I’m sorry, but I’m afraid there’s a slight problem…’
‘A problem? What sort of a problem?’
‘The—the cottage… It’s double booked. Someone else has the tenancy for the next…’
Her voice deserted her as she saw the way his beautiful mouth thinned in anger, his adamant shake of his dark head rejecting her desperate bluff even before she’d managed to express it.
‘Then “someone else” will have to find somewhere else to stay.’
‘But they can’t! They…’
‘Don’t fight me on this, Ellie,’ Morgan warned. ‘You won’t like the consequences if you do. The tenancy is mine—signed and paid for—and with a cheque that was cleared even before I set off from London. So if you have any ideas of backing out, I warn you that you will find things very uncomfortable. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Crystal.’
What else could she say? He didn’t have to put his threat into words. She could read it in the cold brilliance of his eyes, the ruthless determination that set his strong jaw hard against any hope of appeal.
And she couldn’t risk that threat being made real. Money was desperately tight on the farm, and the idea of setting up the holiday cottages to bring in some much-needed income was a new one. It had taken a huge investment to bring the old buildings up to scratch. That was why Henry had been so delighted when he’d taken Morgan’s near end of season booking.
‘No—I’m sure it can be sorted out. We’ll find a way round…’
‘We?’ Morgan demanded sharply. ‘I spoke to a Mr Knightley on the phone.’
‘Henry.’ Ellie nodded, her expression warming slightly. ‘He owns the farm.’
And Henry knew nothing about her own former relationship with Morgan. So of course he had seen no reason at all to hesitate when Morgan had rung up asking about the tenancy of Meadow Cottage.
‘He’s married to Nan—to my grandmother.’
Just for a moment the stiff mask slipped from his face, revealing a look of genuine astonishment.
‘Marion?’
It would be a shock, Ellie reflected, a touch of amusement breaking through the tension that held her slim body taut and stiff. The last time he had seen her grandmother had been almost two years ago when she had been the widowed Mrs Thornton. Even her own family had been stunned by the whirlwind romance that had ensued from Marion’s meeting with Henry Knightley.
‘She married again in November last year. Just after…’
Frantically she caught the words up, terrified at what she had been about to reveal.
‘Just two months after she met Henry,’ she amended awkwardly, painfully conscious of everything she was holding back.
By mentioning Henry Knightley, she had moved the conversation onto very dangerous ground. Morgan might know nothing about Henry, other than the phone conversation he’d had with the older man, but Henry’s grandson was a totally different matter. Pete Bedford was the man Morgan believed that she had left him for. The man she had allowed Morgan to think was her new lover in order to cover up the truth.
‘So is that how you came to be here? You came with Marion?’
‘No, I was here first. I was helping Henry out and Nan came to visit. She met Henry and the rest is history.’
The same could have been said about herself and Morgan, she reflected miserably. Their relationship had followed much of the same heady pattern.
They had met, fallen head over heels for each other, become lovers, and moved in together in exactly the same time span as her grandmother and Henry. But the major difference was that at no point at all had Morgan shown any inclination to want to make any other commitment to her. Marriage, and all that went along with it, had very definitely not been in his plans for the future.
She had been prepared to put up with that. Loving him so desperately, she hadn’t asked for more than he’d been willing to give. She had lived with him, shared his life, his bed, and at first that had been enough.
But then things had changed, forcing her into a decision that had torn her heart in two.
‘Well, if you’re stopping, you’ll need these…’
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a bunch of keys and waved them, letting the ring that held them dangle from one finger. The faint jingling noise they made added a welcome note of carelessness, one she tried to match as she went on, ‘I think you’ll find Meadow Cottage very comfortable. I hope you enjoy your stay.’
There, now she’d done her duty—more than her duty! She’d met Morgan as arranged, faced him, spoken to him, and by doing so she’d also confronted her own private demons.
And she’d survived.
If she could just get out now, then she might be able to hold herself together. If she went home…
Home…
A sudden wave of devastating longing swept over her. The need to see Rosie, to hold her daughter’s small, warm body close, to inhale the sweet baby scent of her, to hear her soft breathing, was so powerful that it almost overwhelmed her.
It was because of Rosie that she had had to leave Morgan in the first place, something that had come close to destroying her but which had seemed the only way out. Faced with a choice that had been no choice at all, she had been torn between the two people that she loved most in all the world. And she had had to choose Rosie.
Rosie was her world now, all that she had left after losing her relationship with Morgan and the future she had dreamed of. But if Morgan ever found out the truth, then that world was likely to come crashing down round her ears, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what her future would be after that.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MR STAFFORD will you please take the keys?’
He’d waited just too long for Ellie’s peace of mind. His silence and the way he was watching her, blue eyes slightly narrowed against the sun, made her feel desperately uneasy, the tangled mass of knots in her stomach tightening with every uneven heartbeat.
‘The keys…’ she repeated with as much emphasis as she dared. ‘I have to be going.’
‘No.’
It came so softly, almost thrown away, that for a moment or two she wasn’t at all sure she had heard him right and frowned her confusion.
‘What…?’ Bewildered she looked up at him, golden eyes wide in shock and confusion. ‘Mr Stafford—I…’
Did she know what it did to him when she looked at him like that? Morgan wondered. Did she know how it twisted deep inside him to see those amazing eyes burn with rejection where once he had seen them burn with love for him—or with what he had believed was love?
