Unwanted Wedding. Penny Jordan

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СКАЧАТЬ through its rooms, but guilt.

      If only things had been different. If only Edward had been different, she could have so happily and easily have walked away from here and bought or rented herself a small place in town and given all her time and attention to working at the shelter.

      But how could she do that now?

      ‘Edward will destroy this place,’ Peter had warned her. ‘He’ll tear the heart out of it, sell off everything that’s worth selling, and then he’ll tear it down brick by brick and sell off the land to one of his cronies who’ll—’

      ‘No, he can’t do that,’ she had protested. ‘The house is listed and—’

      ‘And, knowing Edward, he won’t find it at all difficult to find someone who’s willing to claim that they misunderstood the instructions they were given. Just how long do you think this place could stay standing once it was assaulted by half a dozen determined men with bulldozers? And of course Edward would make sure that nothing could be connected with him. He hated your grandfather, Rosy, and he knew how much Queen’s Meadow meant to him and to your father.’

      ‘Too much,’ Rosy had sighed. ‘No, this place is an anachronism, Peter. No matter how beautiful it is, for one family to live in a house this size… Oh, why couldn’t Gramps have listened to me and deeded it to a charity? Why couldn’t he?’

      ‘So you don’t care what happens to the house? You don’t mind Edward inheriting it and destroying it, destroying four hundred years of history?’

      ‘Of course I mind,’ Rosy told him fretfully. ‘But what can I do? You know the terms of that idiotic will Gramps made as well as I do. In the event of both his sons predeceasing him, the house and his estate go to the closest of his blood relatives to be married within three months of his death and capable of producing an heir. He made that will years ago after Uncle Tom died, and if Dad hadn’t—’

      She had broken off then, her throat choked with tears. Her father’s death so unexpectedly from a heart attack just weeks before her grandfather had slid from a coma and into death was something she still hadn’t fully come to terms with.

      ‘Edward fulfils all the terms of that will and he—’

      ‘You are your grandfather’s closest blood relative,’ Peter had reminded her quietly.

      ‘Yes, but I’m not married. And not likely to be, at least not within the next three months,’ Rosy had told him drily.

      ‘You could be,’ Peter had told her slowly, ‘with an arranged marriage. A marriage entered into specifically so that you could fulfil the terms of your grandfather’s will. A marriage which could be brought to an end very easily and quickly.’

      ‘An arranged marriage?’ Rosy had stared blankly at him. It sounded like something out of one of her favourite Georgette Heyer novels; fine as the theme for a piece of romantic froth, but totally implausible in reality.

      ‘No,’ she had told him impatiently, shaking her head so hard that her dark curls had bounced against her shoulders. Irritably she had pushed them off her face. Her hair was the bane of her life—thick, so dark it was almost black, and possessing of a life of its own.

      A little gypsy, her grandfather had often fondly called her. But whenever she had tried to have her wild mane tamed, it had rebelled, and reverted to its tumbling mass of curls almost as soon as she had closed the hairdresser’s door behind her, so that eventually she had given up trying to control it.

      ‘It’s out of the question and, besides, it takes two to make a marriage—even an arranged one—and I can’t think of anyone who—’

      ‘I can.’ Peter had anticipated her quietly.

      Was she imagining it, or did his words have a slightly ominous ring to them? She paused, shifting her gaze from the Grinling Gibbons carving on the staircase to her solicitor’s face, eyeing him suspiciously.

      ‘Who?’ she demanded warily.

      ‘Guard Jamieson,’ Peter told her. Rosy sat down abruptly on the stairs.

      ‘Oh, no,’ she announced firmly. ‘No, no, never.’

      ‘He would be the ideal person,’ Peter continued enthusiastically, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘After all, he’s never made any secret of how much he wants this place.’

      ‘Never,’ Rosy agreed drily, remembering how often Guard had bombarded her grandfather with requests—demands, almost—that he sell Queen’s Meadow to him. ‘If Guard wants the house that badly, he can always try to persuade Edward to sell it to him,’ she pointed out.

      Peter’s eyebrows rose. ‘Come on, Rosy. You know that Edward hates Guard almost as much as he did your grandfather.’

      Rosy sighed.

      ‘Yes,’ she agreed. It was true. Guard and Edward were old business adversaries and, as her father had stated on more than one occasion, there hadn’t been a confrontation between the two men yet out of which Guard had not come the winner. ‘The mere fact that he knows how much Guard loves this place would only add to his pleasure in destroying it.’

      ‘We’re only talking about a business arrangement between the two of you, you know, some simple basic formalities which would enable you to fulfil the terms of the will. In time the marriage could be dissolved. You could sell the house to Guard and—’

      ‘In time? How much time?’ she had asked him suspiciously.

      ‘A year—a couple of years…’ Peter had shrugged, ignoring her dismayed gasp. ‘After all, it isn’t as though you want to marry someone else, is it? If you did, there wouldn’t be any problem, any need to involve Guard.’

      ‘I can’t do it,’ she told Peter positively. ‘The whole idea is completely ridiculous, repulsive.’

      ‘Well, then, I’m afraid you’ll have to resign yourself to the fact that Edward will inherit. Your grandfather’s already been dead for almost a month.’

      ‘I can’t do it,’ Rosy repeated, ignoring Peter’s comment. ‘I could never ask any man to marry me, but especially not Guard…’

      Peter had laughed at her.

      ‘It’s a business proposal, that’s all. Think about it, Rosy. I know how ambivalent your feelings towards Queen’s Meadow are, but I can’t believe that you actually want to see Edward destroy it.’

      ‘No, of course I don’t,’ Rosy had agreed.

      ‘Then what have you got to lose?’

      ‘My freedom?’ she had suggested hollowly.

      Peter had laughed again. ‘Oh, I doubt that Guard would interfere with that,’ he had assured her. ‘He’s much too busy to have time to worry about what you’ll be doing. Promise me that you’ll at least think about it, Rosy. It’s for your sake that I’m doing this,’ he had added. ‘If you let Edward destroy this place, you’re bound to feel guilty.’

      ‘The way you do for putting all this moral blackmail on me?’ Rosy had asked him drily.

      He СКАЧАТЬ