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‘Oh, Cressida,’ she murmured, ‘what have you done?’
‘What indeed!’ drawled a cynical voice from behind.
Feeling as if her body had jumped clean out of its skin, she swirled around with a loud gasp.
Luke Brannigan was getting up from a high-backed sofa, where he’d deposited his sleeping child. Tilted against the sofa was a huge, dirty-white canvas duffel bag, a jarring note, she decided abstractedly, in this elegant room.
He walked toward her, his tall frame moving between her and the doorway, blocking her means of escape—
Now why should she think she might need to escape? Oh, she knew why! His bold gaze was roaming over her with blatant male appreciation...lingeringly... as if he just couldn’t wait to get his hands where his eyes already were.
She stiffened.
‘Yes, what indeed,’ he repeated, and this time his tone was mocking. ‘But thank the Lord for codicils.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
His brows tugged together, as if she’d taken him aback... and then he gave a short derisive laugh.
‘You didn’t hear, did you! You were so wrapped up in delight at your own good fortune that you didn’t bother listening as Maxwell read out the finer points of the will.’
‘The finer points.’
‘The codicil. I guess Cressida still had a soft spot for me, despite our long estrangement—’
‘This codicil...’ Whitney’s cool tone revealed nothing of her rising sense of alarm. ‘What did it say?’
‘Pour me a drink and I’ll tell you.’
Whitney hesitated, briefly, and then with her lips compressed into a thin line, she crossed to the small buffet that served as a liquor cabinet.
‘What’ll you have?’ she asked curtly.
‘Scotch. Neat.’
She poured his drink but as she made to lift the glass, he said, ‘Are you going to make me drink alone?’
A drink might help steady her nerves, which were prickling; warning her of some danger ahead. She poured herself a rye, added a splash of ginger ale.
She placed his glass on the mantelpiece, and walked to the window. Then turned, so her back was to the light.
‘So.’ She took a sip of her drink, felt the fire of it race through her blood. ‘Tell me—’
‘Know something? I didn’t recognize you at first. The last time I saw you, you were still a scrawny twelve-year-old, with legs like twigs and pigtails the color of new carrots. But now—’
‘Yes?’ Whitney tilted her chin. She knew perfectly well what she looked like now, but it would be some sort of small revenge to have him admit how she’d changed.
How she’d...improved.
‘You’re a knockout,’ he said softly. ‘Even in that drab black outfit, you’re a knockout. Your figure, those green eyes and creamy skin, that fantastic flame red hair—lady, you’re drop-dead gorgeous...and you obviously know it. Just as you must know—’ his voice had become icy ‘—that you are the image of your late and unlamented mother.’
Whitney felt as winded as if he’d thrown her down a flight of stairs. ‘Yes.’ Somehow she managed to keep her voice steady. ‘I do look like my mother.’
‘Krystal would’ve been proud of you.’ His tone chilled her. ‘You’ve succeeded where she failed. You now own Brannigan House and the Emerald Valley Vineyards—and unlike your beautiful mother, who broke up a marriage in her unsuccessful attempt to achieve her goal, you had it handed to you on a platter. So tell me...’ He swallowed his Scotch in one gulp and rolled the empty glass between his hands. ‘What bargain did you make with the Devil, in order that you might inherit this paradise on earth?’
Because of her red hair, Whitney knew people expected her to have a temper. Which she did. But usually she managed to control it...and she was certainly not about to let this man know he was getting under her skin!
‘As you say, this house is now mine...and I’m not prepared to be insulted in it!’ She ignored an unexpected stab of compunction. Even if Luke had more right to the estate than she, she was honor-bound to respect the terms of the will. ‘I’m going up to change,’ she added cuttingly, ‘and when I come down, please be gone. If you’re not—’
His hand on her shoulder was rough, the unexpectedness of his move making her cry out as he spun her around.
‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ he said, with soft menace.
‘What?’
He smiled, and when she saw the triumph in his eyes, apprehension quivered through her.
‘The codicil,’ he said. ‘The terms of the codicil—’
‘I’m sure they don’t concern me!’
‘Ah, but they do. Grandmother’s codicil states—’
‘Edmund Maxwell left a copy of the will in the library.’ Whitney wrenched herself free. ‘I’ll read it for myself!’
The library was empty, and she hurried across to the desk. Snatching up the will, she flipped to the last page.
When she read the words typed there, she felt as if she’d stepped onto quicksand. She put a hand on the desktop to steady herself—
‘So you see—’ Luke had come up behind her ’—I’m to be living here, at Brannigan House, with you. And as long as I want to stay here, you may never sell the estate.’
‘It says,’ Whitney struggled to contain a feeling of panic, ‘that if you show up here on the day of the funeral, penniless and seeking shelter, I may not turn you away...and under those circumstances alone, I may not sell.’ She fixed him with a scathing gaze. ‘You’re now twenty-nine-’
‘Thirty.’ His eyes taunted her. ‘Just turned.’
‘You don’t expect me to believe you’ve come back after thirteen years with nothing but the shirt on your back—’
‘Not only that,’ he murmured, ‘but with a nine-month-old son to support. Cressida, bless her heart, must have known that one day I’d—’
‘Must have known you’d never amount to anything, Luke Brannigan!’ She glared at him. ‘Thank heavens your grandmother didn’t live to see this day!’
‘Now that’s where I beg to differ,’ he said mildly. ‘But right now I don’t have the strength to argue—I’ve been on the road since yesterday and I’m beat. If you’ll show me where we’re to be quartered...’ He moved across to the sofa, where he scooped up the baby, before easily swinging up his enormous bulging duffel bag. ‘I’d like to get settled in.’
Whitney put a hand to her brow, and felt her fingers tremble. Was she really stuck with this man? Was selling the estate not an option? If that was the case, how was she going to cope! Edmund Maxwell had said that Cressida had run out of money; she, Whitney, had a couple of thousand dollars in her own bank account...but that kind of money was peanuts, compared to what would be needed to make the Emerald Valley Vineyard a profitable entity again.
‘Why don’t you just take over your father’s suite.’ With a distracted gesture, she shoved back her hair.
‘I’d prefer not to use my father’s rooms.’ His jaw tightened. ‘How about the one looking down on the pool?’
‘No,’ Whitney said stiffly. ‘That’s mine.’
‘Then I’ll take the one next door.’ He raised his brows. ‘Any problem with that?’
Yes, she wanted to say. A big problem. The last thing she wanted was to have him sleeping in the next room to hers. ‘That’ll be fine. For now.’
The baby shifted, muttered and snuggled his face against Luke’s shirt. And Luke dropped an absent kiss on top of the child’s head, on the crown of the blue hat.
Something about the picture tugged Whitney’s heart; and as Luke turned on his heel and strode off, she stared after him, wondering why she felt so emotionally affected. Was it because Luke was so hard and invulnerable, while his child was trusting and helpless? Was it the tenderness of his gesture that had touched her heart? She didn’t want to think of Luke as tender; she wanted to keep believing him to be horrid and arrogant...and impossible.
Only then would she feel justified in using every trick she could come up with in order to get rid of him. Where was the mother of his child? Was she alive? Were they married? Divorced? Had they indeed ever been married? Was she still in his life?
One question she didn’t need to ask herself, because she already knew the answer. Luke still hated her...just as he’d hated her thirteen years before, when Cressida Brannigan had brought her to live at Brannigan House.
Looking at it now, from an adult point of view, she didn’t find Luke’s attitude toward her so surprising. After all, she had been the cause of all the quarrels between him and his grandmother, in particular that last ugly quarrel that had led to Cressida’s giving Luke the ultimatum that had resulted in Luke’s leaving the family home.
Whitney had always felt burdened by guilt over that, because Luke had disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Till today.
On learning of his grandmother’s death, he’d appeared shocked. Had he been? Or was he just a very good actor?
It was possible that word of Maxwell’s attempts to contact him had reached him. It was also equally possible that his arrival at Brannigan House, on this particular day, had been sheer coincidence. After all, it was a well-known fact that truth was stranger than fiction. And it didn’t really matter, did it! The bottom line was that he had turned up, like the proverbial bad penny...
Whitney frowned. He’d said he had no money. If indeed he was penniless, then he was entitled to move into this house and make it his home.
But she was not about to take his claim at face value. She had a responsibility to Cressida, to make sure the terms of her will were carried out to the letter.
She’d get Edmund Maxwell onto it immediately, have him make some investigations...and ferret out the truth.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WELL, I am impressed...’
Whitney hadn’t heard Luke come into the kitchen. His voice startled her, and she took a moment to calm herself before turning around.
‘Impressed? By what?’
He glanced at the stacks of clean dishes, and the dozens of crystal glasses, which Whitney had carefully handwashed and then polished with a linen tea towel till they sparkled. ‘By your efforts to impress.’
She put her shoulder to him, and hefted up a pile of plates. ‘Excuse me. I need to get into that cupboard.’
He stepped aside, and opened the cupboard door. ‘You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ he said softly. ‘I know exactly where you’re coming from. Relax, honey...go pour yourself another drink and let the housekeeper finish up here.’
Keeping a tight rein on her anger, Whitney crossed to collect a second pile of plates. Pretending he didn’t exist, she busied herself putting the rest of the dishes away. Then she started on the glasses, arranging as many as she could do on a large wooden tray, before carrying them out into the hall and across to the living room.
Resentfully she became aware that Luke was right behind her; a burr couldn’t have stuck much closer.
He made no attempt to help as she set the glasses in the buffet.
‘So.’ His tone was dripping with sarcasm. ‘Here we are, darlin’. Home alone.’
‘I’m not in the mood for jokes—’
‘Oh, it’s no joke. Whoever would have thought, when you arrived here as a saucer-eyed orphan, that one day we’d be setting up house together.’
‘We shall not be setting up house together. It seems, at present, that I have no option but to give you a room, but beyond that, you are entirely on your own. You can do your own cooking, and cleaning—’
‘The servants’ll look after me. That’s what they’re paid for.’
She turned on him sharply. ‘Cook and Myrna will not be looking after you! They’ve already gone—and they won’t be coming back. They were over retirement age and only stayed on as long as they did because they loved your grandmother.’
She turned on her heel and with the tray swinging from one hand, walked with purposeful steps back to the kitchen. There she began loading the remaining glasses onto the tray.
Once these were put away, she decided, she was going to soak in a hot bath and then have an early night. Her exhaustion had now intensified to the point where she knew that if she once sat down, she’d never get up again!
‘I tried to get into the attic,’ Luke’s voice came from behind, making her grit her teeth, ‘but it’s locked. Do you have the key?’
She didn’t look at him; continued to load the glasses. ‘What do you want it for?’
‘I remember my grandmother as being something of a pack rat, and there’s a faint hope that my own nursery furniture might be still up there—I know it used to be, when I was a boy. Do you happen to—’
‘It’s still there...along with an old stroller. But it’ll all be covered in dust. I’ve had no time to do any cleaning in the attic this past year, and Myrna wasn’t up to climbing those steep, narrow stairs.’
‘So...where’s the key?’
‘On the shelf above the door.’ Finally she turned. ‘You’re not going up there tonight? Even if you did bring the cot down, you couldn’t put your baby in it yet—the mattress will need to be aired, the woodwork washed down.’
He rubbed a hand against his nape, and she noticed, for the first time, that his eyes were strained, his expression weary. If he hadn’t been so arrogant and hostile, she might have felt a twinge of concern...or even sympathy.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘In the morning, then.’
‘Where will you put the baby tonight?’
‘He can sleep with me.’
Lucky baby! she thought...and immediately felt a wave of shock; where had that thought come from! She turned abruptly and reached out for the tray, but in her haste she knocked over a crystal sherry glass. It fell to the floor, shattering on the terra-cotta tiles.
With a murmur of dismay, she crouched down, but as she scrabbled to pick up the pieces, she felt a prick of pain. She bit her lip as she saw blood beading on her finger...
A strong hand pulled her to her feet.
‘Here.’ Luke’s voice was gruff. ‘Let me see.’
He held her hand in his, squeezing the finger gently.
‘No glass in there,’ he murmured. ‘At least, I don’t think so...’
She struggled against a feeling of grogginess as he walked her over to the sink. He turned on the cold tap, and held her finger under it.
