His Untamed Innocent Page 13

  ‘Nor have I, darling,’ Jake said softly. ‘Nor have I.’

  She decided it would be wise to change the subject. ‘Did—did you speak to your mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a pause. ‘We had a fairly frank discussion.’

  ‘Is she very angry?’

  ‘She’s certainly disappointed,’ he returned. ‘But she appears to have accepted the situation.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Marin said bitterly. ‘I suspect my mother will react rather differently to the news.’

  ‘Just as well we’re not having the banns called,’ he said pleasantly. ‘She might have forbidden them.’

  ‘This is not some kind of joke,’ she flared.

  ‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s not. And I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life. But we have to get through this, Marin, so weeping, wailing and teeth-gnashing will do no good, either.’ He paused. ‘Agreed?’

  She looked down at her hands, gripped together in her lap, and nodded silently.

  She was never to forget her first glimpse of Harborne Manor.

  She’d half-expected something formal and Georgian, on the lines of Queens Barton, not this graceful mass of grey stone topped by tall, eccentric chimneys, its age enhanced by its mullioned windows and wide-arched entrance, which seemed to lift itself from the surrounding grassland as they approached.

  She leaned forward. ‘My God.’ Her voice was stunned. ‘It’s beautiful. I never dreamed…’ She swallowed. ‘Is it open to the public?’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Jake returned. ‘It is and always will be a private house. Although, we allow visitors in to our Garden Day in June to raise money for the Red Cross.’

  ‘Garden Day?’ Marin repeated in a hollow tone, and saw his mouth relax into something like genuine amusement.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It was held three weeks ago. Anyway, you’re not short of organisational skills in your career.’

  But not quite to this extent, Marin thought, swallowing.

  As he brought the car to a halt on the gravelled sweep in front of the main entrance, a woman emerged and stood on the steps, waiting for them.

  She was large, with a round, rosy face, her grey silver-streaked hair drawn back from her face into a loose knot.

  ‘Well, here she is, Sadie,’ Jake called as they approached the steps. ‘She didn’t escape while she had the chance.’

  Marin found herself being swept by a lightning scrutiny from unexpectedly shrewd brown eyes.

  ‘And why should the young lady do any such thing, Mr James? Now, enough nonsense and introduce us properly.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Jake murmured, grinning.

  His task performed, Marin was subjected to another head-to-toe assessment.

  ‘Too thin by far,’ was Sadie Hubbard’s brisk verdict. ‘And not feeling too clever, either, I dare say. Nasty thing, morning sickness, but it soon passes, thank the Lord.’ She turned a steely look on her former charge. ‘But no thanks to you, Mr James.’

  ‘No, Sadie,’ Jake agreed with suspicious meekness. Taking Marin’s hand before she could move out of range, he drew her towards him and dropped a kiss on her hair. ‘This is your home, darling,’ he told her softly. ‘Come and have a look at it.’

  She remembered him touching her hair, lifting it away so he could brush the nape of her neck with his mouth, and everything that had followed.

  It didn’t mean a thing to him, she thought with pain. It was the kind of casual caress he must have bestowed a hundred times. He could never have expected her to react as she had done. And she had to live with the shame of that.

  And, like he was doing now, pretend.

  By some supreme effort she made herself look at him, smile, leave her hand in his light clasp and let him lead her indoors.

  Where she stopped dead, her breath catching when she saw the size of the panelled hall and the magnificently carved oak staircase with its galleried landing.

  ‘How old is all this?’ she whispered as she looked wonderingly around her.

  ‘Originally it was Tudor,’ Jake said. ‘Probably built from the stones of some unfortunate monastery. But it’s been altered and added to a great deal since then—mostly in the days before listed buildings and planning departments. Fortunately my father and grandfather confined themselves merely to sorting out the plumbing,’ he added. ‘So you won’t have to break the ice on the well if you want a bath.’

  ‘As if anyone ever did,’ Sadie snorted. ‘Now, behave yourself, Mr James, and take Miss Wade out to your mother on the terrace before she really does run away.’

  ‘So this is Marin.’ Elizabeth Radley-Smith was a tall woman, dark-haired and calm-faced. Her eyes were vivid blue, like Jake’s, but there was no gleam of laughter in their depths. Her expression was concerned, even wary, and she offered no other welcome than a brief handshake.

  She may have accepted the situation, thought Marin bleakly as she accepted a seat in the trellised arbour, shady with fragrant honeysuckle, where a wooden table and cushioned wicker-chairs had been placed. But she doesn’t have to like it, or me. And who can blame her?

  ‘I’m going to speak to Cook about tea,’ Mrs Radley-Smith said after an awkward pause. ‘Why don’t you talk to Marin about what we discussed earlier?’

  ‘What does your mother want to suggest?’ Marin asked tautly as the older woman departed. ‘That I make myself scarce for the next eight months, then have the baby adopted?’

  Jake’s mouth tightened. ‘On the contrary. She rang me back to ask if we’d be prepared to forego the civil ceremony in town and be married here, by special licence, in the parish church. She reckons we could have an equally quiet wedding if we picked some mid-week morning and had a celebration family lunch here afterwards.’

  She stared at him. ‘You—you want to be married in church?’

  ‘Why not?’ Jake retorted. ‘I was christened and confirmed there, and I sometimes go with Ma to Evensong when I’m down for the weekend. I’ve even been known to read the lesson on occasion. And could you stop looking at me as if I’d grown a second head?’ he added with faint asperity.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Marin shook her head. ‘I find all this rather difficult to reconcile with your lifestyle.’

  He said levelly, ‘I do what’s expected of me, Marin, as you have reason to know.’ He paused. ‘But what do you feel about Ma’s suggestion? It has the added bonus that all your family could stay at the Manor before during and after the wedding, if they wished. Give me a chance to get to know them.’

  She stared at him, the words, ‘I do what’s expected of me’ still echoing in her mind. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She hesitated. ‘I presume you wouldn’t expect me to be married in white?’

  ‘Wear a bin bag if you want,’ Jake said brusquely. ‘Just be there. I’ll speak to the vicar, fix up a suitable day.’

  ‘Won’t this hasty marriage spoil your “pillar of the community” image?’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Why should it? I’m not planning to book the christening at the same time. Anyway, Mr Arnold is one of the least judgmental men I know.’

  Mrs Radley-Smith appeared, carrying a tray, which Jake leapt up and took from her. ‘Jake and I are having builders’ tea,’ she announced. ‘But I’ve asked Cook to make you a special peppermint infusion, Marin. Jake tells me you’re having sickness problems, and I found it helped me a lot when I was first pregnant.’

  Marin bit her lip. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

  Or maybe, she thought, she doesn’t want me throwing up all over these old and probably irreplaceable flagstones.

  Mrs Radley-Smith sat down. ‘So, have you come to any decision about the wedding?’

  ‘I’m still trying to persuade her.’ Jake smiled at Marin as she took her cup of peppermint tea.

  ‘I do hope you agree,’ Mrs Radley-Smith went on rather stiffly. ‘It’s a very beautiful old church, and generations of our family have been married there. I feel the local people, and
the vicar particularly, would be most disappointed if Jake chose to have his wedding somewhere else. Also, Mr Arnold prefers to use the old prayer-book service, which I also favour.’

  Marin stared down into her cup. Phrases like ‘to love and to cherish’ and ‘till death do us part’ were whirling in her head suddenly. Jake, she thought, would stand beside her and say these things, and she would have to respond and pretend she believed him. Pretend that their marriage was going to be a real one instead of a convenient sham.

  With my body, I thee worship…

  And she, she, would have to pretend she didn’t care. That she wasn’t longing—aching for him.

  Pain slashed her. She thought. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t be such a hypocrite.’ And only realised she’d spoken aloud when she heard Mrs Radley-Smith’s sharp intake of breath and saw Jake’s mouth tighten grimly.

  He said, ‘Then a civil ceremony in London it shall be. And that’s final.’

  It was not the easiest meal Marin had ever sat through. Jake and his mother chatted in a desultory way about local matters while she made herself drink her tea and nibble a slice of whole-meal bread and butter with some local honey. But she knew her decision over the wedding rankled.

  Eventually, Jake pushed back his chair and rose. ‘I need to phone the office. I’ll tell Sadie to begin the guided tour without me.’

  Marin was torn between relief and an overwhelming urge to grab the front of his shirt and beg, ‘Don’t leave me.’

  But that, she thought, would be tantamount to a declaration of love, and hideously embarrassing for both of them.

  Left alone, the two women sat in silence for a few moments, then Marin said with difficulty, ‘You must really hate me.’

  ‘I don’t hate anybody,’ said Mrs Radley-Smith. ‘With the exception of people who abuse children or animals, and I’m sure you don’t fall into either category.’

  ‘But you can’t want Jake to be married—like this.’

  ‘No, I don’t. Far from it.’

  ‘Then couldn’t you talk to him before it’s too late?’ Marin begged unhappily. ‘Persuade him, somehow, it’s a bad idea and that there must be a better solution?’

  The older woman shook her head. ‘As well try and stop a herd of charging elephants than Jake with his mind made up. And he wants his child born in wedlock. So it seems as if we all have to make the best of things.’

  She gave Marin a level look. ‘But I love my son, Miss Wade, and what grieves me most about this whole unfortunate business is that you’d apparently prefer to be a single mother rather than become his wife.’

  She paused. ‘However, as you must have realised by now, Harborne Manor is very old and very beautiful, and I found it a more than happy home,’ she added with a catch in her voice. ‘Perhaps when you’ve seen round it, you may become more reconciled to your changed circumstances.’

  Marin lifted her chin. ‘You think that makes a difference? That maybe I see the baby as a stepping stone to a life of luxury with a rich man footing my bills? Because I promise you I don’t. I knew that Jake had a home in the country, because my sister, who works for him, mentioned it, but I didn’t realise its scale, or what was involved.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Mrs Radley-Smith. ‘But then the kind of relationship you had with my son—a one-night stand, I believe it’s called—hardly invites confidences of that nature. Does it?’

  There was a loaded silence, then Marin said quietly, ‘Please believe, Mrs Radley-Smith, that I cannot feel any more ashamed about what occurred than I already do.’

  The older woman sighed abruptly. ‘And I’m ashamed too,’ she said. ‘I swore I wouldn’t do this. That I’d already said all that was necessary to my son. But it’s just that Jake is so very dear to me—and I’d hoped so much…’

  As her voice incredibly faltered, Marin intervened hurriedly, ‘I’m sorry too—for everything.’ She shook her head. ‘But—twenty-four hours ago I thought I knew where my life was going. Now, it’s been—turned upside down. And I’m not coping very well.’

  ‘But you must have realised the risk you’d taken?’ Mrs Radley-Smith had herself in hand again, the blue eyes coolly questioning.

  ‘I went straight into a pretty demanding job,’ Marin said. ‘My mind got taken up with other things.’

  Like trying not to be in love with Jake. Wanting to forget everything about that night in his arms. Coming to terms with a future that he would never be a part of.

  And, in that last respect at least, nothing had changed. Except that now she would even be denied the mercy of never seeing him again, of finding some way to heal her heartache and start her life afresh without him.

  And sleeping in another bed, another room, apart from him would be like trying to staunch a severed artery with a sticking plaster. Especially when he’d made it clear he would not be spending his own nights at home, or alone.

  How can I bear this? she asked herself desperately. How can I bear any of it?

  Mrs Radley-Smith gave a faint sigh, then pushed back her chair and rose. ‘Well, you’ll soon have an even more demanding occupation,’ she said. ‘When you become a wife and mother. And now I’ll take you to Sadie.’

  ‘A wife and mother,’ Marin repeated silently under her breath as she followed Elizabeth into the house.

  She knew that the only real hope left to her was her ability to survive the rest of the day without betraying even for a second that she was weeping inside.

  Thankfully, Sadie showed no inclination to begin the interrogation that Marin was dreading. She merely conducted her round the Manor with a pride that was almost tangible.

  And with every reason, Marin admitted as she gazed around her. The downstairs rooms were spacious in spite of their low ceilings, and furnished with an emphasis on comfort rather than display, each with its own stone fireplace filled now with attractive arrangements of dried flowers for the summer. The ancient wooden floors were laid with Persian rugs, and almost every gleaming surface held a bowl of scented roses or pot pourri to mingle with the aroma of wax polish.

  Beyond the deep, low windows, Marin glimpsed splashes of brilliant colour in the flower gardens at the rear of the house.

  ‘And we grow nearly all our own vegetables too,’ Sadie told her. ‘Mr Murtrie is very keen on the organics.’

  Mr Murtrie, Marin reminded herself as she murmured an appreciative response, was the head gardener with two trainees to help him. The cook was Mrs Osborne; her daughter, Cherry, did the housework, with assistance from the village, and was married to Bob Fielding, who looked after the horses.

  I should have brought a notebook, she thought grimly, and written it all down together with a family tree. Plus a map of the layout. Otherwise, I’m never going to remember any of it.

  It occurred to her too that she was apparently carrying the heir to a dynasty of several hundred years, and this had to be why Jake was so insistent on marriage. He wants a son, she thought. Not a wife.

  Yet for all that, and almost in spite of herself, she was beginning to relax, to feel a kind of peace stealing over her. As if, she realised with bewilderment, the house was reaching out to her, wrapping her in warmth and security.

  Which was, of course, absurd. She was here, stupidly and quite unforgivably, because of an accident of nature. She would always be the outsider—the interloper—and anything else was fantasy.

  Remember that, she advised herself grimly. And don’t let yourself hope—even for a moment—that your life could be different.

  Because Diana Halsay’s contemptuous analogy of the starving kid looking in the baker’s window was proving horribly accurate.

  One of the rooms she liked best was rather smaller than the others, and shabbily cosy.

  ‘It used to be called the Ladies’ Parlour,’ said Sadie. ‘Because it’s where they used to sit and do their sewing in the old days. But it’s more a family room now.’ She added, ‘When Mr James comes down at weekends, he likes to sit here in the evenings to
play his music and read.’

  Marin, on the point of asking how many of his weekends Jake spent at the Manor, stopped herself just in time, realising this was information she was supposed to know already.

  But it appeared there were often times when Jake stopped being the womanising workaholic of London legend, she thought ruefully. In fact, ‘Mr James’ was becoming more of a surprise package with every minute that passed.

  She said, ‘If his name is James, why is he known as Jake?’

  ‘His grandfather wanted him christened Jacob, which is a family name,’ Sadie explained. ‘But Madam didn’t care for it, so she and her husband, Mr Philip, compromised on James. But the old gentleman, who always liked to get his own way, started calling him Jake, and it stuck.’ She added firmly, ‘However, I believe in baptismal names, so he’s always Mr James to me.’

  And Jake to me, thought Marin as they started up the broad staircase, and clearly a chip off his grandfather’s block in his determination to obtain his own way. Or I would not be here.

  ‘Mr James suggested we should start with the master suite,’ Sadie went on, leading the way along the gallery. ‘He thought you might have some ideas about a change of decor.’

  Marin hung back, her face warming. ‘I’m sure it’s all fine,’ she said. ‘I’d really rather not intrude on his privacy.’

  Sadie gave her an indulgent if surprised glance. ‘Bless you, Mr James still sleeps in his old room. The master suite hasn’t been used since Mr Philip died and Madam moved down to the village, so it’s due for a bit of refurbishment. It will make a nice project for you both,’ she added, nodding.

  And keep you out of mischief…

  She didn’t have to say the words aloud; they were there, hovering in the air, Marin thought, biting her lip as she reluctantly followed Sadie into the room.

  Her first thought was that it was like walking into sunlight, an impression enhanced by the gold brocade draperies at the windows, and the matching quilted coverlet on the wide bed.

  She said softly, ‘Oh, how lovely.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but I knew these curtains would fade.’ Sadie examined them, tutting with disapproval. ‘I told Madam so, but she only laughed and said that Mr Philip liked them, which was all that mattered.’ She sighed. ‘It was wrong for him to be taken from her like that, and them so devoted.’