The Mistress of His Manor (16 page)

‘How wonderful! Congratulate him for me.’

‘I’ll do that now. He’s off to Italy with Charlie in the morning, so all will be peaceful at Arnborough again. Tomorrow, then, Joanna.’

Jo was ready well ahead of time next evening. She turned on the television, sat staring at it for a while, then turned it off again and picked up a book. After a while she put it down and went to the window, to peer through the darkness at the pouring rain. Then she paced round the room like a caged animal as the minutes dragged slowly past. By nine she was furious. By ninethirty she was worried sick. At ten, when the phone rang, she seized it—then almost fell apart when it wasn’t March.

‘Sorry to intrude, Joanna,’ said Hetty, ‘but is March still with you? He promised to ring me at nine, but he must have forgotten.’

‘He never turned up.’

‘What? But he set off ages ago. Oh, God!’ Hetty heaved in an audible breath. ‘Look, Joanna, I’ll get off the line in case March is trying to ring you. If he does, tell him to ring me. Please?’

Her voice wavered so much on the last Jo’s heart contracted. ‘Of course I will—Hang on, Hetty. Someone’s ringing my bell.’ She ran to the door, phone in hand, and flung it open to find March on her doorstep, soaking wet, bedraggled, and sporting a black eye.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, shivering.

‘For heaven’s sake, what happened to you? No, never mind—talk to Hetty first.’ Jo thrust her phone at him and closed
the door, her heart missing a beat when she heard him tell his sister he’d had a slight accident in the car.

‘I’m fine, Hetty, I swear. Cold and wet, but I’m in one piece.’ After several more assurances he switched the phone off and handed it back to Jo.

‘While you get those wet clothes off, tell me what really happened and I’ll put them in the dryer,’ she commanded. ‘Come into the kitchen.’

March followed her, his shoes squelching along the hall floor. ‘A joy-rider in a stolen car shot out of a side road on my way here. I swerved to avoid it. There were sheets of water about, and the E-type doesn’t have ABS.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Anti-lock brakes. To my shame, I couldn’t control the skid. I went through a hedge and down into a stream.’

‘Heavens above, March,’ she said in alarm. ‘Are you sure you’re in one piece?’

‘I’ll have a shiner tomorrow, plus some bruises, but I’ll live.’ He toed off his shoes and peeled off his socks. ‘If I strip off, can you give me something to cover myself?’

‘You need a hot shower first. I’ll give you some bath sheets you can drape toga-style afterwards. Best I can do, I’m afraid.’

‘Sounds wonderful to me,’ he said fervently, following her upstairs. ‘The constable who drove me here sat me on a plastic bin bag to save the back seat of his car.’

‘Constable? Never mind,’ she said hastily. ‘Tell me when you come down. Would you like something hot to drink?’

‘Not right now. They gave me coffee at the police station. I do apologise,’ he said, suddenly formal as he paused in the bathroom doorway. ‘This wasn’t part of my plan for the evening.’

‘No, I don’t imagine it was.’ Burning to know more about his ‘plan’, Jo provided him with an armful of towels, waited until he handed his bundle of sodden clothes round the bathroom door, and then left him to it.

When March came downstairs, tastefully draped in crimson towelling, he still looked damp around the edges but a lot better, despite his swelling eye.

Jo met him in the hall. ‘Let’s go in the parlour.’

When March was settled on the sofa, Jo sat in one of the chairs, leaning forward expectantly. ‘Now, tell me about the police bit.’

‘The police who’d been in pursuit of the joy-rider locked him in their car, then came to my rescue. They commiserated with me no end when they saw that the E-type was a write-off. My phone didn’t survive its ducking, either.’ He sighed. ‘Another police car was called to take me to the station, where a medical examiner checked me over. After much persuasion he let me off a trip to the local A&E. Then a police car brought me here.’ March looked at her for a long minute. ‘I should have gone home, I know. But I needed to see you tonight.’

Jo returned the look steadily. ‘Why, March?’

He raked a hand through his damp hair, for once looking unsure of himself. ‘Because I took one look at you last night and the game was up. I hope to God you still want us to be friends.’

Jo’s heart sank. ‘Is that what
you
want, March?’

‘No,’ he said with sudden violence. ‘I want to be your husband—as you damn well know. But if you won’t go for that, then I’ll settle for being your friend, lover—anything you want. I’m so much in love with you, Joanna. I can’t sleep, can’t concentrate on any damn thing other than wanting to be with you.’ His mouth twisted. ‘These weeks without you have been utter hell. Hetty’s worried about me, and so is Cal. Even Rufus is worried about me—which is a first.’ March paused, looking at the motionless figure in the chair. ‘Say something, for God’s sake,’ he said in desperation. ‘When a man tells a woman she’s his consuming passion he’s entitled to
some
reaction.’

Jo got to her feet, surprised her trembling knees managed to hold her up. ‘I wish you’d told me that before.’

‘What, exactly?’ said March, struggling to keep his draperies around him as he got to his feet.

‘That you were desperately in love with me, of course.’

He frowned. ‘But I did. I have—’

‘No. You told me you cared for me, and that I would be the perfect wife to help you run Arnborough. Because I’m so
capable.
’

Because she spat the last out like a dirty word March began to see where he’d gone wrong. ‘By day, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But what I didn’t make plain, obviously, is that I’m utterly crazy about you. My bed is a cold and lonely place without you.’

‘Mine is like that lately, too,’ she said very quietly, and held out her hand. ‘You look tired. You need to go to bed.’

‘I do. But not because I’m tired,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Good, because I’m not either.’ She gave him a radiant smile. ‘Only don’t trip over your robes, Caesar.’

March laughed unsteadily, and followed her upstairs as fast as his towels allowed. When they reached her bedroom Jo held up a hand when he tried to remove his draperies and told him to sit on her bed.

‘You’ve had a nasty shock tonight. You need to go slow. I’ll do the undressing bit.’ By the time the last towel was discarded March was breathing rapidly, his eyes narrowed to fiery gold slits. But Jo’s heart hammered for a different reason when she saw his frightening display of bruises.

‘Are you sure nothing’s broken?’ she said, swallowing.

‘Absolutely sure,’ he said between his teeth. ‘If you glance in a southerly direction you’ll see that all is in perfect working order.’

To his delight, Jo blushed to the roots of her hair and started removing her clothes in a tearing hurry.

‘I thought you were going slow,’ he drawled, eyes glued to the process.

‘I’m trying, but you’re making it hard for me.’

‘
I’m
making it hard?’ He rolled his eyes and reached for her. ‘Come here, my darling. And if you love me don’t go
too
slow.’

‘I do love you.’

‘Say that again?’

‘You heard the first time,’ she muttered. ‘Stop talking and kiss me.’

March pulled her down on his lap and crushed her in his arms as his lips locked on hers. Her plan to go slow evaporated in a steam of desire as his tongue surged between her lips. They both forgot his bruises as he caressed her breasts into taut, quivering life, taking triumphant male pleasure in her choked little moans as he grazed on each nipple in turn, while his hands roamed lower to smooth over her hips and trace a line down her thighs.

She shook her head and pushed his hands away, making a counter-attack with her own as she caressed the long, flat muscles of his back, sliding her hands down his spine to cup the tight, rounded hardness below, her touch delicate to avoid hurting him. He let out a visceral groan of defeat and flipped her on her back to move over her, his lips swallowing her gasp as he thrust home between her thighs to bring them at last to a pleasure which grew so intense as it finally engulfed them that Jo discovered for the first time what the French meant by describing it as ‘the little death’.

‘How are your bruises?’ she asked later, when she had breath enough to speak.

‘What bruises?’ he murmured into her neck, then raised his head to look down at her, an imperious gleam in his eyes. ‘In the unlikely event that you still have any doubts, let me repeat: I love you madly, deeply, every way there is, my beautiful, capable Miss Logan. So, for the last time of asking, will you stop wasting time and marry me?’

‘Yes,
please,’
she said fervently.

The six weeks that followed—the shortest possible time, according to the bride’s mother, to organise the perfect wedding—were, March complained, the longest of his life.

And to start with there was a major problem. Jack Logan wanted both the service and the reception to take place at Mill House. March, naturally, wanted the wedding in the family church at Arnborough, with guests received in the Great Hall, followed by a wedding breakfast in the ballroom. In which case, he made it plain, he would foot the bill.

‘I think the bride should choose where she wants to get married,’ Kate told her husband when Jo reported this. ‘And we’ll fall in with whatever our daughter decides.’

‘I suppose you’re right. But whichever way she goes,’ said Jack flatly, ‘I’m the bride’s father and I will exercise my privilege to pay.’

Wanting to please both the men she loved, Jo was torn. ‘What do you think, Grandpa?’

Tom Logan gave it thought. ‘It’s only natural that a man whose family has lived in the same house for centuries will want his marriage to take place there. Couldn’t you throw a party here when Jo and March come back from honeymoon, Jack? That way you could invite friends and colleagues who wouldn’t have expected to go to the actual wedding.’

‘Tom,’ said Kate, awed, ‘that is such a brilliant idea.’

‘It might work,’ admitted Jack, and looked at Jo. ‘What do you think, sweetheart?’

Jo let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘I think Grandpa’s idea is just wonderful. That way everyone’s happy. Aren’t they?’ she added, eyeing her father.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Even me. After all, I’ll be walking you down the aisle, whichever one you choose.’

On a cold, bright December day, Joanna Margaret Logan walked down the aisle of St Peter’s Church at Arnborough on the arm of her proud, elegant father, smiling at the equally proud, elegant figure of her bridegroom, who stood watching her progress with a look which brought tears to the female eyes in the congregation.

Miss Kitty Logan, wearing the same ethereal ivory chiffon as the bride and chief bridesmaid, walked hand-in-hand with Isobel, her free hand clutching a tiny basket of flowers, with more threaded through her glossy black curls, and caused more surreptitious tears from the mother of the bride and from Mrs Calvin Stern, who gratefully accepted the large white handker-chief offered by her husband.

Jack Logan surrendered his daughter with a kiss, before taking his place by her mother. The Honourable Rufus Clement produced the ring at the exact moment required, to the warm approval of Charlie Peel, seated in the pew behind. And every word was uttered with audible conviction as March Aubrey Clement made his vows to his bride, who returned them in kind.

After much kissing and congratulating in the vestry, the wedding party finally emerged from the church into bracing sunshine to face the battery of photographers waiting to take the money shot of the bride who had captured the eligible Baron Arnborough.

There were shouts on all sides of, ‘Look this way, Lady Arnborough.’

She smiled in surprise, and shot a look at the grinning Carey twins in the group of family and friends behind her. ‘Gosh—that’s me!’

March bent his head to kiss his bride, to the accompaniment of cheers and snapping flashbulbs on all sides. ‘It most definitely
is
you,’ he assured her, and whispered in her ear, ‘But known in private, as I shall prove to you later, as your husband’s consuming passion!’

†Part of
International Billionaires

*In the anthology
Married by Christmas

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

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First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Catherine George 2009

ISBN: 978-1-4089-1309-3