it, you’ll need it.’
The reason why was a small, gleaming scarlet sports car which was garaged in an area he called the ‘old stables’. Kelly’s eyes widened. Brought up with frugality as her middle name, she said the first thing which came into her head.
‘How on earth can you afford a car like this as a student?’
He seemed surprised by her frankness. ‘It was a twenty-first birthday present,’ he told her as he opened the car door for her. ‘From my parents.’
‘Generous parents,’ commented Kelly wryly, as she climbed into the car.
He moved into the seat next to her, and turned the ignition key. ‘Oh, they’re certainly generous,’ he said, in a voice which sounded strangely bitter. ‘That’s to say, they find it very easy to buy things.’
She stole a glance at him. ‘What’s wrong with them buying things?’
The silver-grey eyes were direct; disburbing. He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t make up for them never having been there, I suppose.’
‘Doesn’t it? I have exactly the opposite problem with my parents,’ answered Kelly, giving a rueful little smile, wondering if anyone was ever contented with their lot.
‘Then I guess we’ll just have to comfort one another, won’t we?’ he said, his voice soft, mocking, having the power to increase her pulse-rate just with its deep, velvety caress.
Suddenly shy, Kelly quickly gathered her thick red hair up in the black velvet ribbon, afraid he might notice that she was blushing like crazy.
He turned on the ignition, and the little car roared off down the drive, spitting out pieces of gravel in its wake, and Kelly sat back in the seat to enjoy the drive.
It was one of those afternoons which stayed in the memory forever—the most perfect afternoon of Kelly’s life. He drove her to a country pub for lunch where they ate crusty bread and great slabs of farmhouse cheese, washed down with local beer. After that, they walked. And talked. They didn’t seem to stop talking. She told him all about the tiny terraced house she had grown up in, about the shared bedroom and the thin walls where the neighbours’ arguments were broadcast so loudly that they might have been in the same room. She told him of her burning ambition to be a surgeon, and his eyes had narrowed.
‘It’s tough enough, anyway,’ he observed. ‘Even tougher for a woman.’
‘I know,’ she said passionately. ‘And I don’t care! I’m going to defeat all the odds, you wait and see!’
He had smiled then, his eyes soft. ‘I can’t wait,’ he murmured.
She blushed again, realising that she had been monopolising the conversation; he was so incredibly easy to talk to. ‘Now tell me about you,’ she urged him.
‘What, everything?’ he teased.
‘Absolutely everything!’
And Randall painted a picture of his own world, so very different from hers. Kelly’s heart turned over when he described being sent away to boarding school at the tender age of eight.
‘Cold showers and cross-country runs,’ he said, and shuddered theatrically.
‘Did you really hate it?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘I loathed it,’ he said with feeling, then grinned. ‘Don’t look so tragic, Kelly—it was a long time ago,’ and he took her hand in his. She didn’t object; her head was spinning, as though he had intoxicated her just with his presence.
The afternoon flew by and it was almost six when they arrived back at the house. There were several cars parked in front of the house, and a woman, small and matronly, stood on the steps, talking to a group of people, most slightly older than Kelly, and whom she assumed were other medical students.
When the little sports car came to a halt, the woman came hurrying over to them, barely looking at Kelly, her face reproving. ‘There you are, my lord!’ she exclaimed. ‘Everyone’s been looking for you. Five medical students and no one knows where to put them.’
Kelly stiffened. Lord!
‘Calm down, Mary,’ he drawled in a voice born to giving orders, and Kelly watched while the older woman softened under the sheer potency of all that charm. ‘I’ll sort it out. Mary—I’d like you to meet Kelly Hartley. Kelly—this is Mary. She lives here and provides food to die for.’
But Kelly knew instantly from his proprietorial tone that Mary ‘lived’ here purely in the capacity of staff. She felt somehow betrayed. They had shared intimacies, swopped secrets—and yet he had left out something as fundamental as the fact that he was a member of the flaming aristocracy! Her cheeks were hot with anger, but she managed to keep her voice relatively calm. ‘Thank you very much for lunch,’ she said crisply. ‘I’ll leave you to it—you’re obviously terribly busy.’
‘Kelly—’ he began, but Kelly had jumped out of the car and run past the staring group and upstairs to her room before he could say anything more, or stop her.
And when the peremptory knock came on her door about half an hour later, she was not surprised, though she was tempted not to answer it.
She pulled the door open to find Randall leaning with languid grace against the door-frame, his grey eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you angry?’ he asked calmly.
‘Why do you think?’
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me that you were a lord?’ she demanded.
‘Oh, that,’ he said casually.
‘Yes, that!’ she retorted. ‘I suppose that you actually own this house too?’
He shrugged. ‘Guilty as charged. Although on a technical point, I won’t actually own it until my father dies.’
‘Damn you and your technical point!’ she fired back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
He came inside, closed the door firmly behind him and took her by the shoulders. ‘Because I didn’t want you to know. Not then.’
Kelly’s eyes widened. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Because people can be intimidated by the title, and I suspected that you might be one of them.’
She took a step back. ‘Why, of all the most patronising—’
‘And because sometimes the baggage which comes with all that stuff,’ he interrupted coolly, ‘just gets in the way of what really matters ... you know?’
She shook her head, angry and confused. ‘No, I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do,’ he said softly, and bent his head to kiss her. ‘Of course you do.’
After that Kelly spent every moment she could with him, and for the first time in her life found it difficult to concentrate on her studies.
