and leaning back against her car.
Her heart began to thump. Loudly.
He wasn’t her type at all. Her type was clean-shaven, their eyes didn’t hold a sardonic gleam under quizzical eyebrows and look as if they were either laughing at you or criticising you. Her usual type didn’t wear their dark hair an inch too long and completely unstyled and walk around in old mud-splattered jeans, although she had to admit they were worn in all the right places.
And Daisy Huntingdon-Cross had never as much as had a coffee with a man in a logoed fleece. The black garment might bear the Hawksley Castle crest but it was still a fleece.
So why had her pulse sped up, heat pooling in the pit of her stomach? Daisy allowed the car to take more of her weight, grateful for its support.
‘Come back inside, we haven’t finished talking yet.’ It wasn’t a request.
The heat melted away, replaced by a growing indignation. Daisy straightened up, folding her arms. ‘We haven’t started talking. I gave you an hour.’
‘I know.’ She had been hoping for penitent but he was totally matter-of-fact. ‘I think better outside.’
‘And?’ Daisy wanted to grab the word back the second she uttered it. It sounded as if she had been on tenterhooks waiting for him to proclaim her fate. The kernel of truth in that thought made her squirm.
He ran a hand through his hair. The gesture was unexpectedly boyish and uncertain. ‘This would be easier if we just went back inside.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You think better outside.’
He smiled at that, his whole expression lightening. It changed him completely, the eyes softer, the slightly harsh expression warmer.
‘Yes. But do you?’
‘Me?’
‘I have a proposition for you and you need to be thinking clearly. Are you?’
No. No, she wasn’t. Daisy wasn’t sure she’d had a clear thought since she had accepted that first glass of champagne, had hotly defended her livelihood as her rescuer had quizzed and teased her and had found herself laughing, absurdly delighted as the stern expression had melted into something altogether different.
But she wasn’t going to admit that. Not to him, barely to herself.
‘Completely clearly.’
He looked sceptical but nodded. ‘Then, Daisy, I think you should marry me.’
SEB DIDN’T EXACTLY expect Daisy to throw herself at his feet in gratitude, not really. And it would have made him uncomfortable if she had. But he was expecting that she would be touched by his proposal. Grateful even.
The incredulous laugh that bubbled out of that rather enchanting mouth was, therefore, a bit of a shock. Almost a blow—not to his heart, obviously, but, he realised with a painful jolt of self-awareness, to his ego. ‘Are we in a regency novel? Seb, you haven’t besmirched my honour. There’s no need to do the honourable thing.’
The emphasis on the last phrase was scathing. And misplaced. There was every need. ‘So why did you come here? I thought you wanted my help. Or are you after money? Is that it?’
Maybe the whole situation was some kind of clever entrapment. His hands curled into fists and he inhaled, long and deep, trying not to let the burgeoning anger show on his face.
‘Of course not.’ Her indignation was convincing and the tightness in his chest eased a little. ‘I thought you should know first, that was all. I didn’t come here for money or marriage or anything.’
‘I see, you’re planning to do this alone. And you want me to what? Pop over on a Sunday and take the baby to the park? Sleepovers once a month?’ Seb could hear the scathing scorn punctuating each of his words and Daisy paled, taking a nervous step away, her hand fumbling for the car handle.
‘I haven’t really thought that far ahead.’
Seb took another deep breath, doing his best to sound reasonable as he grabbed the slight advantage. ‘You work what? Fifteen hours a day at weekends? Not just weekends. People get married every day of the week now. What are you going to do for childcare?’
‘I’ll work something out.’ The words were defiant but her eyes were troubled as she twisted her hand around the handle, her knuckles white with tension.
He put as much conviction into his voice as possible. ‘You don’t need to. Marry me.’
Her eyes were wide with confusion. ‘Why? Why on earth would you want to marry someone you barely know? Why would I agree to something so crazy?’
Seb gestured, a wide encompassing sweep of his arm taking in the lake, the woods and fields, the castle proudly overshadowing the landscape. ‘Because that baby is my heir.’
Daisy stared at him. ‘What?’
‘The baby is my heir,’ he repeated. ‘Our baby. To Hawksley.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. What has the castle got to do with the baby?’
‘Not just the castle, the estate, the title, everything.’
‘But—’ she shook her head stubbornly ‘—you’re the handyman, aren’t you? You had a shovel and a fleece and that office.’
‘The handyman?’ He could see her point. If only his colleagues could see him now, it was all a long way from his quiet office tucked away in a corner of an Oxford college. ‘In a way I guess I am—owner, handyman, manager, event-booker—running the estate is a hands-on job nowadays.’
‘So that makes you what? A knight?’
‘An earl. The Earl of Holgate.’
‘An earl?’ She laughed, slightly hysterically. ‘Is this some kind of joke? Is there a camera recording this?’ She twisted around, checking the fields behind them.
‘My parents died six months ago. I inherited the castle then.’ The castle and a huge amount of debt but there was no need to mention that right away. She was skittish enough as it was.
‘You’re being serious?’ He could see realisation dawning, the understanding in her widened eyes even as she stubbornly shook her head. ‘Titles don’t mean anything, not any more.’
‘They do to me, to the estate. Look, Daisy, you came here because you knew it was the right thing to do. Well, marrying me is the right thing to do. That baby could be the next Earl of Holgate. You want to deny him that right? Illegitimate children are barred from inheriting.’
‘The baby could be a girl.’ She wasn’t giving in easily.
‘It doesn’t matter, with the royal line of succession no longer male primogeniture there’s every chance the rest of the aristocracy will fall into line.’ He held
