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‘Our alliance will bring you benefits far beyond the contract with my son-in-law,’ Lord Armstrong continued, getting into his stride. ‘Marrying into one of the oldest families in the land will give you access to my considerable experience and influence. If I say so myself...’
‘You’ve said more than enough. I don’t want to hear any more!’
Iain’s accent thickened considerably as his temper rose. It broadened even more in the heat of passion, Cordelia recalled, then wished fervently that she had not. This situation was beyond belief. Iain was on his feet, leaning over the desk. She too got up from her chair. The three of them faced each other, an oddly assorted triangle which under any other circumstances would have made her laugh.
‘Mr Hunter...’
‘Lord Armstrong, sit down and shut your mouth.’
The menace in his voice had finally registered with her father. Cordelia watched, fascinated, for she could almost see his diplomatic mind flicking through and discarding a myriad of responses. He seemed to be, for one of the very few times in his life, at a loss for words.
‘I came here to discuss contracts for steamships,’ Iain continued. ‘I’m not on the hunt for a wife, and if I was, I wouldn’t need you or anyone else to pick one for me.’
Iain was refusing her, which was absolutely what she wanted, so it was really rather silly of her to feel rejected, though it did give her the advantage of being able to claim that she would have complied, Cordelia thought, frowning. Not that she intended entering into a bargaining war with her father. And actually, it was insulting to be rejected so firmly and with so little consideration, especially by a man who had— With whom she had— And what’s more it had been— Well, it had been memorable. Very memorable. So memorable that she had only to close her eyes to conjure up...
‘...think it for the best if we discuss it alone.’
Cordelia’s eyes snapped open. Was this her cue to leave? But to her surprise, Iain was ushering her father out of his own book room, and her father was making not one sound of protest. The door closed once again, and Iain leaned his really very broad shoulders against it, smiling at her in a way that made her want to run as fast as she could in the other direction—which would be out the window on to the Cavendish Square, so that was out of the question—and at the same time rooted her to the spot.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. ‘What did you say to my father?’
‘Weren’t you listening, Mrs Williamson—or should I say Lady Cordelia?’
Corr-dee-lia. ‘Mr Hunter...’
‘Iain. It was Iain the last time we met, and given what went on between us, I’m not particularly inclined to go back to more formal terms now.’
He eased himself away from the doorway. She found herself trapped in his gaze. ‘I see no reason why we should be on any terms at all,’ Cordelia said. ‘You made it very clear that you were not interested in my father’s proposal.’
‘I wanted to get you alone.’
‘Oh.’ Cordelia tried to back away, and her bottom encountered the desk. She folded her arms, unfolded them again and pulled off her bonnet. It was giving her a headache. She was deflated and depressed by the encounter with her father.
‘So you’ve a title,’ Iain said. ‘Not plain missus after all, but a lady.’
He was standing right beside her now. It irked her that she was so aware of him. Not that he was in any way bulky, Iain Hunter was tall and lean. It was not his dress either. Not for this dour Scotsman the wasp-waisted coats and padded shoulders of fashion, his brown wool suit was plain, austere even, but he had no need of artificial aids to emphasise the breadth of those shoulders, and the modest cut of his trousers only drew attention to the length of his legs. She was tall, but she still had to tilt her head to meet his eyes.
She hated being put on the back foot, especially when she was not in the wrong. ‘I find that a plain missus attracts rather less notice than a title.’ Claiming to be another man’s relic also legitimised her lack of innocence, but Cordelia saw no need to point that out.
‘Your father had no idea we’d met before. I’m wondering why you were so hell-bent on not telling him.’
‘My father trades in information. I find a policy of withholding as much as I can works best.’
Iain laughed. ‘In other words, it’s better to lie. It’s not a policy I’d normally advocate, but in this case—I doubt the man’s ever been honest with anyone in his life. Not even himself.’
‘Especially not himself. It is how he manages to be so very convincing in his mendacity,’ Cordelia said with feeling.
Her cheeks were hot. There was barely a few inches between them. Beneath the tension it was still there, that—that thing between them. Remember me. Remember me. Remember me. She didn’t want to remember. She didn’t want to notice that in the year since that night, the grooves that separated his brows had deepened. She didn’t want to notice that his hair was still the same shade of auburn, that he still kept it so close-cropped. She was having great difficulty regulating her breathing. She yearned for him to touch her. She would die rather than admit that. She needed to get away. Regroup. Retrench. Re-something. But first she wanted to get into bed in a dark room and pull the covers over her head and hide.
It occurred to her that he was probably just as keen to escape. Then it occurred to her that he had come to Cavendish Square expecting to conclude a very lucrative business deal and that she, inadvertently, had put a spoke in the wheel. They were both suffering at her father’s hands, but Iain was utterly innocent.
‘Forget about what passed between you and me,’ Cordelia said, ‘it’s quite irrelevant. If I had not happened to be here when you called, this would not have happened. I am very, very sorry that I was. I am sure that when my father comes to his senses and realises that you will walk away from this contract rather than marry me...’
‘I’ve no intentions of walking away from this contract.’
‘Yes, I know. I mean I assumed— You told me, remember? You said that you needed new markets. I know how important this must be to you, but I merely meant you would call his bluff.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that all right.’
‘Good. Excellent.’ Cordelia picked up her bonnet again.
Iain took it from her and set it back down. ‘You remembered, didn’t you? The minute you crashed into me, you remembered that day. That night.’
‘I said we should forget it.’
‘I haven’t been able to forget. Have you?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. No! Are you happy now?’
‘Do you remember, I had to tell you to wheesht?’ Iain closed the tiny space between them. His voice was soft, a whispering burr without any trace of the Lowland growl. If it were not for that look in his eyes, she would have said it was seductive. He took one of her artful curls and began to twist it round his finger. He had an artist’s hands, the fingers long and delicate, though the skin was rough.
The muscles in her belly clenched. ‘You were every bit as— You enjoyed it every bit as much, as I recall.’
‘I did.’ He let her curl slip from her finger, only to cup her jaw in his hand, his thumb running along the length of her bottom lip. ‘Too right I did,’ he said, and covered her mouth with his.
She almost surrendered. His mouth fit so perfectly with hers, as no other ever had or would. Her lips clung to his, her mouth opening, her hands reaching automatically to twine around his neck, her body arching into the hard length of his. Cordelia yanked herself free and delivered a very hard slap.
* * *
Iain staggered back, his hand cupped to his throbbing cheek. Cordelia had not been messing about, and to judge by the way she was glaring at him, she would have hit him a deal harder if she’d had a chance. Or more precisely, she’d hit him again if he took another chance. He was forced to laugh. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me I deserved that.’
She folded her arms across her chest and stuck her nose in the air. ‘You know perfectly well that you did.’
‘And I suppose that you’ll also tell me you didn’t want me to kiss you?’
She raised her brows and pursed her lips, giving him one of those looks that managed to be both sceptical and challenging. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone whose ego is in less need of pandering than yours, Mr Hunter.’
This time his laugh was spontaneous. ‘Come now, hasn’t the very man just left the room! But since we’re talking extremes, let me tell you that I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman quite like you, Mrs—Lady Cordelia.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
Iain shrugged. ‘It’s the truth. I take it you had no more idea than I of what your father was going to suggest today?’
‘I am pretty certain my father had no idea either, until your card was sent in. It was a surprise attack. He was ever fond of Wellington you know, even though the duke has fallen from favour. And with him my dear father,’ Cordelia said sardonically.
‘They say that the king is in poor health. When he dies, there will be another General Election, though I doubt the Tories will win, even with Peel in charge.’
‘No, my father’s star is finally on the wane. We will have a woman on the throne too. The influential Lord Armstrong is now past his prime and stripped of influence.’ Cordelia’s smile was twisted. ‘Not that I believe that for a second. My father will bend with the wind, even if he can no longer direct it.’
‘What’s more, he’s sharp enough to see it’s men like myself who’ll be doing the directing in the future.’ Iain grinned. ‘I have to admire the devious old bugger, even if he is deluded. I’ve no interest in earning a fancy title, and I’ve certainly no desire to rub shoulders with those who’ve nothing better to do than spend their ill-gotten gains on clothes and parties and horses.’
‘Good heavens, are you a revolutionary? Perhaps you have ambitions to put my father’s neck on a guillotine?’
‘No, but I suspect you would. You’ll forgive me being blunt,’ Iain said, ‘but you don’t hold the old man in much esteem, do you?’
‘I doubt you are ever anything else but blunt.’ Cordelia turned towards the desk and began to footer with the blotter, aligning the pen holder and inkstand up. ‘No, I don’t have much respect for him. About as much as he does for me.’
He could not see her expression, but something in the hunch of her shoulders made him guess at the hurt she was attempting to disguise. ‘If he means so little to you, why do you let him upset you?’
She turned at that, and he saw he was right. Pain shadowed her eyes, though she was fighting it. ‘My sister Cressie said something similar to me recently. She seems to have found a way of overcoming nature which I have as yet to discover, despite my attempts to do so.’
‘I must consider myself fortunate not to be encumbered by parents then,’ Iain said gruffly.
‘You are an orphan?’
It was his turn to shrug. He had no desire to add a discussion of his pathetic history into the conversation that was already convoluted enough. ‘He may be your father, but you’re a grown woman, Cordelia, he can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.’
‘All very well for you to say that. You are a man.’
‘Aye, and when you look at me like that, I’m very glad I am,’ Iain replied, because the mocking look was back in her eyes, and there was something irresistible about the challenge of it, and in the sensual downward curl of that mouth of hers.
He caught her arm and turned her towards him, losing his train of thought in the scent of her, and the rustle of her gown against his legs, and in the way she reacted to the heat of his gaze, neither shrinking from it nor denying her own reaction.
‘I’m not going to kiss you,’ she said.
She spoke coolly, though her words were belied by the tempting tilt of her mouth. He slid his hand up her back, finding the delightful patch of naked skin at her nape, under her hair. ‘You’d better not hit me again.’
‘What, will you hit me back? I should warn you, Iain, I am not the sort of woman to take that sort of pleasure.’
‘Firstly, I never hit any woman, no matter what kind.’ Iain put his other arm around her waist, pulling her close. The perfume she wore was exotic, though the scent eluded him. The way she spoke his name made him shiver, made the muscles in his belly tighten, sent the blood coursing to his groin. ‘And secondly, you seem to have forgotten that I know very well what particular kind of pleasure you like.’
She did not move. He knew, despite her denial, that she would kiss him back this time. It shocked him, the fierce possessiveness he felt just touching her, so much so that he let her go. ‘I want that business, Cordelia. What has he got on you? I’m not daft, you wouldn’t still be here talking to me if he didn’t have some sort of hold over you. What is it?’
She hesitated, returning to her compulsive straightening of the desk furniture, aligning the already aligned pen holder and inkpot. Then she turned, her mouth tight with anger. ‘My family. My aunt. My half-brothers I have not seen since I left nearly ten years ago, the half-sister I have never met. And most of all Celia and Cassie. They were his trump cards.’ The pen in her hand snapped. ‘My two elder sisters,’ she explained with a curl of her lip. ‘Both are married to Arabian princes. I knew Caro and Cressie—they are my other sisters—would pay no heed to my father’s decree. Indeed, I was fairly certain his disowning me was sufficient for them to make a point of keeping in touch, but as to Celia and Cassie—’
She broke off, obviously near to tears. Iain wrestled with this completely unexpected revelation. ‘Your father disowned you? What on earth for?’
‘I refused to marry a man of his choosing.’
Iain shook his head in bemusement. ‘You wouldn’t marry the man he picked for you and he took the hump?’
‘I wouldn’t marry any man he picked for me. And if by taking the hump you mean he was offended—he was furious.’ Cordelia cast the broken pen on to the desk. ‘I know it sounds mediaeval, but he really could have ensured that all doors were closed to me if I’d given him the pleasure of trying to open them.’
Iain stared at her in horror. ‘Your own flesh and blood! Who does he think he is—some sort of god?’
‘One of my other sisters calls him a puppet master,’ Cordelia said wryly.
‘So they don’t condone what he did? But you said the eldest two...’
‘Celia and Cassie. It’s not that they condone it exactly, but to respond to any overture of mine would require them to keep it secret from their husbands. I have never met Cassie’s husband, and Celia’s but once, but the code of honour with desert princes is strong. No matter what they may think of the circumstances, my father’s will must be respected. That is the ace he was going to play, I suspect,’ Cordelia finished contemptuously.
Iain shook his head in disgust. ‘I can’t believe he would stoop so low. To keep your own sisters from you, and him your father.’
‘Which is exactly why he does not see it as anything other than his natural right, to order my life,’ she replied bitterly. ‘Cressie—my middle sister—used to say that we were his pawns in the game of matrimonial chess. She was right, Iain, believe me.’
‘And unless you do as he says, you won’t get to see your sisters in Arabia?’
‘I don’t know. I had hoped today that I could persuade him to—but that was before he came up with this ridiculous idea. Now—I simply don’t know.’
She shook her head, biting her lip and screwing shut her eyes, and Iain cursed himself for being so blunt. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve nothing to apologise for.’
‘He’s a right wee shite, your father.’
She laughed tearfully. ‘I have no idea what that means, but I suspect you’re right.’
‘Aye, sorry about the language. You can take a man from the docks, but you can’t take the docks from the man.’
She smiled at this quip, but seemed suddenly at a loss. ‘I’d better be off.’
‘You’re not staying here?’
She shuddered theatrically. ‘Good heavens, no. I have rooms at Milvert’s on Brook Street. I suppose this is goodbye. I wish you luck with your contract.’
‘We’ve both got too much to lose to turn our backs on this. I’ll walk with you.’
He was not fooling himself. That day over a year ago had been in every way extraordinary. He had never, before or since, experienced that instant of certainty, that deep connection that had led them both to believe they’d met before, that had transformed into the most intense attraction he’d ever known. Circumstances had colluded to put them together on the docks at the Broomilaw at the same time in the same frame of mind. Since then, he had thought of it as a day—and night—out of time. It had not occurred to him that they would ever meet again, but now they had done so, under the strangest of circumstances, Iain couldn’t help thinking that fate must have taken a hand. Not that he believed in fate, though his mother had been a great one for it.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He realised, as he took his hat and gloves from the footman, that he’d spoken his mother’s words aloud. ‘What’s for you won’t go by you,’ he repeated tersely, as they ascended the steps into Cavendish Square.
‘You think that fate has brought us together?’ Cordelia asked.
She had a smile that did things to his insides. Provocative, that was the word for it. Iain never spoke of his mother. His memories of his family were so painfully tarnished that he rarely allowed himself to remember the few happier times when Jeannie was still alive. His heart felt as if it were being squeezed, and he automatically closed his mind to that memory. He had always been driven, but this last year, he had immersed himself in his work to the exclusion of all else. He hadn’t realised he’d missed Cordelia until he saw her today. It didn’t matter that their entire acquaintance spanned less than twenty-four hours either. At some elemental level, he and she were the same.
Iain took her hand and tucked it into his arm. ‘You want to know what I really think?’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘I think we should tell your father we’re getting married.’
* * *
Cordelia’s rooms at Milvert’s exclusive hotel were on the corner of the second floor. Pushing open the window of her sitting-room, she gazed out on to the busy street, her head whirling. With the Season starting to get into full swing, there was a steady flow of carriages and horses making their way past Grosvenor Square to Hyde Park.
‘You haven’t said what you thought of my suggestion,’ Iain said, throwing his hat and gloves on to the table.
She pulled the casement closed and began to wander disconsolately about the room, tidying her notebooks, folding her cuffs, wiping her pen, absent-mindedly straightening the various objects which sat on the tables, the mantelpiece, the hearth, before finally taking a seat opposite him. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘Do you have an alternative plan?’
