way she spoke drove home the hurt. Did she think she could take Lucy’s place? “I’ll wait.” The rush of sexual desire was replaced by hard distrust.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked, turning to lead him into the drawing room. “Coffee, something stronger?”
“I’m fine.” He sounded just short of curt. “You’re the one who looks like you could do with a stiff drink.”
“You startled me, that’s all.”
“I might have been an intruder,” he said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Perhaps it was the quality of your own surprise,” she returned. “You don’t like or trust me.” There was straightforward challenge in her voice.
“It’s not a question of liking, Ms Erickson. It’s more to do with your role.”
“Back to Ms Erickson, no Sonya?” She arched her fine brows.
“Sonya is a lovely name.” He shrugged. “Tell me, is it your real name?”
“What an extraordinary question.”
She had come to stand beneath a nineteenth century Russian chandelier, one of a matched pair in the yellow, gold and Wedgwood blue drawing room. In front of the white Carrara marble fireplace he noted she had placed a huge Chinese fish bowl filled with a wealth of sweet-smelling flowers. To add to the impact the beautiful pastel colours mimicked the colours in the magnificent nineteenth century Meissen porcelain clock that took centre place on the mantelpiece beneath a very valuable landscape. Other small arrangements were placed around the large room, rivalling the treasures on display.
“And?”
“Of course it’s my real name,” she said, one hand pushing a thick lock of hair back off her shoulder.
The drawing room was all too feminine for his taste, too opulent, silks and brocades, but Sonya Erickson could have been made for it. Even in tight sexy jeans and designer vest-top she fitted in. It occurred to him with her hair worn long and loose and very little make-up she looked hardly more than a girl of nineteen or twenty.
He released a tense breath. “But what about the Erickson? Would you believe I actually knew a woman who changed her name four times? She’s in jail now for fraud. She managed to extract the life savings from God knows how many fools of men.”
“Please, don’t make me weep!” she exclaimed. “Men are fools. But it’s hardly fraudulent to change one’s name by deed poll.”
“Are you saying you have?’
She ignored his question. “Why don’t you sit down?” she invited, with an elegant gesture of her hand.
“You might be in your own house,” he answered, tightly. Lucy’s house.
“Marcus has made me very welcome here.” Her answer was equally pointed. “So you can’t find out much about me. How disappointing for you. Is this what it’s all about?”
“I came to see Marcus,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Why don’t you take the sofa?” he suggested. “I’ll take the armchair. I know you’re highly intelligent so we can cut to the chase. It’s obvious my uncle has come to care deeply for you. And in a very short space of time. That presents problems, don’t you agree?”
“Problems for you? I don’t see the problem for me. Marcus is a lovely man. Was I supposed to submit my credentials to you? I might tell you Marcus has never asked anything of me. He trusts me.”
His brilliant dark eyes flashed. “That’s what I’m worried about. Who and what are you really, Sonya? What is it you want?”
“Who said I wanted anything?” she responded with an imperious lift of her brows. She took not the gold sofa, but a gilded armchair opposite him.
Sunlight was falling through the tall windows, filtered by the sheer central curtain. It illuminated her figure, making her hair and her beautiful skin radiant. “You were wearing Aunt Lucy’s diamond and emerald jewellery at the gala function,” he said, the words freighted with meaning.
A flush like pink roses on snow warmed her cheeks. “Is there anything shameful about that? You’re far too quick to place blame. Marcus wanted me to wear them. I could say insisted. He’d asked me the colour of my dress. When I said emerald green, he suggested a set of jewellery that needed an airing. I assure you the set is safely back in his safe.”
It was too hard to resist. “Do you happen to know the combination?”
“Do you?” she shot back.
“I could open it blindfolded. I really don’t want to offend you, Sonya.”
“Then you couldn’t be doing a better job,” she said coldly, sitting very straight, long legs crossed neatly at the ankles.
Excellent deportment lessons there. “Your dress was exquisite, by the way. Did Marcus buy it for you?”
“Ah, the direct approach!” she said, looking down her finely cut nose at him. “I wore it because I had nothing better. Nor could I buy better. The dress is many years old.”
He sat studying her. She appeared to be telling the truth.
“Vintage haute couture.” She waved a hand.
“It looked it,” he said, wanting to pierce her defences.
She shrugged a shoulder. “But you are not here to discuss my evening dress, which I might tell you belongs to me.” She remembered her beautiful mother wearing it. But that was another time, another place, another world. A time when she had been happy.
“Actually I’m here to catch up with my uncle,” he said, breaking into her sad thoughts. “My love and loyalty is with him. You must understand that?”
She gave a light sceptical laugh. “Come now, you have no real right to interfere in his life, David. Marcus is a man in his fifties, a highly intelligent man.”
“Who in all his adult years has never looked at another woman outside Lucy. Until now,” he retorted sharply. “My big concern, Sonya, is that he doesn’t get hurt. Extraordinarily enough Marcus is an innocent in his way. His health isn’t all that good either. For years the whole family has been concerned he might simply die of a broken heart. That’s how devoted he was to Lucy, his wife.”
She flicked a platinum tendril off her heated cheek. “I understand the great pain of his loss. Marcus has told me many things about his beloved Lucy.” She could tell him something of her own losses but her rigid sense of caution stopped her.
“Has he?” Another highly significant thing, he thought.
“Haven’t you met anyone in your life you immediately identified with?” she asked, hostility in her beautiful green eyes.
He stared back at her, knowing he could never say he had identified with her. On sight.
“You won’t be able to
