so long as she did not have to suffer his odious presence. ‘She has been visiting my Aunt Shona—my mother’s sister who lives in Bloomsbury with her family. She is travelling back to her home in Cumbria and thought she would break her journey to spend some time with me and my father here at Burntwood Hall. Sadly, it has not turned out as she expected. I am only thankful she arrived to see my father before the terrible accident happened.’
‘I am surprised you did not travel with her to London to visit your aunt.’
‘Had my father been in better health I might have—but as it was I did not wish to be away from home in—in case…’
‘I understand,’ he said quietly when she faltered, her tight façade of dignity slipping slightly, and for a brief moment she looked like a forlorn child. ‘Your father spoke of you often. Indeed, he told me so much about you that I feel I have known you all my life.’
‘Really!’ she retorted crisply, the shutters up once more. ‘You surprise me, Mr Fitzalan. So much of my father’s time was spent away from home, despite his illness, that I am flattered to learn he could find the time even to think of me, let alone to discuss me with a total stranger.’
‘Your father and I were hardly strangers, Miss Somerville. And,’ he said with a gentle lift to his eyebrows, holding her gaze steadily, ‘neither are we, come to think of it.’
‘Despite what took place between us on our previous encounter you are to me,’ Eve replied directly, her voice cool, finding it difficult to conceal her dislike. ‘However, when he was at home it may interest you to know that he always spoke of you a great deal, too, Mr Fitzalan,’ she said pointedly. ‘In fact, there was never a day went by when he did not sing your praises.’ Her voice held a faint trace of sarcasm and was cold, which she knew was reflected in her eyes.
‘I myself would hardly deem our meeting a pleasure,’ she continued, the impressionable, ignorant girl she had been when he had last seen her having fled away, although the remembrance of their encounter and the resulting chaos knifed through her as it had then.
Marcus frowned. ‘What happened between us was a long time ago. Surely now—especially at this time with your father so recently laid to rest—we can at least be friends.’
‘I doubt we can be friends now or in the future, Mr Fitzalan. After today it is most unlikely that our paths will cross again.’
His eyes became probing, penetrating hers like dagger thrusts, his face a hard, expressionless mask. ‘Don’t be too sure about that, Miss Somerville,’ he said quietly. ‘Atwood and Netherley are not so far apart—and your father and I were business partners as well as friends. I would say it is inevitable that we meet at some social event or other.’
‘We do not mix in the same society, Mr Fitzalan, but if we do chance to meet you will forgive me if I seem to avoid you.’
‘Come now, you were not so ill disposed towards me the last time we met,’ he said, his tone silky, easy, his eyes regarding her with fascinated amusement. ‘In fact, you were rather amiable, as I remember.’
‘You remember too much,’ Eve snapped, two sparks of anger showing briefly beneath her lowered lids. ‘It was an incident which I have had cause to reproach myself for many times.’
Undeterred by her show of anger Marcus chuckled softly, a glint of white teeth showing from between his parted lips. ‘I recall how you went off in an extremely disagreeable mood.’
‘I am still disagreeable and will remain so while ever I am in your company, Mr Fitzalan. Now you must excuse me. There are several people I must speak to before they depart.’
Before Marcus could reply and uncaring that her words might have given offence, Eve turned from him, seeing her friend Emma Parkinson moving towards her. Quickly she moved on, leaving her grandmother to carry on the conversation, determined not to give Mr Fitzalan another thought.
But it was not possible for her to dismiss a man of Marcus Fitzalan’s calibre from her mind—in fact, she thought with bitter irony, she doubted that anyone would be able to. Once met, he was not the kind of man who could be forgotten. When he had taken her hand he had kept it far too long in his hard grasp for her liking, and the fact that she had to look up at him had annoyed her, causing fresh resentment to flare up inside her, but she had been unable to take her eyes off his handsome features, which had caused him to arch his clearly defined eyebrows and a half-smile to curve his infuriatingly arrogant lips.
When he spoke, his voice was of a depth and timbre that was like a caress, causing a faint stroke of colour to sweep over her creamy skin, bringing a smile to his lips, for he knew exactly the effect he was having on her.
Despite the solemnity of the occasion, as she moved among the mourners who congregated at Burntwood Hall after the funeral, she was conscious of Marcus Fitzalan’s presence throughout, becoming annoyed with herself as she found her eyes unconsciously seeking him out, and she would find herself studying him when she thought he was not looking. But several times their eyes would meet and he made no attempt to hide the gleam of interest that entered his eyes as she felt herself undergoing the selfsame scrutiny.
Eve was not used to men of the world like Marcus Fitzalan, and for the first time in her life realised she was in danger of stepping out of her depth. He had a reputation as being one for the ladies, although he was always discreet in his affairs. By all accounts he was arrogant, conceited and ruthless—in fact, he was everything Eve hated. She had every reason to dislike him and, seeing him again for the first time in three years, she was determined that nothing would sway her from her opinion.
Waiting for Mr Soames to begin reading the will, Eve could feel Marcus’s eyes on her yet again, vibrant, alarmingly alive, assessing her in a way she found offensive as he stood by the window, looking for all the world as if he owned the place.
He was a neighbour and an associate in several of her father’s business concerns, a man her father had been extremely fond of, as well as being a wealthy land and mine owner in his own right, so there was nothing unusual about his presence for the reading of the will.
The Fitzalans had had to struggle to achieve prosperity as opposed to the Somervilles, who were rich not only in wealth but also in lineage. Marcus’s grandfather had been an astute, self-made man, seizing on the opportunities to be achieved by the mining of coal, knowing it was fuel for a whole range of industrial processes and for the new generation of industrial workers—and also knowing there was no shortage of it beneath the soil of Britain.
Reaching some degree of financial ability, he had bought fifty acres of land adjacent to the Somerville estate and opened his own mine—Atwood Mine. Coal had enabled him to sink more mines and given him the means to build Brooklands—a house to be envied and admired—but after a series of serious mishaps Atwood Mine had fallen into the hands of John Somerville.
Marcus’s handsome eyes raked the face of the girl sitting primly at the table across the room without her bonnet. His eyes dwelt on her hair, as ebony black and shiny like his own, her eyebrows arched and sleek, her neck rising graceful and swanlike from her slender shoulders. There was a creamy smoothness to her skin with a soft blush on her angular cheeks, giving a slant to her large and mysterious violet-coloured eyes that held his like magnets. Her lips were luscious, her chin pert with a stubborn thrust, and all these attractive features were encompassed in a perfect, heart-shaped face.
She was beautiful, slim and vibrant, the gentle curve of her young breasts straining beneath the bodice of her black dress. She still had the looks of a child, but there was something bold and defiant in
