faith act like it doesn’t matter. You can’t be all affronted and embarrassed. You have to bore them out of it.’

‘I’m not talking to her.’ Just looking at her, acting the perfect heiress she’d never been before, had made it perfectly clear she couldn’t be for him... It made his teeth ache his jaw was clenched so hard.

‘Well, if you won’t, I will,’ Sylvia said, marching off across the room before Dominic could react.

Any eyes that weren’t on him before swivelled round to catch the scene.

Bore them, she’d said. Somehow, Dominic suspected that wasn’t the most likely outcome of this situation.

* * *

‘Of course, I’ve always found...’ Lord Hassleton said, and Faith tuned out again, secure in the knowledge that the peer liked the sound of his own voice far too much to ever expect her to comment on what he was actually saying. As long as she nodded occasionally and kept a polite smile on her lips, she’d be fine. And maybe one day, if she was really lucky, one of those waiters with the trays of champagne would come her way and give her another glass. Or brain Lord Hassleton with the silver tray. She wasn’t fussy.

This was her role, for now. She’d got her parents to keep quiet about her return, hiding out in her room until the photographers outside Fowlmere Manor grew bored. But it seemed her father was deadly serious about them working together on the regeneration. She couldn’t hide for ever, not if they were going to save the Manor, he said. They needed to get out there, meet people, start making new connections, new networks. And no one pulled a guilt trip quite like her father, so here she was, shaking hands, smiling politely and wishing she was anywhere else in the world.

It was only until her father got everything up and running, she told herself. After the intense interest about her return in the media, she needed this new boring Faith to make people forget her past. Then she could get on with fixing her future.

‘Faith!’ The bright voice to her left made Faith freeze. She didn’t relax one iota when she realised who it was.

‘Oh, Lord Hassleton,’ Sylvia said, her tone light and happy and lots of other things Faith wouldn’t really expect from Dominic’s sister. ‘I’m
so
sorry to interrupt. But you don’t mind if I steal Lady Faith away from you for just a moment or two, do you? It’s been an
age
since I saw her, and I’m
dying
to catch up.’

Lord Hassleton looked down at Sylvia’s petite hand on his chubby arm and said, ‘No, no, of course not. You gels go and...talk, or whatever.’ He turned to Faith, and she quickly twisted her lips back into the fake smile she’d perfected in the mirror. ‘We’ll continue this another time, Lady Faith.’

‘I look forward to it,’ Faith lied.

But as she turned away from Lord Hassleton and let Sylvia lead her across the room, she started to think she might have had a better time listening to another hour’s rambling on sewage works near his estate, or whatever it was the man had been going on about.

Just steps away stood Dominic, watching her with wary eyes. How had she not noticed him come in? Too busy trying to stay awake while listening to Lord Hassleton drone on, she supposed. But now... Now she could feel the stares on her back, the anticipation in the room. Everyone knew they’d been together. Everyone knew she hadn’t been seen again since, until tonight. And everyone was waiting to see what would happen next.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea, Sylvia,’ she said, slowing to a halt.

‘Trust me, it is.’ Sylvia tucked a hand through Faith’s arm and dragged her forward, smiling like a politician. ‘Like I told him, the only way this ends is if you two act like it doesn’t matter.’

But it does matter,
Faith didn’t say.

‘Faith,’ Dominic said as they reached him, his voice cold and clipped. ‘I wouldn’t have expected to see you here.’

‘I lost a bet,’ Faith joked, and watched as Dominic’s eyebrows sank into a frown.

Sylvia glanced between them, eyes wide. ‘You know what? I think maybe I’d better leave you two to this.’

‘Probably safest,’ Faith agreed with a nod. Then, glancing around the room, she watched as every person there suddenly pretended not to be staring at them.

‘Actually,’ Faith said, turning away so most people couldn’t see her face, ‘why don’t we take this conversation out onto the balcony, Lord Beresford? Fewer witnesses that way.’

Sylvia’s eyes grew wider still, but Dominic just gave a sharp nod and took her arm. ‘Let’s go.’