AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Well, I’m certainly not taking you to someone else’s.’
‘But…but it’s beautiful,’ she said weakly.
His smile mocked her confusion. ‘What did you expect? Some Victorian monstrosity tarted up by a fashionable interior designer? I saw this house for the first time twenty years ago when I was still at school, and I vowed then that one day it would be mine. You could call it a case of love at first sight.’
‘I’m surprised you believe in such things.’
The words slipped out, tinged with pain. Such a short time ago she wouldn’t have believed in it herself, but now she knew better.
‘But then you don’t really know me, do you? Luke said coolly. ‘Love isn’t something that happens according to plan. It obeys no laws but its own. Surely you must have noticed how incongruously it strikes? How…cruelly? After all, that’s something you’ve had first-hand experience of yourself, isn’t it?’
For a moment Genista thought he had guessed how she felt about him. Her face went paper-white, her lips parting tremulously in quick denial, and then she realised that he was probably referring to her parents. He couldn’t know how she felt; she had been at such pains to hide it from him.
He stopped
the car in front of the house, gravel crunching underfoot as he walked round to her door and opened it for her.
The house was all in darkness.
‘Someone comes in to clean for me every morning, and leave a meal prepared if I’m dining at home, but I prefer not to have live-in help. I enjoy my privacy.’
He touched a light switch and the square hall was immediately illuminated with light. Genista stared around, her eyes widening with pleasure. The hall was panelled, the wood glowing mellowly with the patina of the years. Underfoot on the parquet floor lay silky Persian rugs, glowing richly. On a table beneath a portrait stood a huge brass bowl full of crimson roses.
‘The sitting room is through there,’ Luke murmured, touching her arm. ‘It’s the library really, but I prefer it to the drawing room, which I find too large when I’m on my own. I left instructions for a buffet meal to be left for us. I’ll just go and bring in the cases.’
Genista was in the library, examining some of the books on the shelves when he returned. The room was furnished comfortably rather than luxuriously, and she had an immediate sense of being at home.
‘I expect you do a good deal of business entertaining here,’ she commented when Luke walked in.
He shrugged off his jacket and walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet removing a bottle and two glasses.
‘This is my home, not a conference centre,’ he told her harshly as he poured the golden amber liquid into the crystal. ‘I didn’t buy the house as a tax deductible investment, if that’s what you mean. When I want to do business I use my office—that’s what it’s for. When I want to relax I come home. It may be that I have to call upon you occassionally to entertain for me, but it will be occasionally—you won’t have to work for your keep if that’s what’s worrying you. And talking about “keep”.’ He picked up one of the glasses and brought it across to her. ‘Malt whisky—drink it, you look pale, it will do you good…For the duration of our marriage I’ll make you an allowance. Although I don’t expect you to act as my social secretary, you will have certain…responsibilities. You’ll need clothes…’
‘I don’t want your money!’ Genista put down her glass, its contents untouched, her voice tight with anger. ‘I have plenty of money for my wants. I don’t want yours, Luke.’
‘But nevertheless you will take it.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw, and his fingers were clenched round the precious crystal. ‘You destroyed the cheque I gave you to buy a wedding outfit—your pride refused to allow you to wear something I had paid for. Well, I have my pride too, Genista, and just as long as you’re my wife, I will keep you. Is that understood?’
For a moment she contemplated defying him, but the look in his eyes warned her that it would be wiser not to.
‘I suppose I’ll be allowed to keep my car,’ she responded sarcastically at length.
‘What would you do if I said “no?” Keep within the bounds of this house like a prisoner rather than touch anything I might have given you? I don’t carry the plague, you know, Genista. I won’t contaminate you.’
‘You already have.’
She said it so quietly that she thought he hadn’t heard her, until the brittle sound of glass breaking brought her head up in shocked protest. His glass lay shattered in the hearth in a dozen pieces, his face white with fury.
‘Damn you, you won’t let me forget, will you?’ he swore. ‘What am I supposed to do? Pay a penance for the rest of my life because I took your virginity? What is it you hate the most, Genista? The fact that I wasn’t Bob, or the fact that you enjoyed it, despite that?’
‘You’re dispicable!’
‘Despicable or not, I’m still your husband. Remember that, won’t you?’
When the door slammed behind him Genista sank into the nearest chair. She heard the throaty roar of the Maserati as it roared away, although it was several seconds before she realised that Luke had left her completely alone in her new home. She waited half an hour and when he did not return she rose on shaky legs and started to explore her new surroundings.
Across the hall from the library was the drawing room, a beautifully proportioned room, which had obviously been remodelled during the Georgian era. The high, moulded ceiling and graceful marble fireplace drew a faint sigh of appreciation from her. The room was decorated in shades of palest green, and beautiful though it was she could quite see why Luke might prefer the library for relaxing in. It was much more a family room. A family! She stopped like someone transfixed. Where on earth were her errant thoughts leading? Any family that filled this beautiful house would not be hers and Luke’s, but the thought of the children he might father on another woman left her raw with a pain that lacerated her already tender heart.
Behind the library was a formal dining room, elegant antique furniture gleaming under the lights of the chandelier. Genista closed the double doors quietly, trying not to imagine that huge mahogany table filled with a large family.
