are you to tell me what’s proper, or who to “hang out” with?’ she demanded. ‘What about Alice Mannerly, and Sarah Afton-Crimsbury? Oh, yes, I know all about them, and all of the other girls you’ve dated and discarded, Harry, because I read the tabs. That’s quite a double standard you’ve got going.’
‘Call it whatever you like,’ Harry gritted, ‘but I’m an adult, you’re not, and you’re coming home.’ He took her arm and pulled her forward. ‘Now.’
‘I’m not leaving! I’m not a child! Let go of me!’ she cried.
‘You heard her,’ Ciaran snapped, and stepped between Harry and Charlotte. ‘She doesn’t wish to leave.’
‘I’m warning you,’ Harry breathed. ‘Stay out of this, Duncan, and stay away from Charli as well, or…’
‘Or what?’ Ciaran challenged, his eyes narrowed.
Harry hurled himself at the actor, and Ciaran drew his arm back and punched him in the face with a resounding crack, sending him staggering back against the deck railing.
Charlotte let out a small scream as Harry straightened and launched himself straight at Ciaran.
‘Harry, no!’ she wailed. ‘Both of you, please, please stop!’
But as the two men grappled and exchanged punches, she realised they weren’t listening, and she knew she had to do something – anything – to stop them. Spying the pitcher of iced water on the table, she grabbed it and flung it on them, vaguely aware as she did so of the rapid click and whirr of a camera somewhere nearby.
She glanced up to see a man with darkish blond hair crouched on a neighbouring yacht, his face half hidden behind a Nikon with a telephoto lens. It was trained on the Meryton as he snapped a series of rapid-fire photos.
‘Stop,’ Charli shouted again, and levelled a glare at the man on the yacht. ‘Stop taking those pictures this instant!’
As he drove them back to Cleremont, Hugh subsided into a frowning, broody silence.
‘What’s wrong?’ Holly asked him, and laid a hand on his arm. ‘It’s Charlotte, isn’t it?’ she added.
‘Yes. I’m worried about her, getting involved with that scoundrel Ciaran. I don’t like it. I’m only sorry we didn’t reach the dock in time for me to have a word with her.’
‘It wouldn’t have done any good,’ Holly pointed out. ‘You’d only have made Charlotte angry… at you. Not to mention more determined than ever to see Ciaran.’
She spoke from experience. Was it only last summer that the film star had worked his charm on her, convincing her he was madly in love and desperate to marry her?
Thank God she’d learned what he was really up to before it was too late.
Hugh let out a short breath. ‘Of course you’re right. At least I got hold of Harry and he promised to bring her home. But I do wonder if I shouldn’t tell Mr Bennet as well. He ought to know what his daughter’s up to.’
‘Well, she’s of age,’ Holly said, ‘and her father may already know that she’s seeing Ciaran, and may not mind.’
‘I doubt that.’ Hugh’s words were firm.
‘He hurt your sister very badly, didn’t he?’ she said after a moment.
His hands tightened on the wheel. ‘Phoebe was young and trusting, just like Charlotte, and Ciaran used her and discarded her like a – a toy he no longer wanted. Never mind that she was expecting his child.’
Holly laid a comforting hand on his arm. ‘I know. He even had the audacity to tell me that you’d treated his sister Jane in exactly the same way.’
‘Yes, of course, you know the story… most of it. He demanded she get rid of it. She did, but the guilt nearly destroyed her, and she tried to kill herself. She took a handful of sleeping pills,’ he added matter-of-factly. ‘Thank God she was found before it was too late.’
Her hand tightened on his arm. ‘Where’s your sister now?’
‘Happily married and living in Pembrokeshire,’ he answered, and smiled slightly. ‘With two rambunctious children and a husband who dotes on her.’ His smile faded. ‘And Ciaran Duncan, thank God, is nothing more than a bad memory.’
***
‘I don’t mean to pry, my dear, but what on earth is the matter?’
Lizzy Bennet looked up as her father, his face creased in concern, sat down across from her at the kitchen table.
The house was mercifully quiet; Charlotte and Emma had gone out to spend Sunday afternoon with their friends. The cat slept on the cushioned settle, and the only sound was the tick of the wall clock over the Aga.
Lizzy was glad of the lull; it meant there was no one to overhear her conversation with her father, no one to tease her or question her about things she didn’t wish to discuss.
She looked at Mr Bennet now and managed a wan smile. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘Something’s bothering you, and has been since yesterday afternoon. What is it?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just feeling a bit sorry for myself, I suppose, that’s all.’
‘No.’ He shook his head gently but firmly. ‘There’s more to it than that, or I very much miss my guess. Something’s happened to upset you.’
She regarded him in exasperation. ‘There’s no fooling you, is there?’ She sighed. ‘It’s Hugh. Hugh Darcy.’
He blinked. ‘I should have thought his return would make you happy, not the opposite. The two of you were so close when you were younger, after all; inseparable, really…’ He stopped. ‘Ah,’ he murmured as understanding dawned, ‘I think, perhaps, I begin to see.’
‘I was so excited to hear that he was coming back home to Cleremont,’ she admitted, and laid her hands on the table. ‘It’s been eight years since we last saw each other.’ She frowned. ‘I suppose I hoped Hugh might… feel the same as he once did. I wasn’t at all prepared for the news that he’s engaged to Holly.’
Mr Bennet looked at her in dismay. ‘Oh, Lizzy, you can’t mean to say that you honestly expected a proposal from him…?’
‘Why not? Like you said, we’ve known each other for yonks, practically since we were in nappies. No one’s ever understood me the way Hugh does. No one ever will.’
‘The Darcys move in different circles than us, Lizzy,’ he said gently. ‘Surely you see that.’
‘I can’t believe you just said that,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a snob you are, Daddy.’
‘Not a snob, Lizzy, just a realist. Holly’s much more suited to marry into
