An Enticing Proposal. Meredith Webber
has as many gentlemen as any other country, though they may not carry fancy titles, and, no, I wouldn’t expect any man to ride roughshod over a woman, but men can exert more than physical power.’
‘And women can’t?’ he countered, fixing her with a look so quizzical she wondered how she’d come to be arguing with him.
‘Just treat her gently,’ Paige said, turning abruptly away before her face betrayed even more of her inner chaos. She’d never felt such a physical reaction to another human being. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to understand what people meant when they talked about instant attraction. And sex appeal! Not only could she now accept its existence, but she had to acknowledge that this man had it by the bucket-load.
Yet his wife had run away from him.
The thought occurred to her as she walked up the stairs ahead of him, hearing his firm tread behind her, feeling his presence in the nerves down her spine, aware even of a faint whiff of some sophisticated cologne or aftershave—not a pungent or overpowering odour, but more a tantalising hint of something smooth and sleek but very masculine.
Help! Now it seemed her thoughts were doing the running away—straight into a fantasy land.
‘Lucia is inside.’
She knocked and was about to grasp the doorknob when the door flew open and a vision of loveliness in a bright mohair sweater flung herself into the waiting arms of the prince.
Which is how all good fairytales should end, Paige reminded herself as she returned to the kitchen to play Cinderella-before-the-ball, washing the lunch dishes, working out a dinner menu, wondering what she could do about arranging nutritious meals for Lucia to take on the plane if her prince insisted she return home immediately.
By the time footsteps sounded on the stairs, she’d not only organised what they’d have for dinner but had cleaned the kitchen thoroughly, written out a shopping list, contemplated polishing the silver and settled for washing the floor instead—anything to keep her mind off what might be happening upstairs.
And, no, she wouldn’t take that thought any further either!
She straightened up as the heavy footfall hesitated only fractionally at the bottom of the steps then turned unerringly towards the kitchen. One glance at the dark scowl on Marco’s face told her the reunion hadn’t gone quite the way he’d planned.
‘Lucia tells me you will explain her medical condition. She pleaded tiredness, a need to rest and, in fact, she does not look well. Is this a new game of hers or is she indeed ill?’
Paige felt the words jar against her brain.
‘She didn’t tell you?’
The scowl deepened.
‘Tell me what?’
Drat the girl? What was Paige supposed to do? Blurt out to the man that his wife was not only pregnant but suffering a complication which required a strict medical and personal regimen of care?
Marco watched the slim, pale-skinned woman pace up and down beside the kitchen table, leaving a trail of shoe prints on the floor she’d evidently just washed, and wondered what he’d said to cause so much agitation. Not that having Lucia as a house guest wasn’t enough to drive anyone to distraction. Spoilt, that’s what she was.
But this woman had seemed so sensible—so ‘together’ as he’d heard it described in English. And she’d taken Lucia in and cared for her, been kind enough to feel concern for her relatives—something which still wasn’t worrying Lucia over-much.
‘If you prefer to walk and talk, I would be glad to be outside for a while. I was cooped up in the plane, then the car journey and a hotel.’
She glanced up at him, as if surprised to hear his voice. Had she forgotten he was there—that he was waiting for an answer? Now she looked at her watch and frowned as if calculating something. How much time she could waste perhaps? How long she could procrastinate?
‘Actually, I have to be outside fairly soon anyway. I have some house calls to make, and as they’re close I usually walk.’ She smiled at him, and he caught an echo of it in her eyes and knew he’d misjudged the frown. That was a real smile, not the plastic version most women he knew could flash at will—trained by years of practice at society functions where a camera could catch any unwary facial grimace and reveal it in the daily papers.
He found himself hoping she’d smile some more during the short time they would have together.
‘I will walk with you,’ he announced, and saw her frown again, sigh, then shrug her shoulders as if she wasn’t happy about his presence but would accept it.
‘Most women would be happy to walk with me,’ he growled, riled by the reaction, but she appeared not to have heard his piqued comment. She slipped past him to the door, turning to say, ‘I’d better check on Lucia before we go.’ Then she disappeared into the passageway.
It was because he was tired that her patent lack of interest in him niggled. Although he’d had his share of attractive women as friends and lovers, he certainly didn’t expect every woman he met to fall at his feet. He glared at the empty doorway, then realised the futility of such an act and chuckled, turning his attention instead to the room where he waited.
It was attractive in a homely way—a big practical kitchen with tiled floors and stained timber cupboards and benches. A long wooden table was scarred by use, and the two comfortable armchairs pulled up close to the fuel stove hinted that this room was the real heart of the dwelling. It seemed to hold the faint echoes of happy family gatherings and the accumulated aroma of good hearty meals. Almost an Italian kitchen in its ambience, he decided, sniffing the air and touching the leaves of the herbs which flourished in pots along the windowsill.
Did this flat at the back of the health service come with Miss Morgan’s job? Did she live here alone—when she wasn’t bringing home stray runaways like Lucia?
He felt the now-familiar clutch of fear Lucia’s disappearance had caused, then said a silent prayer of thanks that she had fallen into such safe and apparently sensible hands.
‘OK, let’s go!’
The soft, slightly husky voice summoned him from the doorway. She’d pulled a padded jacket over her cream sweater and trousers and the dark green colour deepened the colour in her eyes, making them more green than gold. He’d read on the flight that green and gold were the colours of Australia, but she still didn’t match his mental image of an Australian any more than the streets she led him down, lined with trees bright with autumn leaves, fitted his notions of the land they called the sunburnt country.
He took from her the small bag she was carrying and matched her pace, walking silently, unwilling to prompt her again, thinking his own thoughts.
Paige said, ‘She’s pregnant.’
He stopped dead, forcing her to turn back to him as he stumbled into a mess of incoherent, half-formed questions.
‘She’s what? Madonna mia! How—? When—?’
Paige stared at him, unable to believe the man’s shock and disbelief.
‘How the hell do you think she got pregnant?’ she stormed. ‘And as for when, I presume it was shortly after you were married. One thing I did get out of her was the wedding date. How any man could be so insensitive as to speak of taking a mistress before he’d been married less than three months is beyond me.’
Now he looked plain bewildered.
‘Who spoke of taking a mistress?’ he asked, rubbing at his temples as if to massage his brain into working order.
‘You did—or you intimated as much!’ Paige retorted, then she looked at him again and wondered, having second thoughts. ‘Or Lucia understood that’s what you said,’ she amended.
Her explanation didn’t seem to help his confusion.
‘What,