at the moment, very appealing.
She sighed, and he heard it. His eyes narrowed. He made an ‘after you’ gesture as she reached the door and his tone when he spoke, silk cloaking iron, rasped on her strangely jangled nerves.
‘Liz’s delight in finding herself so unexpectedly and independently wealthy was so transparent, I hadn’t the heart to insist that she continue to live off my allowance. However,’ he added, his mouth straightening in a grim line, ‘that doesn’t give you an opt-out, grounds for terminating our agreement. Only one thing can do that, so don’t you ever forget it.’
CHAPTER THREE
“ONLY one thing”. The only opt-out Jake would accept was if one or other of them fell in love.
Claire fastened her seat belt as Jake slid into the driver’s seat. She didn’t look at him, concentrated instead on waving goodbye to Liz and Sal, doing her best to look relaxed and cheerful.
For some reason the couple of days they’d spent at Lark Cottage had been a strain. Normally, it was no such thing. Claire valued any time she was able to spend with Liz, and her pretend marriage hadn’t been a problem before because Jake had the ability to make everyone relax. When it suited him, that was. And it always suited him when he was around Liz.
So she couldn’t put her edginess down to him, or only obliquely. The only reason she’d agreed to marry him had been to secure her mother’s future welfare. But, for him, the fact that he’d no longer be supporting Liz didn’t count. He’d made that abundantly clear. And what troubled her was the stupid, surging relief she’d felt when he’d slept it out!
‘Still adamant about not staying on at Lither ton until I join you for Christmas?’ Jake asked tautly as he smoothly negotiated the big car through the tangled network of narrow country lanes that would, in around twenty minutes, bring them to the Winter family home.
She shrugged, biting down on her lip, staring fixedly ahead. She was all churned up inside, her emotions warring. She didn’t want to stay on at Lither ton without him; she had already acknowledged that much. And when she’d believed that Liz’s legacy would inevitably lead to the end of their marriage she had been—well, ‘disconsolate’ was the word she thought she was looking for.
It would be madness to allow herself to become dependent on his company. Sooner or later the marriage would end, and probably sooner, if his indiscreet relationship with the principessa was anything to go by.
Without being aware of it she had allowed herself to be drawn into the false security of dependency. It was time she did something about it. And so she told him with a lightness she was far from feeling, ‘No, I’ve had second thoughts. Long walks in the fresh air, coming back to roaring log fires and Emma’s marvellous cooking—just what I need.’ And she cursed herself for feeling so miserable because she’d done the right thing, committed herself to two whole weeks without him. Which only went to show how uncomfortably real the danger was becoming.
She opened her eyes very wide at the look of frowning suspicion he darted her then closed them on a spasm of unadulterated pain when he returned his attention back to the road and told her, ‘Good. I’m glad you’ve seen sense. There’d be no point in your kicking around on your own in London. I’ll be in Rome, plunging into some rather exciting unfinished business.’
The voluptuous principessa, of course. And did he have to be so crude about it? Any other time he would have wanted her there with him, arranging meetings, sitting in on them wearing her secretarial hat, acting as a sounding board for his involved thought-processes as they shared a nightcap together back at the hotel.
But not this time. And she didn’t have to be a mind-reader to know why.
Half reluctantly, she turned her head and allowed her eyes to dwell briefly on his savagely handsome profile. Was he aware that the rot had set in, that his indiscretions were pointing the way to the final break-up, that he had at last found a woman for whom he was happy to throw caution out of the window?
She looked quickly away again, misery darkening her eyes. In agreeing to stay on with his sister and her husband she had done exactly the right thing. The process of weaning herself away from him was about to begin.
* * *
Litherton Court had been in the Winter family for generations. The sturdy stone house, built in the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, looked particularly lovely on this bright, crisp morning, Claire thought as she emerged from the copse, looking down on the house in its smooth green hollow of land.
Sunlight glittered on the tiny panes set in elegant mullions and made the pale building stone look warm and mellow. Claire wondered, not for the first time, how Jake could have turned his back on the property, handing it and the vast estates over to Emma when she’d married Frank.
But it was impossible to imagine the restless, dynamic Jake Winter settling down to run a country estate, she acknowledged, pushing her hands deeper into the pockets of her sheepskin coat. And that being the case, what could be more natural than his handing over his inheritance when Emma married? When he had been twenty-five and already a force to be reckoned with in the business world, and Emma a sheltered eighteen, their parents had been killed in a motorway pile-up. The double blow had traumatised them both, particularly Emma. It had taken her a long time to get over it and Jake had become very protective of her. Until the advent of the principessa Claire had believed that Emma was the only female under sixty Jake had any tenderness or respect for. The way women had always thrown themselves at him had made him cynical. So did he know he was ready to fall in love, ready to make a lasting, worthwhile commitment? An expert at second-guessing other people’s moves, correctly judging their motivations, had he recognized his own slip for what it was—a willingness, in the case of this one special woman, to give the world at large advance notice of his intentions?
If it had been a slip then it had been a deliberate one. No one could ever accuse him of being a man who didn’t know what he was doing. During the two years of their marriage he must have had the occasional short-lived affair; he was too virilely male not to have done. But there had never been a breath of scandal, never a hint.
So this was different.
Her fine brows knotted together, she set her booted feet on the downward track, heading back towards the house. How many times during the five days since he had left for Rome had she worried away at the conjectures that kept rearing up inside her head? Was he with Lorella Giancotti now, at this very moment? Was he explaining about his paper marriage—something that had been their secret up until now? Making plans, promising to get an annulment very soon, asking her to marry him?
With a savage spurt of temper she kicked out at the loose stones in her path, sending them skittering. The decisions he made about his private life didn’t matter, did they? She had entered into marriage for purely practical reasons, with her eyes wide open. In spite of his offhanded denials, she had always known that this was on the cards, accepted that he would fall in love one day and ask her for an annulment. So why did she feel as if her whole world was falling apart?
Because the breakdown of their marriage would mean the end of her job, she answered herself staunchly as she unlatched the gate in the high stone wall that surrounded the gardens proper, keeping them separate from the rest of the estate.
Relief poured through her like a flood of sweet warm water and she whistled cheerfully for the two young Labradors and the pensioned-off sheepdog who had accompanied her on her morning walk, smiling as they bounded towards her. She had heard Emma
