The Engagement Deal (8 page)

‘I can’t do this, Niall.’ She sat frozen with terror, glued to her seat. ‘I thought I could but, now I’m here…’

‘First night nerves?’

Holly clenched her chattering teeth. ‘I’m a doctor, not an actor. Dinner with Tara is one thing…but your family…’ Her voice trailed off unhappily. ‘And you were no help. I didn’t even know what clothes to bring,’ she added shakily, nursing her resentment towards him.

‘They’re not royalty, you know; the country is crawling with impoverished baronets. I blame it on centuries of inbreeding, myself.’

‘Your family isn’t impoverished.’

‘True,’ he conceded, ‘but you shouldn’t hold that against us. Mother’s a farmer’s daughter from solid, down-to-earth Irish stock, if that’s any comfort.’

If his mother was a little green alien, it wouldn’t alter the situation! ‘It isn’t.’

‘Well it’s too late to go all temperamental now, Holly. It sounds to me like someone’s heard us arriving,’ he said as the sound of a voice came closer. ‘Come on; it’ll be easy.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her physically from the Jag. Holly was catapulted against his chest. ‘You might even enjoy yourself.’

‘Sure, that’s
very
likely,’ she muttered, trying to push herself off a chest that had about as much give as a sheet of steel. Flickering images of an impressively muscled torso drifted distractingly before her eyes. ‘Will you let me go?’ she huffed breathlessly.

‘No,’ he told her, shifting his body so they were standing as if they were literally joined at the hip. The hand that had slid around her waist reached down and gave her bottom a friendly tap. ‘We’re probably being watched,’ he told her, meeting her murderous glare with a determined teeth-clenched smile. ‘And we need to present a picture of unity. First impressions, my
poppet
, are very important.’

Holly didn’t give a damn about first impressions—she kicked him hard in the shin.

‘Why, you little…!’

‘I did warn you.’

Still rubbing his shin with the calf of his uninjured leg, he regarded her with a glittering smile that spoke very loudly of retribution. ‘My mistake,’ he conceded lightly. ‘My nanny always taught me to respond to cruelty with kindness…’

‘Oh, no…!’
Holly cried, as she guessed what sort of kindness he had in mind. ‘If you kiss me, my aim next time will be more accurate.’ She just hoped this dire threat would have the desired effect.

Niall stopped and eyes narrowed regarded her angry flushed face with a curious expression. ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’ There was the beginning of reluctant admiration in his voice.

‘I
T LOOKS
very much to me as if she would…’ a drily amused voice behind Holly observed.

Holly spun around, her face ablaze with embarrassment.

‘I’ve always said what my son needs upon occasion is a swift kick on the backside…’ Her firm mouth quivered. ‘Or thereabouts,’ Maeve Wesley added reflectively.

Even though Niall’s mother—because, with those eyes, she couldn’t be anyone else—was taking the fact Holly had threatened her offspring with physical violence in very good part, Holly decided that now was probably a good time for the earth to open up and swallow her. She gave the grass beneath her feet a hopeful glance.

‘It’s great to meet a young woman who is like-minded.’ Hand outstretched, the tall, vital figure moved forward.

Lady Wesley was nothing like Holly had expected. Tall and slim, handsome in a strong-boned way without being pretty, she looked remarkably youthful, despite the fact her dark hair was liberally streaked with grey.

‘Hello,’ Holly began weakly before stopping. What was she supposed to call her?

‘Call me Maeve, and I shall call you Holly.’ Her handshake was as firm and to the point as her manner. ‘You’re late, Niall.’ She scowled disapprovingly at her son.

Niall smiled but didn’t offer any explanations for their tardiness. He’d relaxed once he’d realised that his mother had interpreted the scene she stumbled upon as a lover’s tiff—maybe, he mused thoughtfully, it was.

‘Where’s Tom?’ he asked, impatient to see his son.

‘With the other men, learning how to turn good food into charcoal, the last time I saw. He’s still feeling the time difference after the flight,’ she warned him. ‘And you getting him overexcited on the phone last night didn’t help much. It was hours before he eventually went to sleep.’

Niall, who’d felt pretty overexcited himself after the phonecall, smiled. ‘We stopped to admire the scenery.’

The blush which had started to subside began to bubble once more as his mocking blue eyes swept over Holly’s face.

‘You! Since when did you enjoy the beauties of nature? I always thought you found inspiration inside a dirty, oily engine.’

‘I’m expanding my horizons, mother.’ This time, a microsecond of exposure to his eyes instantly turned Holly’s bones to water. ‘Come on, I want to see Tom.’

Holly, her stomach doing lustful acrobatics and with legs the consistency of jelly after that scorching scrutiny, obeyed the light touch on her shoulder and moved forwards. She didn’t think simple
want
covered Niall’s eagerness to see his son. Whatever else he was, Niall was obviously a very devoted father.

‘And show off Holly of course.’ The arm over her shoulders grew possessive.

Feeling suddenly deeply gloomy, Holly wondered what it would feel like to have that sentiment declared for real. A girl with her feet less firmly attached to terra firma might have been mesmerised by those beautiful lying eyes. She had to fight hard to subdue the urge to wrench herself free from his proprietorial grasp.

‘You’ve changed your tune, all of a sudden.’ Maeve turned her keenly intelligent look on Holly, who felt more convinced than ever that they’d never be able to pull this off. Nobody was going to think even for a second that she was the sort of woman to attract Niall. ‘You know, I had to almost blackmail him to bring you along this weekend, Holly.’

Blackmail obviously runs in the family, she thought directing a dark look at his hawkish profile from under the sweep of her gold-tipped lashes.

‘It can be difficult. We can’t plan our social life very far ahead, with my awkward shifts. Niall is really very good about being continually stood up at the last minute.’ In for a penny, she decided. As she threw caution to the winds, she flashed a warmly intimate smile in Niall’s general direction. Her eyes didn’t stay still long enough to register his reaction. ‘Aren’t you, darling?’

‘Niall, patient?’ His mother seemed to be nursing a private joke to herself. ‘Yes, Tara did tell me you’re a doctor. I know I’m in danger of sounding ancient when I say this, but you really do look too young.’

‘I’m twenty-five.’ Holly could see no point in holding back the information her hostess was fishing for.

‘Save the interrogation until later, hey, Mum?’ Niall suggested, his light tone held an audible note of firmness as his grip on Holly, who didn’t like the sound of that
later
at all, tightened protectively.

Even though she knew he was protecting his own interests, not her, Holly felt a spurt of gratitude. She felt other things she didn’t really want to examine too deeply as his fingers came to rest on the gentle curve of her hip.

They were only halfway along a narrow, winding, tree-lined path when they walked headlong into the next contingent of their reception committee.

One of the two small boys among them detached himself from the group and launched himself at Niall, who automatically released Holly, squatted down to small boy height and opened his arms wide.

‘Dad! I’ve got heaps and heaps to tell you about. I saw whales—hundreds of them. I was sea-sick,’ he added as a proud afterthought. ‘And I can swim
nearly
as good as Dan now!’

‘Enough…enough!’ his father pleaded, laughing. ‘I hope you’ve behaved for Aunty Jude and Uncle Chris.’ He glanced warmly towards the waiting young couple. Holly saw that the woman looked like a younger and slightly softer copy of her mother and the man was very thin, very tall and wore wire-framed spectacles on a face that Holly instinctively warmed to.

The child’s face became angelic in the extreme as he raised reproachful blue eyes to his father’s face. ‘They
enjoy
having me.’

‘Sounds to me like you didn’t want to come home…’ The hell of it was, he was only half-teasing. The flash of insecurity had hit him out of the blue. If you looked at it logically, would it be so surprising if his son preferred living in a normal family group? Chris had taken the whole summer off to be with his family. Whereas I…! I must make more time.

‘Well, it was great, but I sort of missed you.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Niall returned the appealing grin. Despite the deficiencies of his parenting skills, the kid was turning out rather well. Wondering a little selfconsciously if he had ‘besotted parent’ emblazoned across his forehead, he ruffled his son’s dark hair and stood up. He held out his hand to the tall man. ‘Thanks, Chris.’ His sister then received a quick hug. ‘Is the baby sleeping the night through, yet?’

‘Is that your idea of a joke?’ Jude turned to Holly. ‘Hi, you must be Holly.’ Holly found the attractive brunette’s friendly scrutiny a good deal less daunting than her mother’s. ‘I’m Niall’s baby sister, Jude Appleby, and this is my husband Chris.’

There was understanding in Chris’s kind eyes as he nodded in acknowledgement at Holly’s tentative smile. ‘An overwhelming lot, aren’t they?’ he said in a very attractive soft Transatlantic drawl. ‘But you do get used to them.’

Holly knew she wouldn’t be around long enough to get used to anything, except feeling a complete fake.

‘If you’ve left your father alone with the food,’ Maeve said, ‘I suggest we save the introductions for a few moments or there’ll be nothing to eat.’

Maeve Wesley seemed to Holly the sort of person who liked to organise things and people—especially people. She shot Niall a pleading look as his sister linked her arm in Holly’s and started to chat in a friendly and open manner which Holly, more painfully conscious than ever of the fraud she was committing against these nice people, felt unable to respond naturally to. He winked unsympathetically at her and let his son drag him slightly ahead of the others.

Holly had a fresh surprise when they reached the broad sweep of well-manicured lawn that swept down from the house—well, Holly assumed it passed for a lawn, here; at home, they’d have called it a field—Tara was here too.

‘Holly, how lovely to see you!’ The blonde figure floated gracefully with every appearance of genuine pleasure towards her. The setting seemed perfect for her somehow. Dressed in a mini that showed off her stunning legs, she even outshone the peacocks in the beauty stakes. Obviously she hadn’t spent hours figuring out what outfit wouldn’t make her stand out like a sore thumb—she stood out quite beautifully.

Holly suspected her own response to the warm hug might have been more restrained if she really had been Niall’s fiancée. There couldn’t be many women around confident enough to accept the presence of an ex-partner who looked so tiresomely gorgeous as Tara.

‘I didn’t know you’d be here.’

‘Oh, yes, we’re all one jolly extended family.’ There was irony in Niall’s deep voice as he came to stand behind Holly.

‘Fortunately, we’ve got plenty of bedrooms here to accommodate my children’s ex-partners…’ Rubbing his hands on a striped apron Sir George Wesley, the chef, came towards them, having left the cooking to the younger generation. Holly saw immediately Niall had his father’s impressive build and the family nose, but it was the similarity in their deep attractive voices that struck Holly most forcibly.

Rather than responding to his father’s teasing challenge, Niall glanced anxiously towards his sister. Holly couldn’t help but notice as her hand was firmly wrung that everyone else had glanced in Jude’s direction, too.

‘I’ll just go and check on the baby,’ Jude said, offering Holly a quick strained smile before she hurried, eyes lowered, off towards the house.

‘Well, really, George!’ his wife said in disgust.

‘I didn’t think!’ Her spouse responded looking distinctly ill at ease. ‘I wasn’t even thinking about Jude. It was Niall I was—’

‘Tell Judith that. I’ll go and see how she is.’

Chris Appleby, quiet to this point spoke up. ‘No, Maeve, I think she needs some time alone,’ he said gravely.

Her mother didn’t look convinced but, rather to Holly’s surprise, she meekly did as her son-in-law suggested. Then, on reflection, she realised she wasn’t really that surprised; despite the American’s quiet unassuming air, he did have an aura of calm authority.

There was a definite tension in the air. She thought it a safe bet that she was probably the only person here who didn’t have an inkling of what was going on. Fortunately, Thomas broke the awkward pause just in time—another two seconds and she’d have started babbling about the weather.

‘Mum says you’re a doctor.’ He’d inherited the same electric blue eyes, and that disturbingly direct way of looking at a person, too. Give this tall gangly eight-year-old a few years and he’d be breaking as many hearts as his father.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Are you Dad’s doctor? Is he ill?’ A small furrow creased the smoothness of his childish brow as he tried to puzzle out her presence.

‘No, Tom, I’m not ill,’ Niall reassured him lifting the dark hair flopping into his son’s eyes. ‘If you discount this nasty bruise on my shin…’

Nothing could have implied intimacy and shared secrets more than that little smile or the taunting challenge in his eyes as they touched her face. If she had smiled back in a besotted way, Niall would have assumed it was all part of the act, but Holly wouldn’t permit herself this foolish weakness.

‘I think,’ Niall added critically, ‘you could do with an appointment with a pair of scissors.’

‘Is she your girlfriend, then?’ The child persisted, refusing to be distracted.

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Oh, right.’ His narrow shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug. ‘I don’t care what they say about ginger people,’ he said, subjecting a deeply embarrassed Holly to a solemn scrutiny. ‘I think she’s
quite
pretty.’ He ran over to his grandfather, who was urging the party to eat quickly before it started raining.

The adults hid their collective amusement—all barring Holly, who would have felt more relaxed if she’d just survived the Inquisition. She let out a long sigh of relief.

Niall bent down to speak softly in her ear. ‘I must ask him what they do say about redheads.’

‘Don’t you feel even the slightest bit guilty?’ she hissed.

‘What for?’

‘For lying to your family!’

‘We lie every day of our lives—even you, Dr Parish—so put away that sanctimonious little smile and whip up some unquestioning adoration.’

‘In your dreams!’ she choked.

‘Mine and every other male on the planet,’ he conceded with a lecherous grin. ‘If you want to make a hit with my father, just eat his food,’ he advised, leading her towards the rest of the family, who had gathered around the table set under the rather grand picnic awning.

‘I can’t eat. I feel sick.’

‘We’ll all feel sick once we’ve consumed our token share of the burnt offerings,’ he announced, with callous disregard for her mental torture. ‘It’ll be very handy to have a doctor in the house.’

Despite the age and grandeur of the historic house there was nothing museum-like about it. Primarily it was a home like every home, it had lots of small quirky individual touches that said things about the people that lived there. Holly kept telling herself this; she didn’t want to give the impression she was awed by her surroundings—even if she was!

‘Our bags have been taken up.’ Niall appeared and she stopped gawking at the chandelier that was probably as big as their sitting-room, back home. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ Without waiting for her, he started up the great sweeping staircase.

Holly decided it was lucky she was fairly fit, partly due to the fact she spent her life walking miles down hospital corridors, as Niall didn’t make many concessions for the drastic difference in their inside leg measurements.

‘This is the oldest part of the house.’

Holly nodded; she’d already noticed that the ceiling was a more intimate height in this, the original part of the building, that had begun life as a relatively modest Medieval manor house.

‘Here we are.’ He opened an oak-latched door with flourish and stood to one side as she entered.

‘This is lovely.’ It was a delightful half-timber panelled gem of a room: She’d seen bedrooms smaller than the vast fourposter that dominated it. She walked over to the window and gave an appreciative sigh. It looked out directly over the formal Italianate gardens and the lake beyond. Leaning her elbows on the stone sill, she poked her head out of the leaded frame to get a better view.