Craving the Forbidden (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Fitzroy Legacy - Book 1) (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

I
NSIDE
the chauffeur-driven Bentley Sophie blew her cheeks out in a long, silent whistle.

What was it that horoscope said?

The car was very warm and very comfortable, but no amount of climate control and expensive upholstery could quite thaw the glacial atmosphere. Apart from a respectfully murmured ‘Good evening, Miss,’ the chauffeur kept his attention very firmly focused on the road. Sophie didn’t blame him. You could cut the tension in the back of the car with a knife.

Sophie sat very upright, leaving as much seat as possible between her fishnetted thigh and his long, hard flannel-covered one. She didn’t dare look at Jasper’s brother, but was aware of him staring, tense-jawed, out of the window. The village of Alnburgh looked like a scene from a Christmas card as they drove up the main street, past a row of stone houses with low, gabled roofs covered in a crisp meringue-topping of snow, but he didn’t look very pleased to be home.

Her mind raced as crazily as the white flakes swirling past the car window, the snatches of information Jasper had imparted about his brother over the years whirling through it. Kit Fitzroy was in the army, she knew that much, and he served abroad a lot, which would account for the unseasonal tan. Oh, and Jasper had once described him as having a ‘complete emotion-bypass’. She recalled the closed expression Jasper’s face wore on the rare occasions he mentioned him, the bitter edge his habitual mocking sarcasm took on when he said the words ‘my brother’.

She was beginning to understand why. She had only known him for a little over three hours—and most of that time she’d been asleep—but it was enough to find it impossible to believe that this man could be related to Jasper. Sweet, warm, funny Jasper, who was her best friend in the world and the closest thing she had to family.

But the man beside her was his
real
flesh and blood, so surely that meant he couldn’t be all bad? It also meant that she should make some kind of effort to get on with him, for Jasper’s sake. And her own, since she had to get through an entire weekend in his company.

‘So, you must be Kit, then?’ she offered. ‘I’m Sophie. Sophie Greenham.’ She laughed—a habit she had when she was nervous. ‘Bizarre, isn’t it? Whoever would have guessed we were going to the same place?’

Kit Fitzroy didn’t bother to look at her. ‘Not you, obviously. Have you known my brother long?’

OK. So she was wrong. He was every bit as bad as she’d first thought. Thinking of the horoscope, she bit back the urge to snap,
Yes, as a matter of fact. I’ve known your brother for the last seven years, as you would have been very well aware if you took the slightest interest in him
, and kept her voice saccharine sweet as she recited the story she and Jasper had hastily come up with last night on the phone when he’d asked her to do this.

‘Just since last summer. We met on a film.’

The last bit at least was true. Jasper was an assistant director and they had met on a dismal film about the Black Death that mercifully had never seen the light of day. Sophie had spent hours in make-up having sores applied to her face and had had one line to say, but had caught Jasper’s eye just as she’d been about to deliver it and noticed that he was shaking with laughter. It had set her off too, and made the next four hours and twenty-two takes extremely challenging, but it had also sealed their friendship, and set its tone. It had been the two of them, united and giggling against the world, ever since.

He turned his head slightly. ‘You’re an actress?’

‘Yes.’

Damn, why did that come out sounding so defensive? Possibly because he said the word ‘actress’ in the same faintly disdainful tone as other people might say ‘lap dancer’ or ‘shoplifter’. What would he make of the fact that even ‘actress’ was stretching it for the bit parts she did in films and TV series? Clamping her teeth together, she looked away—and gasped.

Up ahead, lit up in the darkness, cloaked in swirling white like a fairy castle in a child’s snow globe, was Alnburgh Castle.

She’d seen pictures, obviously. But nothing had prepared her for the scale of the place, or the impact it made on the surrounding landscape. It stood on top of the cliffs, its grey stone walls seeming to rise directly out of them. This was a side of Jasper’s life she knew next to nothing about, and Sophie felt her mouth fall open as she stared in amazement.

‘Bloody hell,’ she breathed.

It was the first genuine reaction he’d seen her display, Kit thought sardonically, watching her. And it spoke volumes.

Sympathy wasn’t an emotion he was used to experiencing in relation to Jasper, but at that moment he certainly felt something like it now. His brother must be pretty keen on this girl to invite her up here for Ralph Fitzroy’s seventieth birthday party, but from what Kit had seen on the train it was obvious the feeling wasn’t remotely mutual.

No prizes for guessing what the attraction was for Sophie Greenham.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he remarked acidly.

In the dimly lit interior of the car her eyes gleamed darkly like moonlit pools as she turned to face him. Her voice was breathless, so that she sounded almost intimidated.

‘It’s incredible. I had no idea …’

‘What, that your boyfriend just happened to be the son of the Earl of Hawksworth?’ Kit murmured sardonically. ‘Of course. You were probably too busy discussing your mutual love of art-house cinema to get round to such mundane subjects as family background.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘Of course I knew about Jasper’s background—
and
his family.’

She said that last bit with a kind of defiant venom that was clearly meant to let him know that Jasper hadn’t given him a good press. He wondered if she thought for a moment that he’d care. It was hardly a well-kept secret that there was no love lost between him and his brother—the spoiled, pampered golden boy. Ralph’s second and favourite son.

The noise of the Bentley’s engine echoed off the walls of the clock tower as they passed through the arch beneath it. The headlights illuminated the stone walls, dripping with damp, the iron-studded door that led down to the former dungeon that now housed Ralph’s wine cellar. Kit felt the invisible iron-hard bands of tension around his chest and his forehead tighten a couple of notches.

It was funny, he spent much of his time in the most dangerous conflict zones on the globe, but in none of them did he ever feel a fraction as isolated or exposed as he did here. When he was working he had his team behind him. Men he could trust.

Trust wasn’t something he’d ever associated with home life at Alnburgh, where people told lies and kept secrets and made promises they didn’t keep.

He glanced across at the woman sitting beside him, and felt his lip curl. Jasper’s new girlfriend was going to fit in very well.

Sophie didn’t wait until the chauffeur came round to open the door for her. The moment the car came to a standstill she reached for the handle and threw the door open, desperate to be out of the confined space with Kit Fitzroy.

A gust of salt-scented, ice-edged wind cleared her head but nearly knocked her sideways, whipping her hair across her face. Impatiently she brushed it away again. Alnburgh Castle loomed ahead of her. And above her and around her too, she thought weakly, turning to look at the fortress-thick walls that stretched into the darkness all around her, rising into huge, imposing buildings and jagged towers.

There was nothing remotely welcoming or inviting about it. Everything about the place was designed to scare people off and keep them out.

Sophie could see that Jasper’s brother would be right at home here.

‘Thanks, Jensen. I can manage the bags from here.’

‘If you’re sure, sir …’

Sophie turned in time to see Kit take her bag from the open boot of the Bentley and turn to walk in the direction of the castle’s vast, imposing doorway. One strap of the green satin bra he had picked up on the train was hanging out of the top of it.

Hastily she hurried after him, her high heels ringing off the frozen flagstones and echoing around the walls of the castle courtyard.

‘Please,’ Sophie persisted, not wanting him to put himself out on her account any more than he had—so unwillingly—done already. ‘I’d rather take it myself.’

He stopped halfway up the steps. For a split second he paused, as if he was gathering his patience, then turned back to her. His jaw was set but his face was carefully blank.

‘If you insist.’

He held it out to her. He was standing two steps higher than she was, and Sophie had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Thrown for a second by the expression in his hooded eyes, she reached out to take the bag from him but, instead of the strap, found herself grasping his hand. She snatched hers away quickly, at exactly the same time he did, and the bag fell, tumbling down the steps, scattering all her clothes into the snow.

‘Oh, knickers,’ she muttered, dropping to her knees as yet another giggle of horrified, slightly hysterical amusement rose up inside her. Her heart was thumping madly from the accidental contact with him. His hand had felt warm, she thought irrationally. She’d expected it to be as cold as his personality.

‘Hardly,’ he remarked acidly, stooping to pick up a pink thong and tossing it back into the bag. ‘But clearly what passes for them in your wardrobe. You seem to have a lot of underwear and not many clothes.’

The way he said it suggested he didn’t think this was a good thing.

‘Yes, well,’ she said loftily, ‘what’s the point of spending money on clothes that I’m going to get bored of after I’ve worn them once? Underwear is a good investment. Because it’s practical,’ she added defensively, seeing the faint look of scorn on his face. ‘God,’ she muttered crossly, grabbing a handful of clothes back from him. ‘This journey’s turning into one of those awful drawing-room farces.’

Straightening up, he raised an eyebrow. ‘The entire weekend is a bit of a farce, wouldn’t you say?’

He went up the remainder of the steps to the door. Shoving the escaped clothes back into her bag with unnecessary force, Sophie followed him and was about to apologise for having the wrong underwear and the wrong clothes and the wrong accent and occupation and attitude when she found herself inside the castle and her defiance crumbled into dust.

The stone walls rose to a vaulted ceiling what seemed like miles above her head, and every inch was covered with muskets, swords, pikes and other items of barbaric medieval weaponry that Sophie recognised from men-in-tights-with-swords films she’d worked on, but couldn’t begin to name. They were arranged into intricate patterns around helmets and pieces of armour, and the light from a huge wrought-iron lantern that hung on a chain in the centre of the room glinted dully on their silvery surfaces.

‘What a cosy and welcoming entrance,’ she said faintly, walking over to a silver breastplate hanging in front of a pair of crossed swords. ‘I bet you’re not troubled by persistent double-glazing salesmen.’

He didn’t smile. His eyes, she noticed, held the same dull metallic gleam as the armour. ‘They’re seventeenth century. Intended for invading enemies rather than double-glazing salesmen.’

‘Gosh.’ Sophie looked away, trailing a finger down the hammered silver of the breastplate, noticing the shining path it left through the dust. ‘You Fitzroys must have a lot of enemies.’

She was aware of his eyes upon her. Who would have thought that such a cool stare could make her skin feel as if it were burning? Somewhere a clock was ticking loudly, marking out the seconds before he replied, ‘Let’s just say we protect our interests.’

His voice was dangerously soft. Sophie’s heart gave a kick, as if the armour had given her an electric shock. Withdrawing her hand sharply, she jerked her head up to look at him. A faint, sardonic smile touched the corner of his mouth. ‘And it’s not just invading armies that threaten those.’

His meaning was clear, and so was the thinly veiled warning behind the words. Sophie opened her mouth to protest, but no words came—none that would be any use in defending herself against the accusation he was making anyway, and certainly none that would be acceptable to use to a man with whose family she was going to be a guest for the weekend.

‘I-I’d better find Jasper,’ she stammered. ‘He’ll be wondering where I am.’

He turned on his heel and she followed him through another huge hallway panelled in oak, her footsteps making a deafening racket on the stone-flagged floor. There were vast fireplaces at each end of the room, but both were empty, and Sophie noticed her breath made faint plumes in the icy air. This time, instead of weapons, the walls were hung with the glassy-eyed heads of various large and hapless animals. They seemed to stare balefully at Sophie as she passed, as if in warning.

This is what happens if you cross the Fitzroys.

Sophie straightened her shoulders and quickened her pace. She mustn’t let Kit Fitzroy get to her. He had got entirely the wrong end of the stick. She was Jasper’s friend and she’d come as a favour to him precisely
because
his family were too bigoted to accept him as he really was.

She would have loved to confront Kit Superior Fitzroy with that, but of course it was impossible. For Jasper’s sake, and also because there was something about Kit that made her lose the ability to think logically and speak articulately, damn him.

A set of double doors opened at the far end of the hallway and Jasper appeared.

‘
Soph!
You’re
here
!’

At least she thought it was Jasper. Gone were the layers of eccentric vintage clothing, the tattered silk-faced dinner jackets he habitually wore over T-shirts and torn drainpipe jeans. The man who came towards her, his arms outstretched, was wearing well-ironed chinos and a V-necked jumper over a button-down shirt and—Sophie’s incredulous gaze moved downwards—what looked suspiciously like brogues.

Reaching her, this new Jasper took her face between his hands and kissed her far more tenderly than normal. Caught off guard by the bewildering change in him, Sophie was just about to push him away and ask what he was playing at when she remembered what she was there for. Dropping her poor, battered bag again, she wrapped her arms around his neck.