in this house. His house now, and he would not be shut out of any room in it. He was not a guest. He was the owner, and own it he would.
These thoughts were marching through his mind as Sally led him inside, her back very stiff and straight, probably thinking she had upset him with her lack of foresight—bad management. He would reassure her later when this issue had been dealt with. He was not about to lay fault on her. It had only been two weeks since the funeral and no doubt she’d had a lot to contend with, handling other changes.
The front door opened to a spacious foyer. Cream tiles on the floor were bordered by a terracotta and dark brown pattern in a distinctly Roman style. Caesar entering his palace, Jack thought sardonically. On one side, opened double cedar doors revealed a rather masculine lounge room—dark brown leather chesterfield sofas, a sandstone fireplace big enough to accommodate burning logs. His father had clearly been lord and master here.
But not in the bedroom.
Having been led down a wide corridor, Jack was ushered into a room that Lady Ellen had obviously decorated to please herself. Everything was sensuously feminine: elegant rosewood furniture, a silk brocade bedspread printed with lush red and deep pink roses, bundles of rich cushions, thick dark red carpet, matching red silk curtains. A room for a bordello queen, he thought cynically. He couldn’t imagine Sally on that bed. The colours were wrong for her. So was the whole style of the room.
She opened another door, waving him on to look at the rest of the suite. A glance to the left revealed a dressing room lined with two long rows of closed cupboards, their panelled doors painted in varying shades of jade green. A ceiling-to-floor mirror was at the end, reflecting his and Sally’s presence. Her back was turned to it, her attention focussed in the opposite direction.
On the right was a bathroom which instantly met his approval—a very spacious shower, easily large enough for two, and an equally luxurious spa bath, encased in marble tiles with a vein of jade green running through them. This part of the suite was fine, once he got rid of the red carpet in the dressing room. And whatever possessions were still housed behind the cupboard doors.
“I will occupy this suite when it’s refurbished,” he said casually. “In the meantime, the guest quarters will be fine, Sally. You made the right decision for me. I’ll have an interior decorator call you next week to make arrangements for seeing what the job will entail. Okay?”
“Yes.” Her inner tension visibly eased into a smile of relief. “What do you want done with Dad’s things?”
“Keep anything you’d like and give the rest to a charity. The Smith Family does good work. Try them.”
She nodded.
“And you can tell Lady Ellen she can have her bedroom furniture and furnishings free of charge,” he added mockingly. “I can see they belong to her.”
A flush of embarrassment blazed across her cheeks. “I’ll let her know.”
“I hear she’s taken up residence with Marion Harley,” he prodded, wanting to know how much contact Sally was having with her mother.
“She left instructions for her mail to be redirected there,” came the flat reply, carefully strained of any emotion. “I don’t know for how long. I guess the furniture could be put in storage … if she wants to keep it.”
Jack gleaned a strong impression of distance. No sense of any closeness. A ruction had definitely taken place. How much that pained Sally he didn’t know but it was abundantly clear she was getting on with her own life without her mother in her ear on any regular basis, and the prospect of calling her about the furniture was causing stress, not pleasure.
“On the other hand, you could just give it away to The Smith Family,” he said carelessly. “It’s irrelevant to me.”
“I’ll call her first,” she said with a flash of determination. “I’d feel wrong about giving it away without … without any consultation.”
Doing the right thing.
Yes, she had a strong sense of rightness, Sally Maguire. Which was undoubtedly at the core of why she had felt sympathetic towards his position in regard to the Maguire family. It also meant he was going to have to make her feel right about going to bed with him.
This realisation made her even more desirable. It would certainly be a novelty, having sex with a woman where the attraction was not bolstered by his wealth. Just an honest mating …because they wanted to. He simply had to bring out the wanting in Sally, overcome whatever reservations she had about giving in to it. Her guard was up at the moment, feeling her way with him.
“Okay. We’ve got that settled,” he said, smiling to put her more at ease. “Let’s move on to the guest quarters.”
She nodded and quickly led him back to the corridor which bisected this wing of the house. “My room,” she said, indicating a door on the left hand side. No offer to show it to him and he didn’t push for it, respecting her privacy though he was curious about how personal it was—how much it would tell him about her. She passed swiftly by but paused at the next door, turning anxiously appealing eyes to his.
“This is Jane’s room. Most of the time she’s in Sydney, sharing an apartment with other students while she attends the University of Technology. She’s in her last year of studying to be a nurse and wants to be a midwife eventually. Is it okay if she comes home …I mean visits me …” she hastily corrected,” …when she can?”
Jack seized the chance to confirm that the victimised sister had been rescued from her monster mother. “If Lady Ellen is supporting Jane, wouldn’t she expect a grateful daughter to give all free time to her?”
Colour whooshed into Sally’s cheeks. “I’m supporting Jane. You’re paying me enough. I can do it.”
They were fighting words. Jack got the impression she would defend that action to the death. The break from Lady Ellen was definitely complete. The adopted daughters would never kowtow to her again. He smiled, reaching up to gently stroke her hot cheek in a salute of approval.
“What you choose to do with your salary is your business, Sally. I’m glad to hear you’re looking after your sister.”
“Then you don’t mind if she comes here?”
Her eyes were huge pools of green. For a moment Jack almost lost himself in their brimming emotion—the kind of caring he’d only ever known from his mother. Jane wasn’t even Sally’s birth sister, yet …an odd spurt of jealousy formed his reply.
“I have no objection to her coming here to be with you, but I’d prefer not to have her visits clash with mine.” Taking your attention away from me.
He dropped his hand, separating himself from the bond shared by the two sisters. No way was he going to allow it to interfere with what he wanted from Sally. Compassion for a victim he barely knew went only so far.
“Thank you. I’ll see that they don’t,” she said, her gaze skidding away from his, which suggested a very acute consciousness of what was sizzling through his intentions where she was concerned.
Jack was sure she was every bit as sexually aware of him as he was of her. It all came down to timing, he thought, telling himself that patience would serve him well. This weekend was groundwork, learning the lay of the land so he made no mistakes when
