Cinderella's Invitation to Greece
Auteur·e
Melanie Milburne
Lectures
15,8K
Chapitres
11
HarlequinCHAPTER ONE
RUBY PENNINGTON DROVE up the long hedgerow-lined driveway of Rothwell Park with a flutter of moth wings in her belly. Coming ‘home’ to the grand Yorkshire moors estate always triggered a mixture of emotions. Never more so than when she knew Lucas Rothwell was in residence. And, as much as she longed to catch up with her grandmother over the long weekend, it was Lucas she really needed to see.
Thick, bruised-looking clouds scudded across the sky, with the sun appearing weakly between them again and again, as if still deciding whether to call it quits for the day. In the distance, rain was sweeping in from the moors in slanted grey sheets, and the wind was whistling and howling like a siren announcing impending doom.
Ruby brought her car to a stop near the old stables and turned off the engine.
Don’t be nervous. Don’t be nervous. Don’t be nervous.
Her mentally chanted pep talk was falling seriously short. The moth wings in her belly had turned into bats. Hundreds of frantically flapping bats. It was impossible not to be a little jittery around Lucas Rothwell. How long had it been since she’d seen him face to face? Years. She never usually came home unless she knew he wasn’t there.
But this time was different.
She had to see him.
As soon as Ruby got out of the car the biting wind whipped her hair around her face and needles of ice pricked her skin. Just as well the wild and capricious weather of the Yorkshire moors was exactly what her American celebrity client wanted for her wedding. It would be the highest profile wedding Ruby had done so far, and she owed it to her best friends and business partners, Harper and Aerin, to secure this venue. Their business, Happy Ever After Weddings, was making good progress, but this wedding would lift their profile way more than they could have dreamed possible when they’d first brainstormed a business plan on the back of a napkin in their favourite coffee shop.
Ruby brushed her hair away with her hand and walked towards the imposing front entrance of the castle. The centuries-old estate was a spectacular setting for a fairy tale wedding. The gothic-style castle with its multiple turrets and grandly appointed wings could house numerous guests, and the industrial-sized kitchen was perfect for catering for a crowd.
Pulling off this celebrity wedding gig would be her way of proving she had what it took to rise above her hardscrabble beginnings and being viewed as nothing more than the unwanted kid of a drug addict. Ruby didn’t allow herself to think of failing once she set out to do something. Failure had been modelled to her by her mother, and Ruby was determined not to follow her example. Besides, her friends and business partners were relying on her.
And when people relied on her she delivered.
Before Ruby could put her key in the lock, the door opened a crack.
‘Ruby, lass, what you are you doing here?’ Her grandmother’s shocked expression wasn’t exactly the welcome Ruby was expecting. It had been months since she’d been to Rothwell Park. And, although her gran wasn’t the overly effusive sort, surely she could summon up a teensy bit of enthusiasm?
‘I told you weeks ago I’d be here for the Bank Holiday weekend.’
Her grandmother cast a furtive glance over her shoulder and then, keeping the front door only just ajar, whispered, ‘Now’s not a good time. The master’s here and he doesn’t want visitors.’
Ruby mentally rolled her eyes at her grandmother’s old-fashioned habit of referring to Lucas Rothwell as ‘the master’. Clearly her gran had been watching too many period dramas. And as for Lucas being in residence—that was the whole reason for Ruby’s visit. Her gran had mentioned a few weeks ago about his planning to be in Yorkshire this weekend, after spending months flitting between Greece and Italy for work. Ruby wouldn’t have travelled all this way from London if he wasn’t going to be home.
‘Why? Has he got one of his supermodel girlfriends here?’
It wouldn’t be the first time Ruby had come across Lucas entertaining one of his glamorous partners. She had spent her childhood and adolescence pretending not to notice his brooding good looks and the way his lovers gazed up at him adoringly. She had pretended not to be jealous that he never looked at her the way he looked at those beautiful women. But then, as the homeless ten-year-old waif who had come to live with her housekeeper grandmother after the imprisonment of her mother, Ruby had been practically invisible to him.
Her grandmother pursed her lips, but still kept the door half closed. ‘He’s alone, but—’
‘Great—because he’s the one I really need to see.’ Ruby smiled and, pushing the door open a little further, bent down to give her gran a smacking kiss on the cheek. ‘Not that it isn’t always lovely to see you,’ she added.
‘Get away with you, child.’
Her gran brushed Ruby away as if she was an annoying insect but there was no malice in it. After a rough upbringing herself, her gran had trouble showing and receiving affection, and even while Ruby had longed for more kisses and cuddles growing up, she didn’t feel any less loved. Her gran had taken her in and raised her, and for that she would be for ever grateful. Rothwell Park had been the first stable home she had experienced. The castle and its grounds had provided her with security and shelter, which had been the complete opposite of the chaos of moving from one flea-infested bedsit to another while her mother tried to outrun her debts.
Ruby stepped past to enter the castle and her grandmother closed the door behind her with a soft click, her expression still troubled. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned he’d be home this weekend.’
Her gran’s stage whisper echoed eerily through the large entrance hall and made the fine hairs on the back of Ruby’s neck stand up at the roots.
‘He expressly told me to keep out all visitors.’
‘I’m hardly a visitor.’
Her gran wrung her hands in an agitated manner, her eyes flicking towards the grand staircase as if she was expecting to see Lucas come striding down to fire her on the spot for disobeying his orders.
‘You can’t stay. He won’t allow it.’
Ruby scrunched up her face in scorn. ‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Gran. Of course he’ll allow it. This was my home for years. Besides, I have important business to discuss with him. Where is he?’
Her gran’s throat moved up and down over a convulsive swallow. ‘The library. I was about to take his cup of tea up to him. But—’
‘I’ll do it for you.’
Why Lucas couldn’t fetch his own cup of tea was not worth arguing about with her gran. Beatrice Pennington was an old-school housekeeper. The upstairs and downstairs divide had never been breached in the whole time Ruby had lived with her grandmother.
Lucas’s parents, Claudia and Lionel, had occasionally invited her and her gran to join them for Christmas and other gatherings, but Beatrice had been adamant about keeping the distinction of employer and employee in place. Ruby had quietly and covertly rebelled by finding a hideout position, from which to observe the grand and often raucous dinner parties Claudia and Lionel had hosted. The Rothwells had lived in a completely different world from the one she had been born into. She’d been endlessly fascinated by their glamorous, exciting whirl of wealth and flamboyance and over-the-top decadence.
Ruby couldn’t help noticing her gran wincing as she prepared the tea tray. ‘Have you hurt your arm?’ she asked. ‘Here, let me look at you.’
‘It’s nothing.’
Ruby took the kettle out of her grandmother’s hand and set it back on the bench. She turned her gran’s wrist over and saw the angry red welt of a recent burn. The skin was raw and weeping, the edges a purply-red that hinted at a possible infection. ‘Gran, that needs dressing. It looks like it’s getting—’
Her grandmother pulled her wrist out of Ruby’s hold. ‘Stop fussing, lass. I’ve had worse in my time.’
‘Maybe, but you’re older now, and wound infections can turn nasty in a blink. You really should see a doctor. You might need a skin graft or something. I can take you after I’ve spoken to—’
‘I don’t need a doctor,’ her gran said with a determined edge to her voice. ‘Now, take that tea up to the master before it gets stone-cold.’
Ruby shook her head in frustration, and then glanced at the tea tray. ‘Oh, yum, parkin. I haven’t had that in months.’ She reached for a second cup and plate, and placed them on the tray next to the others.
Her gran looked aghast. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going to have afternoon tea with Lucas.’
‘You’ll have me fired, that’s what.’ Her gran’s tone was gruff, but her expression was set in deep trench lines of worry.
Ruby scooped up the tray. ‘You know, you really should think about retiring. This place is too big for you now, and you’re not getting any younger.’
‘I’ll retire when I’m good and ready and not a moment before.’
Ruby knew better than to argue with her gran in one of her mulish moods. But that was another conversation she would have to have with Lucas Rothwell—about her gran’s retirement.
‘I’ll help you with dinner after I’ve spoken to Lucas.’
The library was on the ground floor, several hundred metres from the kitchen, which only reinforced Ruby’s concerns about her gran’s increasing age and frailty. The harsh Yorkshire winters would be hard on her gran with her aching joints. How long did Lucas Rothwell expect her grandmother to wait on him hand and foot? Even though he spent less time at Rothwell Park than he had previously, it was ridiculous to expect a woman nudging eighty to remain in domestic service without help.
It was clear the castle was not being cleaned the way it used to be. Dust bunnies were in their dozens along the corridors, and cobwebs hung like lacework from the wall lights, as well as from the chandeliers. It gave the castle a ghostly atmosphere that was a little creepy to say the least. Surely Lucas could afford a team of people to run his damn castle. There were three gardeners, for God’s sake. He had made a fortune as a landscape architect, working on massive projects all over Europe. Why not have three housekeepers?
There was a service lift to the upper storeys of the castle, but that was no help with the long corridors and galleries in each commodious wing. The library was in a wing all of its own, overlooking the rolling moors in the distance, divided here and there by dry stone walls and hedgerows. The door was closed, so Ruby placed the tray on a nearby hall table and then gave the door a light knock with her bent knuckles. The tap-tap-tap sound echoed hauntingly along the wide corridor.
‘Come in.’
The deep burr of Lucas Rothwell’s voice sent a light shiver along the flesh of Ruby’s arms and set those bats’ wings in her belly flapping again. He could be intimidating at times, but she was no longer a timid child. She was a proud and successful businesswoman, and she had an important business proposition to discuss. She would not be bashful around him now. She would be brusque and businesslike.
Game face on, Ruby turned the door handle and then picked up the tray and nudged the door further open in order to enter the library. But something stopped her going any further. The room—dark at the best of times, with all that ancient woodwork and the shelves stacked with valuable old books—was cast in long ghostly shadows.
Lucas was sitting with his back to her in one of the two wing chairs set in front of a quartet of tall narrow windows, situated between sections of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The sky outside had clouded over even more since her arrival—it was now a gunmetal-grey—and specks of rain hit the windows, pecking at the glass like tiny invisible beaks.
‘Who is it?’ Lucas’s voice sharpened and he rose from the chair and turned to face where Ruby was standing in the doorway.
He was dressed in a black rollneck jumper and black trousers that made him seem even taller than his impressive six foot three. And he was wearing sunglasses, the aviator sort, which were as effective as a Keep Out sign. He cocked his head, his nostrils flaring slightly, like a wolf trying to pick up a new scent. Her scent.
The thought sent another shiver coursing over her flesh and a warm blush over her cheeks. If only she didn’t blush so easily around him. What was it about Lucas Rothwell that made her feel like a gauche teenager instead of a fully grown adult?
The Embarrassing Incident—Ruby always capitalised it in her head—when she was sixteen was partly to blame. More than partly, if she was honest. Whenever she was in his presence—which was rare these days, thank God—she couldn’t help but think of the clumsy, tipsy pass she’d made at him at one of the Rothwell parties she had sneaked into. And the stern dressing-down he’d given her that had rung in her ears for hours afterwards.
Eleven years had passed since that cringeworthy night, but it was as fresh in her mind as if it had happened yesterday. But she would not let it get in the way of achieving her goal. Harper and Aerin were relying on her to secure Rothwell Park as a wedding venue for Delphine Rainbird, a famous American actor, who was marrying her bodyguard, Miguel Morales. The exposure for their wedding business would be fantastic, let alone the amount of money Delphine was willing to pay to have her fairy tale wedding in a castle on the windswept moors of Yorkshire.
‘If you’d turn a light on or take those sunglasses off, you’d see it’s me.’ Ruby carried the tray over to the table next to the wing chair he had just vacated. ‘Why are you wearing them inside on a day like today? There’s not exactly blinding sunshine coming through the windows.’
There was a beat or two of silence before he answered in a hollow tone. ‘Headache.’
‘Oh, sorry. I’ll try not to rattle the cups too loudly.’ She proceeded to pour the tea into the two cups, and the glug-glug-glug sound in the silence was as loud as a waterfall.
‘What are you doing?’ His voice contained a note or two of irritation and his eyebrows were drawn together, his mouth pulled into a tight line. He remained standing in a stiff and guarded posture that was more than a little off-putting. But Ruby was not going to waste the opportunity to spend some time alone with him to present her proposal.
‘I’m having afternoon tea with you. Anyway, you can’t possibly eat all that parkin on your own.’
‘Take it away. All of it. And close the door on your way out.’ He turned his back on her and stood staring out of the rain-spattered windows, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers.
Ruby let out a long sigh. ‘Look, I know headaches can make the most even-tempered person a little irritable, but I’ve come a long way and I’d like to talk to you about something. Something important.’
‘Now’s not a good time.’
‘When would be a good time?’
There was another cavernous silence. The old bookshelves made a creaking sound, and the howling wind outside whipped up a few stray leaves on the ground and sent them past the windows in a whirligig.
Lucas finally released a long, ragged sigh and then lifted one of his hands out of his trouser pocket to rake it through his black hair, the tracks of his fingers leaving deep grooves in the thick strands.
‘Is it about your grandmother?’
The quality of his tone had changed, the sharp edges softening slightly. He remained with his back to her, and the broadness of his shoulders and his strong spine tapering down to lean hips stirred a flicker of female awareness in her body. An awareness she didn’t want to acknowledge, even to herself. Men like Lucas Rothwell were way out of her league. He only dated supermodels—not homely, girl-next-door-types with freckles and acne scars.
‘Partly, yes.’ Ruby figured discussing her gran would at least give her a good lead-in to her business proposal.
Lucas turned from the window and reached out with one of his hands for the back of the wing chair, lowering himself into it. He stretched his long legs out, crossing his feet at the ankles. His pose was casual, but she sensed a coiled tension in him. Was it because of his headache? She couldn’t remember him ever being ill. Was it a tension headache or a full-blown migraine? She had heard migraines made bright light unbearable to the sufferer and often caused vision disturbance. No wonder he was wearing sunglasses inside.
‘You can pour.’ He nodded in the direction of the tea tray.
If it hadn’t been for his headache Ruby would have insisted he say please. While Lucas was taciturn and abrupt at the best of times, he was not normally flat-out rude. Well, not unless she was tipsy and begging him to kiss her. Argh. Why couldn’t she blot out that wretched moment from her memory for good? On that occasion he had been brutally rude. And from that day her teenage crush had switched to a blistering loathing.
She’d avoided him for months after that, leaving a room as soon as she found him in it, or taking long, arduous detours across the moors if ever she saw him on one of her walks. By the time she was eighteen, she’d left to find work in London, only coming back to see her grandmother two or three times a year. Most of the time when she saw Lucas now he was in a gossip magazine, with yet another stunning woman draped over one of his arms. His success as an award-winning landscape architect saw him travelling the world for his high-end clients. He only visited Rothwell Park intermittently now, which meant she had to make the most of this time with him.
Ruby poured tea into the two cups. ‘Do you still take it black, no sugar?’
‘Yes.’
She handed him the cup, but his fingers fumbled against the saucer, which made some of the tea slosh over the side of the cup. He let out a curt swear-word, not quite under his breath, and quickly steadied the cup by holding his hand over the top.
‘Sorry. Did it burn you?’ he asked.
Ruby took her cup of tea and sat on the other wing chair. ‘No, but speaking of burns... Have you seen the scald mark on my gran’s wrist?’
Even though he was still wearing his aviator glasses she could see the lines of a frown form on his forehead. ‘No. Is it bad?’
‘I think she should see a doctor to have it properly assessed. I’m worried it might need a skin graft. But you know what she’s like about seeking medical attention.’
‘I do know,’ Lucas said, his frown deepening into a two-pleat groove visible above the silver frames of his sunglasses.
‘You can take a look at it and see for yourself. Maybe she’ll listen to you rather than me.’
A flicker of tension flashed across his features. ‘I have no experience with burns. But there’s a first aid kit in the downstairs bathroom. A medical friend of mine put it together a while back. Feel free to help yourself.’
‘Thank you. I’ll see what I can do.’ Ruby eyed the delicious parkin on the tray between them and her stomach gave an audible growl of hunger. ‘Would you like some of Gran’s parkin?’
‘No, thank you. But you go ahead.’
Ruby took a slice of the rich black treacle, brown sugar and ginger treat and placed it on a plate. But then, suddenly self-conscious about eating in front of him, especially as he wasn’t indulging, she put the plate to one side.
He frowned again. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’ll save it for later.’
He made a soft sound of impatience and placed his cup back on the table. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Eat it. Isn’t it your favourite?’
‘Yes, and that’s why I’d better not eat it. I won’t be able to stop at one slice.’
One side of his mouth lifted in an indulgent-looking half-smile. It took years off his face and made him seem less brooding and intimidating. ‘I thought you’d learned your lesson about overindulging?’
There was a mocking note in his tone that made her squirm in her chair. Ruby could feel a hot blush crawling over her cheeks and buried her face in her teacup, taking a sip or two before changing the subject.
‘I have a favour to ask.’
She put the cup and saucer down, and was annoyed she couldn’t control the tiny rattle of crockery. It betrayed her nerves, as if she was still that gauche, hero-worshipping, knobbly-kneed schoolgirl.
‘I have a celebrity client who wants to get married in Yorkshire and—’
‘No.’ The flatly delivered negative cut through the air like a gunshot and his expression closed like a shutter slamming.
‘But you haven’t let me finish—’
Lucas put his cup on the table, rose from his chair and moved back to stand in front of the windows, his back turned towards her again. ‘It’s out of the question.’
The intractable edge to his tone sent a ripple of anger through her. She had to sell the proposal to him. So much depended on her securing Rothwell Park as a wedding venue. Her business partners were depending on her to nail this location for their client. She couldn’t let them down. Harper and Aerin were her family now. Failure wasn’t an option. Failing was what her mother did, not her. Ruby set goals and achieved them. She made plans and carried them out. She made promises she delivered on without fail.
‘But why?’
Lucas gave a grunt of humourless laughter. ‘You mean apart from me loathing weddings?’
Ruby let out a gusty sigh. ‘Not all weddings are like your parents’ ones. I mean, not many couples get married to and divorced from each other three times.’
He turned around to face her, his expression etched in intractable lines. ‘You’re wasting your time, Ruby. I won’t budge on this.’
And there she was thinking her grandmother was stubborn. Lucas took obstinacy to a whole new level. Seriously, he made the most obstinate mule look like a pushover.
‘But Rothwell Park is the perfect setting for a wedding. There’s so much space and the huge kitchen is a dream to work in. My friend Harper is desperate to photograph the wedding here. The gothic setting really appeals to her. Remember you met her once when she came to visit me here? We met in care. And the wedding planner, Aerin, will organise everything, so there’s nothing you’ll have to do. She’s such a perfectionist—nothing will be left to chance. You wouldn’t even have to be here. I’ll bring my catering team in a few days early to set up. Please, Lucas, at least think about it before you say—’
‘No.’
Ruby sprang from her chair, almost knocking the tea tray off the table. She stood in front of him with her hands balled into tight fists, anger stiffening her spine and frustration heating her cheeks. She couldn’t let him stand in the way of her goal. She couldn’t let him thwart her carefully, meticulously laid-out plans. She couldn’t allow him to make her break her promise to her friends and their celebrity client. The wedding had to go ahead. She would find a way to convince him, even if it took longer than the weekend.
She. Could. Not. Fail.
‘I can’t believe you’re being so unfair. This wedding is the biggest we’ve ever done and it will boost our profile so much. All those rooms are lying vacant upstairs. We could house all the guests—some of them very important people. Do you realise the revenue we could raise from this? It’s a dream come true for—’
Lucas turned back to the bleak view of the brooding sky. ‘Please leave.’
‘No. I will not damn well leave.’
Before she could stop herself, Ruby placed one of her hands on his arm to force him to face her. He jolted as if she had touched him with a live wire. A tingling sensation travelled along the length of her own arm and she was acutely conscious of the firm male muscles tensing under her hold.
She couldn’t recall touching him since that awful night when she was sixteen. But the electric sensation was exactly the same. A strange fizzing energy that sent tiny buzzing pulses along the network of her nerves. She was standing so close to his imposing height it sent her heart into a crazy hit-and-miss rhythm. The citrus and woodsy notes of his aftershave teased her senses into a stupor. Although he clearly hadn’t shaved for a week, possibly more, and the rich dark stubble peppering his strong jaw and growing around his sculpted mouth gave him a rakish look.
Eek! Why had she looked at his mouth?
The top lip was slightly thinner than the bottom, their vermilion borders and the philtrum ridge between his nose and top lip so well defined they could have been carved by Michelangelo. It was a mouth that had inspired many a teenage fantasy. And all these years later Ruby still wondered what those firm lips would feel like against her own. Hard and insistent? Soft and sensually persuasive? Or something irresistibly in between?
Lucas placed his broad-spanned hand over hers and lifted it off his arm as if it was speck of lint. ‘Do you really think that tactic is going to work?’
His tone was liberally laced with scorn and another wave of heat flowed to her cheeks.
Ruby glowered up at him, but all she could see was her own furious reflection in his aviator glasses. ‘Firstly, I’m not leaving until you agree to hear me out. And secondly, I can’t leave my gran struggling all by herself with a burned wrist. Why haven’t you engaged another housekeeper? This place is clearly too much for her now.’
‘She insists she doesn’t want to retire.’
‘But can’t you see how neglected this place is at the moment? There are cobwebs everywhere.’
His mouth went into a thin tight line. ‘No, I can’t see.’
Something about his bleak-sounding tone made Ruby frown. ‘But there’s heaps of them. Look at that one at the top of the window, and on the light there. You’d have to blind not to see them.’
The line of his mouth became embittered. ‘But that’s exactly my point—I am blind.’
