more and this property must also be occupied by both of you on a regular basis.’
It was the craziest list of demands that Ophelia had ever heard. Marriage! With their combined family history the very suggestion mortified her pride. But while the rest of the world had long since moved on, Gladys Stewart had remained stuck in the bitterness of the distant past. Evidently the will was her grandmother’s last desperate attempt to gain her revenge thirty-odd years after the day that Aristide Metaxis had jilted Ophelia’s mother, Cathy, at the altar.
The big society wedding of which Gladys Stewart had been so proud had turned into an instrument of family humiliation. When she’d been on the very brink of achieving her snobbish ambition of marrying her daughter off to a rich, well-connected man, it had all blown up in her face. The bridegroom had defected at the eleventh hour with the aristocratic and impoverished Virginia Waveney, who had then lived in the gatehouse at the foot of Madrigal Court’s drive. Unhappily all too many people had gloried in Gladys’s discomfiture, for she had never been popular, and the older woman’s raging resentment had turned inward like a canker.
‘Marriage is naturally not an option.’ The insane suggestion that it could be gave Lysander’s voice a sardonic edge of disdain.
Ophelia bridled at the soft note of silken derision that laced his accented drawl and threw her head high. ‘Not if I was dragged kicking and screaming to the altar—he’s a Metaxis!’ she vented.
The solicitor gaped at her.
‘Try to restrain your taste for melodrama until the legal niceties have been dealt with,’ Lysander advised with lethal scorn.
Ophelia honestly didn’t know how she managed not to stand up and thump him. Her eyes blazing as blue as a flame in the heart of a fire, she looked at him. ‘I didn’t like your tone of voice—’
‘I’m a Metaxis and proud of it.’ Shimmering bronze eyes struck sparks off hers in cold challenge. ‘Keep quiet and let the grown-ups deal with business.’
Ophelia plunged upright like a jack-in-the-box on a spring. His unapologetic insolence outraged her. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’ she launched at him.
Lysander was entertained by the ease with which she rose to the bait.
‘Ophelia…Mr Metaxis…please let me finish,’ Donald Morton interposed in a pained plea…
CHAPTER TWO
WITH colour burnishing her cheeks and silky golden strands of hair descending from her wobbly topknot, Ophelia was trembling with a rage unlike any she had ever experienced. Slowly, grudgingly, she forced herself to sit down again in the seething silence.
‘If no marriage takes place, Madrigal Court will go to Ophelia’s third cousin, Cedric Gilbert,’ Donald Morton hastened to tell them.
‘But my grandmother hated Cedric—she wouldn’t even let him into the house!’ Ophelia gasped.
Cedric was a wealthy property speculator. When Gladys had discovered that her husband’s relative had been making sly enquiries about his chances of gaining planning permission for a housing estate at Madrigal Court, she had been outraged by his greed and calculation.
‘I should add that although Mr Gilbert would inherit in those circumstances,’ the solicitor continued, ‘his ownership would be restricted by an agreement neither to sell the house nor try to develop the site for five years.’
The angles of Lysander’s bold bronzed profile hardened. ‘And if he were to break those rules?’
‘The entire estate would then devolve to the government. Mrs Stewart was keen to eradicate any potential loopholes.’
Lysander, who always thought fastest in a tight corner, was engaged in suppressing a lacerating tide of fury. He could not recall when anyone had last got the better of him. That an elderly woman he had never met should have succeeded in boxing him into a corner was a lesson that some might have deemed salutary but which Lysander deemed offensive in the extreme. He wondered if Gladys Stewart had somehow discovered his position and composed her absurd will with a callous awareness of that background pressure in mind. Yet how could she have had access to confidential family information? In the time frame concerned it was impossible, he conceded harshly.
When the solicitor went on to list the substantial debts that had accrued against the estate, Ophelia grew pale since she often lay awake at night worrying about how they would be paid. The utility bills and the council tax were all outstanding and she had no idea how she would contrive to pay off her share of them, for she had nothing valuable to sell. She squirmed at the humiliation of having such personal financial business laid bare in the presence of Lysander Metaxis.
‘Was there any other information…er…left for me?’ Ophelia was dismayed that the will hadn’t even mentioned her sister Molly’s existence.
The older man peered at her over the top of his spectacles. ‘Well, there is a letter to be given to you on the occasion of your wedding.’
As a wedding was most unlikely to arise, frustration and fierce disappointment flared through Ophelia. As quickly she scolded herself for assuming that the letter might contain anything that would help her to track down her sister. After all, if the tenor of her grandmother’s will revealed anything, it was that Gladys Stewart’s overweening desire for revenge had meant infinitely more to her than family ties. How could her grandmother have made such a preposterous demand in her will? Two strangers marrying to inherit a house? As if Lysander Metaxis would be desperate enough to go to those lengths to acquire Madrigal Court!
Lysander brought the meeting to a swift conclusion.
‘I would be grateful if you could both confirm your final intentions with regard to the will within the week,’ the solicitor remarked in an apologetic tone.
Lysander Metaxis rose lithely from his seat. ‘Ophelia? I want a tour of the house.’
Unprepared for that declaration, Ophelia bristled. Where the heck did he get the nerve to demand a tour after the way he had spoken to her? And he was demanding, for that blunt statement was light years away from a polite request. Then maybe he didn’t know how to be polite. Maybe he was just a bone-deep arrogant boor with no concept of good manners. That idea soothed her temper.
‘I’m sorry, no, it’s not convenient,’ Ophelia breathed curtly, blanking the tall powerful Greek while catching sight of the solicitor’s dismay at her refusal. But Lysander Metaxis inspired her with sheer loathing and she saw no reason to pretend otherwise. After all, they lived in different worlds and would never meet again in this lifetime.
‘I never ask for favours. You give me the official tour and I’ll pay your water charges,’ Lysander drawled smooth as glass.
Ophelia could barely believe that he had made such a degrading offer. As if her tolerance and time could be purchased with his wretched money! On the other hand, it was a very generous offer and could she really afford to turn it down? Why shouldn’t he have to pay? It was a real climb-down after his rudeness, a victory really, Ophelia’s agile brain reasoned. Letting him pay was like fining him for bad behaviour and it was perfectly possible that he only appreciated what he had to pay for.
‘All of the water charges?’ Ophelia enquired stiffly, angrily rejecting the inner reflection that two wrongs did not make a right.
‘Ophelia…I
