Gracious Lady Read online

  As for Brian, he had the look of a man who had walked into a cage full of lions—and the door had just firmly closed behind him! 'Er—I was just on my way up to the house when I met Jennie outside,' he explained hastily, shooting Sophie anxious looks, having no idea what he had just said to further antagonise Maximilian Grant, but knowing there was a flash of fresh anger in those icy blue eyes at his statement.

  Poor Brian could have no idea that it was his famili­arity with Jennie's name that had further angered Maximilian! At least, Sophie hoped that was what it was, and not that Maximilian had recognised Brian as the man from Friday night...

  Maximilian watched the younger man with narrowed eyes. 'And exactly why were you "on your way" to this house at all?' he immediately confirmed—to Sophie's immense relief!—that he hadn't recognised Brian. Not yet, anyway... 'I don't know you—do I...?' he added slowly, Brian's voice perhaps striking a memory for him.

  Brian shot Sophie another pleading look, obviously deeply regretting now whatever impulse had encouraged him to come here at all. Or at least making the mistake of revealing his presence this way in the hallway; Sophie very much doubted that Brian actually regretted being privy to that very revealing scene between father and daughter. And the sooner she talked to him about that, the better!

  'Brian is—a friend of mine,' she put in hastily. 'You should have telephoned first, Brian.' The glare she gave him utterly belied the pleasantness of her tone. ‘I would have met you in town,' she added pointedly.

  'Brian...?' Maximilian repeated thoughtfully with a dark frown, the memory he was searching for still seeming to elude him.

  But not for long, Sophie was sure. 'Come on, Brian,' she took a firm hold of his arm. 'We'll go through to the kitchen and see my aunt.'

  'Brian...' Maximilian repeated to himself again, the upset with Jennie obviously having deprived him of his usual astuteness. But not for long, if Sophie knew him at all!

  'Excuse us,' she said to no one in particular, dragging Brian from the room. Not that he wanted to linger, realising his mistake by now in having revealed his presence there at all. But Sophie thanked God he had; she would have the chance to issue dire warnings to him now about the inadvisability of using any of what he had just heard to further his career. It would just have the opposite effect if Maximilian was to turn nasty!

  What Sophie actually wanted to do was go to Jennie, but at the moment talking to Brian was more urgent; she would use threats on him if necessary.

  'Don't even bother to ask,' he warned as they stopped outside the kitchen and he saw the mutinous expression on her face.

  'I'm not asking, Brian,' she told him steadily. 'I'm telling you that you can't use privileged information that you overheard by—'

  'Don't be silly, Sophie,' he laughed dismissively, gaining in confidence by the minute now that he was away from Maximilian, a glowing excitement in his eyes now at the thought of the future opening up before him. 'It wasn't privileged at all, just a good old-fashioned family argument that I happened to overhear—'

  'Between Mr Grant and his daughter,' she pointed out exasperatedly; they both knew Maximilian and Jennie weren't just any old family, that they were very newsworthy!

  'It was very revealing,' Brian confirmed with a sat­isfied nod. 'What was even more interesting, though, was the horse Jennie was—'

  'Sophie!' Her aunt spoke sharply as she came out of the kitchen at that moment and almost walked into them. 'Brian...?' she greeted with a disapproving frown.

  He straightened with what looked like an almost guilty flush. 'I was just on my way to see you.'

  'Through the main house?' She looked sceptical.

  Sophie had to agree, it wasn't very convincing as a way of explaining his presence here; why on earth would he be on his way to see her aunt anyway?

  ‘It just happened that way,' he shrugged dismissively. ‘I actually came over to tell you I was talking to Arlette on the telephone last night, and she wanted me to come over and give you her love,' he explained smoothly. 'Of course I was delighted,' he added warmly. ‘I know how much you've worried about her since she's been away, so I came over as soon as I could get away from work.'

  Sophie frowned at his almost triumphant look in her direction, not understanding this at all. Why on earth would her cousin Arlette be telephoning Brian Burnett, rather than her own mother, all the way from Germany...?

  'Arlette and I started dating a couple of months before she took the job in Germany,' Brian told her dismiss­ively as he sat at the kitchen table drinking the mug of coffee Aunt Millie had poured for him, having thawed towards him completely at being given news of her daughter. Sophie wouldn't even have offered him any coffee, was still too upset with him because he obviously intended using that information he had about Jennie and Maximilian. She had no doubt he was going to use it to his own advantage.

  But her aunt had seemed to forget completely his breach of etiquette in coming through the main house as he talked to her about her beloved daughter. She had poured them all a mug of coffee in the hope that she could persuade him to sit down and tell her all about the call while he drank it. But she had no sooner poured the coffee than she was rung for from the sitting-room, and had to hurry off to answer the call with mutterings about 'more comings and goings in this house lately than Piccadilly Circus'. Her departure had left the way clear for Sophie to sort things out with Brian once and for all.

  The fact that she now knew he had been dating her cousin, prior to her going to Germany to work, ex­plained a few things that had been puzzling Sophie. Aunt Millie's rather restrained reaction to knowing Brian was the 'friend' driving her home on Friday night, for one thing; her poor aunt had probably been horrified that she might be trying to steal her cousin's boyfriend while Arlette was away in Germany!

  Brian's friendship with Arlette also explained his own sudden burst of ambition, after years of supposedly being quite content to sit back on his laurels in the provinces; Arlette was ambitious, had made no secret from childhood that she intended marrying well one day, had no intention of marrying and having children and living out the rest of her days in some backwater, struggling to make ends meet. Obviously Brian was trying to make sure he had more to offer Arlette than that, knowing he wouldn't stand a chance of making anything permanent out of the relationship if he didn't. Sophie knew it too. Fond of her cousin as she was, she was well aware that, when Arlette set her mind on a certain path, nothing would divert her from seeing it through—not even falling in love!

  Yes, Sophie understood Brian's predicament a little better now, but she still had no intention of letting him use Maximilian and Jennie to further his career—even with the aim of winning the heart of her own cousin!

  'That's very nice for you,' Sophie acknowledged distractedly. 'Very nice for you both. But we hadn't fin­ished talking about Maximilian and Jennie—'

  'Oh, but we had,' Brian stood up decisively. 'I'm not going to tell you I won't use the information, Sophie, because I have every intention of doing so—'

  'Maximilian will probably sue you!' Sophie told him frustratedly.

  'For what?' Brian scorned. 'For telling the truth? Look, I'm doing you a favour as it is, Sophie, almost being a member of the family, and all that,' he added with a slight flush to his cheeks.

  'Doing me a favour?' she echoed incredulously. 'By getting me sacked? Because that's what will happen if you publish a story about Maximilian's—complicated, relationship with his daughter.' And she had already been sacked or resigned from this particular job enough times to last her a lifetime! 'You may even get Aunt Millie dismissed too,' she added with what she was sure was a stroke of genius; if he really was serious about his in­tentions towards Arlette, he certainly wouldn't want to get his possible future mother-in-law sacked as house­keeper here. Not that Sophie really believed it would come to that... After all, Maximilian believed Brian was here to see her, had no idea of that other family con­nection. But it wouldn't hurt for Brian to think it was a
possibility!

  Unfortunately, Brian was a lot brighter than she gave him credit for, because he just smiled confidently at the mere idea of her aunt being dismissed. 'I'm not about to advertise the fact that I'm dating Millie's daughter,' he derided. 'And I very much doubt that you are either!' And I am doing you a favour, Sophie,' he sobered with a frown. 'Because there's a much bigger story going on here than Grant's rocky relationship with his daughter...'

  Sophie looked at him sharply. 'What on earth do you mean?'

  'The horse, Sophie,' he said impatiently. 'The horse Jennie was riding when I met her outside,' he explained as Sophie still looked puzzled.

  'Lady?' She frowned, still completely puzzled by the horse's significance.

  'Gracious Lady,' Brian corrected pointedly. 'Oh, come on, Sophie,' he rebuked her shortly. 'It must have crossed your mind to wonder what a racehorse of that calibre is doing here rather than at its trainer's stables, let alone being ridden by Jennie Grant!'

  Racehorse? That beautiful chestnut mare, the one she had almost saddled and ridden herself on Saturday, was a racehorse?

  Sophie instantly visualised the chestnut mare; her smooth flowing lines, her excitability, the high charged power in her body—and she knew without a doubt that Brian was telling the truth: Lady—Gracious Lady—was a racehorse. She didn't know why she hadn't realised it before.

  What was the horse doing here?

  CHAPTER NINE

  BY THE time she went upstairs a short time later, intending to talk to Jennie, Sophie had come up with any number of reasons why Gracious Lady should be here and not at the stables of her trainer. Maybe Maximilian had argued with the trainer and removed the horse from his stable? Maybe the horse was ill and needed to be kept from other racing horses? Maybe she was in a race locally during the next few days and it was easier to transport her from here?

  There were all sorts of reasons, she had assured Brian, why Maximilian should have removed his own horse to his own home. She had told Brian that, knowing that she wasn't absolutely sure she believed it herself...

  There were those rather enigmatic references Sean had made earlier, about something she should probably have known about, followed by Paul Wiseman's near panic at the fact that Gracious Lady had gone from her stable as well as Jennie from the house. No, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was in her own mind that there was something more going on here than she knew about, something, as Brian so rightly pointed out, to do with Gracious Lady's presence here. But there was no way she was even going to give a hint of her own misgivings to Brian!

  But no matter what she said to him, she wasn't able to convince him not to go ahead with that other story about Jennie and Maximilian. It was such a mess!

  Jennie sat dry-eyed on top of her bed when Sophie entered the bedroom, although from the puffy look to her red-rimmed eyes she had been crying only minutes ago. Sophie ached to comfort her, but the fierce look Jennie gave her warned her against even trying.

  'I'll come back later, shall I?' she suggested lightly. Jennie didn't even bother to answer her, lost in her misery once again.

  Maximilian, it seemed, hadn't even bothered to come up and see his daughter; he couldn't have done, or Jennie wouldn't look the way she did!

  After all that had been said earlier, and Jennie's ob­vious distress, Maximilian hadn't even come up here to reassure his daughter of his love for her. Well, Sophie didn't care if it got her sacked all over again; she was going to tell him exactly what she thought of his callousness.

  Secretly, she knew, she was hoping there was a per­fectly good reason for his not having been to see Jennie; she didn't want him to be the type of man who showed such a cold disregard of feelings towards his daughter's feelings. Because if he couldn't express love and under­standing for his daughter, the one person he could love without fear of comeback, what possible chance did any woman have in his life...?

  After years of feeling wary of men, Sophie knew she was falling in love with Maximilian, of all men!

  When? How? Why? It was that last question that bothered her the most. She didn't need any emotional entanglements complicating her life, barely managed to keep all the different compartments of her life juggling at one go as it was. Falling in love, and so hopelessly, just played no part in her future plans.

  But love was the last thing on her mind when she finally managed to locate Maximilian in the stables, talking soothingly to Gracious Lady as Jenkins brushed her down after her ride! Maximilian was comforting the horse, when it was Jennie he should be concerned with!

  'What on earth do you think you're doing?' Sophie gasped disbelievingly, staring at him uncomprehendingly.

  Maximilian looked round at her with cold blue eyes. ‘I beg your pardon?'

  Oh, no, he didn't—he wasn't going to get out of this by looking down his arrogant nose at her and in so doing putting her firmly in her place as companion to his daughter! It was because she was Jennie's friend, as well as her companion, that she was here at all. ‘Your daughter is upstairs in her bedroom breaking her heart because she believes you love this horse more than you love her, and I come out here and find you consoling the stupid horse! No doubt assuring her you won't let the nasty girl up on her back again!' Sophie scorned accusingly.

  'Would you leave us, Jenkins?' Maximilian instructed smoothly, waiting until the other man had left, pru­dently closing the stable door behind him as he went, before speaking again. 'Would you like to explain that statement?' He hadn't moved, standing very still, that very stillness threatening in itself.

  'Isn't it self-explanatory?' Sophie sighed wearily, so disappointed in him.

  He shook his head, his expression grim. ‘I realise I behaved like a bastard towards you earlier, talking to you the way I did, and I apologise.' He shrugged dismissively.

  Sophie couldn't believe he was this insensitive. She knew he wasn't this insensitive. 'Maximilian, why are you doing this?' She looked at him pleadingly, needing him to be different, to be the man she was falling in love with; she couldn't be this wrong about someone. About Maximilian...

  Now he moved, crossing in front of the horse to grasp Sophie by the tops of her arms. 'Say that again,' he rasped.

  She blinked up at him. 'Why are you doing this...?'

  'No!' He shook her none too gently. 'Say my name again! No one else has ever called me Maximilian. And I've so wanted you to.'

  'You've...?' She shook her head incredulously.

  'Maximilian, you can't—' She broke off abruptly as his head bent, his lips dangerously close to hers.

  'Can't what?' he murmured huskily against her throat.

  She couldn't remember! It was so warm in here, smelt of soft sweet hay and that earthy smell of horses, was so basically primitive that—Now she remembered! 'Maximilian, you can't kiss me when—'

  'But I'm not kissing you—yet,' he added gruffly, his gaze holding hers hotly. 'Now I'm kissing you.' His breath was warm against her mouth before his lips lowered to claim hers.

  She didn't need him to tell her he was kissing her, she knew exactly what he was doing—for a fraction of a second, then she didn't know very much at all, except the feel, smell and taste of him. And he tasted so sweet, pure nectar, sipping from her lips now as if she were the flower that nurtured him, his tongue teasing an evoc­ative path into the moist heat of her mouth, plundering, possessing, her body suddenly taut with a trembling need that began as a hot ache between her thighs, her nipples hard and thrusting beneath the thin material of her ‘I-shirt.

  The air was cool upon the nakedness of her skin as Maximilian pushed the ‘I-shirt up out of his way, baring her breasts to his questing mouth, her gasp one of in­stinctive delight as he drew her nipple into the hot moisture of his mouth, his tongue loving the sensitised tip, each caress sending a new shuddering wave of pleasure through her already aroused body.

  Her throat arched as he trailed kisses along the pulsing column of her throat, his hand gently cupping and ca­ressing one
bared breast now, the thumb-pad moving across a nipple still damp from the caress of his lips and tongue.

  Sophie wanted to be close to him too, unbuttoning his shirt with hands that shook, fumbling slightly. Maximilian was growing impatient for the closeness himself, pulling at the shirt, ripping off two of the buttons in the process.

  Sophie gave a shaky laugh as she looked down at the ruined shirt, the material actually torn where the buttons had come off. 'That's another shirt I owe you!'

  Her hands trembled as she touched the hard dampness of his chest, the hair dark and silky there. To her delight his nipples reacted in a similar way to her own when she ran her fingertips over them. Malcolm had never been particularly interested in foreplay in their lovemaking, had certainly never encouraged Sophie to touch his body in the way Maximilian was now doing, guiding her hand to the hard need of his thighs. After initial wide-eyed surprise she gave in to the aching temptation to know all of his body in this way, loving the surge of pleasure she felt coursing through Maximilian as she slowly ca­ressed him.

  'I'll forget about the shirts,' he groaned raggedly, 'if you'll wear one of the pink ones to bed tonight. I've had the most erotic fantasies about you doing that ever since you first suggested it!'

  In bed tonight... Did he mean—? She looked up at him with wide hazel eyes. 'Maximilian...?'

  ‘If you don't stop saying that I'll have to make love to you right here and now!' he warned shakily, his eyes dark, an aroused flush to the hardness of his cheeks. 'And this is hardly the place!' he added self-derisively.

  In a stable. Beside an expensive racehorse—Oh, God, yes, that damned racehorse! She had completely for­gotten, as Maximilian made love to her, that it was because of the horse that Jennie was upstairs in her room in tears, that Sophie had come in search of Maximilian at all.

  'Maximilian, what is Gracious Lady doing here?' She frowned up at him. 'Brian says she's a valuable race­horse. That she—'

  She was thrust away from him so suddenly that she almost lost her balance completely and fell into the straw at their feet. And Maximilian was looking at her now with such cold suspicion that she hastily straightened her clothing to cover her nakedness, suddenly feeling very self-conscious, the desire that had been between them seconds ago disappearing completely.