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For a moment, she was speechless—her eyes searching his face.
‘Do you think you could bear to be my wife?’ he continued softly.
Her mouth was working but no words seemed to be coming and then she nodded, and her words seemed to fall over themselves in their eagerness to be heard. She, Ashley Jones who could never find a foster family to love her, was being proposed to by Jack Marchant? He was telling her that he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Was she dreaming—or was this really happening? ‘Yes, oh yes! I mean, I do. Of course I’ll marry you. How could I not when I love you so much? I can’t… I can’t believe. Oh, Jack! ‘
He slid the ring onto her finger—and then kissed her trembling lips.
‘You’re happy?’ he asked.
‘I’m beyond happy… I’m… ecstatic. It feels like a dream. Oh, Jack.’
‘There’s just one thing.’ He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘I don’t want you to tell anybody else about this. Do you understand? Not just yet.’
Her bubble of happiness wobbled as she saw the diamond’s light reflected on his lips. ‘Is there… a particular reason why?’
‘It’s complicated. Can you trust me, Ashley?’
There was a pause. Yes, she could trust him. If she had given him her heart then she had to trust him. Not just yet, he had said. And surely she could understand that. He was a fiercely private man and this was to be theirs. Theirs alone—nobody else’s.
‘Does that mean I shouldn’t wear the ring?’ she questioned.
‘Well, not as a general rule, no—not yet. How about only wearing it in the bedroom?’ he murmured as he bent to kiss her. ‘Let’s say it’s the only thing you’re allowed to wear in the bedroom.’
It seemed a reasonable—and provocative—request. And, of course, Ashley adapted to the situation because she wanted to. Just as she wanted him—more than she had ever wanted anything. If she’d been older or wiser, she might have questioned his request and asked herself why he was so intent on keeping it a secret from the world. But Ashley was too blinded by love and excitement to care. Each morning, she would hold her hand up to the light to stare at the ring—where the ice-white dazzle of the stone reminded her that this wasn’t all a figment of her imagination.
Maybe it was happiness which made her careless.
Jack had gone down to London for a couple of days to meet with his literary agent and his lawyers, leaving Ashley behind to work on the manuscript. He didn’t ask her to accompany him and she didn’t expect him to—but it was the first time they’d been parted since they’d become lovers and she missed him desperately. She continued to sleep in his bed, even though she hated the empty space beside her. And she would press her face into his pillow, breathing in his distinctive scent and longing for the time when he would be home.
At least having the place to herself meant that she could get on with her work. Uninterrupted in the quiet house, she made huge inroads into his book and was tackling chapter ten when Christine walked into the office one morning. Ashley looked up in surprise. ‘Christine!’
‘Why, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ observed the housekeeper.
‘B-but you’re not supposed to be here!’
‘There’s been a package delivered to the post office for Mr Marchant and they rang to ask me to collect it as they couldn’t get a reply from here. Perhaps I should have run it past you first?’ said Christine with a slight edge of sarcasm in her voice.
With a sudden lurch of her heart, Ashley realised that she was still wearing her ring and quickly she slid her hand onto her lap. Had the other woman seen it? And would it be obvious if she started trying to tug the ring off underneath her desk? Oh, this was insane. Why had Jack done this? she wondered with a sudden rare burst of anger. Did he mean to make her feel as if she was not only an object of affection but also one of shame?
‘I didn’t mean to sound rude, Christine.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’ The housekeeper hesitated for a moment, and then she pulled a funny kind of face. ‘Perhaps you ought to know that people round here are beginning to talk.’
‘Talk?’ Ashley stilled. ‘What do you mean exactly?’
‘These small villages are hotbeds of gossip—and word gets around. One of the cleaners has been talking about you—saying that you and Mr Marchant seem very.’
‘Very what?’
‘Close.’
Don’t react, Ashley told herself as she surreptitiously slid the ring from her finger and let her fingers close round it. ‘Well, we do work closely together.’
There was an awkward pause. ‘You’re a nice little thing, Ashley—and I’d hate to see you hurt.’ Christine’s face grew pink. ‘Just remember that the rich don’t always have it easy—and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. They have their secrets and their troubles, too.’
Ashley wanted to ask what she meant—but how could she possibly do that when she was sitting with the claws of the precious diamond ring digging into her palm? To start discussing such a contentious subject with Christine would surely lay her open to all kinds of complications—and weren’t things already complicated enough?
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ she said lightly.
