MEGAN WAS ONE of a kind. Capable and firm, and yet she saw what other people needed and responded to that. Honest to a fault, but her warmth and wry smile took the sharp edges from her observations.
And if he hadn’t met a woman like her before, then maybe the rules he’d set himself didn’t apply. Jaye decided to think about that when he wasn’t so intoxicated with her scent.
The lights were out in the main part of the house, and he drove to the west side, stopping the car on the hard standing outside his apartment. Megan got out of the car, and he switched on the light in the porch so she could see her way.
She was looking around, always interested in the things around her. ‘What’s this…?’ Her gaze was fixed on the doorframe. ‘A mouse!’
‘That’s Henry.’ Jaye smiled. He’d named the tiny carved mouse when he’d been a boy, and this side of the house was closed up. Now it welcomed him home every time he stepped through the front door, but suddenly it felt as if he was seeing it for the first time again.
‘Henry the mouse.’ She bent to get a better view of him, running her fingers over the wood, smoothed and hardened by time. ‘Hello, Henry. What have you seen, in all the years you’ve been here?’
‘Quite a few things, I imagine…’ Jaye opened the door and ushered her inside. ‘This is the oldest part of the house. It dates back to Tudor times.’
‘It doesn’t seem…’ Megan turned around full circle, looking at the wooden staircase and the gallery running around the top storey of the hallway. ‘It’s much lighter than I’d have imagined. I always think of Tudor houses as very small and cramped.’
‘This was the entrance to the old manor house. It was designed to make an impression.’ Megan looked and commented on things, just as most other people did, but Jaye didn’t mind that. She somehow didn’t make him feel that he was an insignificant part of a greater whole.
‘Well, it works. I’m impressed.’ She turned to him, and it seemed that the world lurched under his feet. As if he were about to trip and fall right into her beautiful blue eyes.
He tore himself away from that precipice, taking her coat and hanging it up, allowing himself just a moment to appreciate her scent before he withdrew from that dizzying experience.
‘Would you like some cocoa, or something a bit stronger? Or a guided tour…?’ Jaye could take or leave the first two options, but badly wanted Megan to choose the third.
‘Cocoa would be nice. And the guided tour?’
Jaye turned away from her, hiding his smile, and led her through to the kitchen. While he heated the milk, Megan gave his kitchen a thorough once-over.
‘The kitchen’s newly built?’ She ran her hand across the worktop. The fact that she seemed unable to look without touching sent a shiver down Jaye’s spine.
‘Yes, I had the extension built when I took over this wing as my own apartment. I wanted something modern, but didn’t want to change what was already here.’
‘You dug these foundations?’ There was a trace of mischief in her smile.
‘No. I’m to be trusted with a spade but not a mechanical digger.’ Jaye suddenly wished that he had, if it would make him any more acceptable in Megan’s eyes. If it would chase away the feeling that his own privilege was exactly the kind of thing that her father had offered, and she had rejected.
She nodded. ‘Probably wise. You’d have been sorry if you’d knocked a few walls down by mistake.’
‘Yes, I would. I’m supposed to be a caretaker here.’
‘For future generations?’
‘For whatever comes next.’ Jaye didn’t think a lot about future generations, and if he did it was his brothers’ children, not his own.
He made the cocoa and then took her upstairs to the gallery, the old floorboards creaking under their feet. She leaned over the bannister, looking down, and wondered aloud whether fine ladies had done the same, to inspect the tops of young men’s heads for bald patches. In the spare bedroom she exclaimed at the four-poster bed, and downstairs in the living room she turned the corners of her mouth down when she found that the flowers in the old brick fireplace weren’t real.
‘They last longer…’ Jaye hadn’t really thought about it before.
‘But they have no scent.’
Next time he’d make sure that there was a vase full of fresh-picked flowers there. Jaye made the resolution, despite the fact that next time wasn’t all that likely.
But Megan had moved on. ‘The windows… Some of this is new glass and some old?’
Jaye joined her at the mullioned window. Looking into the darkness beyond, feeling the cold under his fingertips as he touched the glass, gave him an odd feeling of craving. To see what she saw, and feel what she felt.
‘I wanted to save as much of the old glass as I could, but some of the pieces were too badly damaged. So, rather than try to reproduce them, I replaced them with new glass.’
‘Arrested decay?’ Megan immediately got what he’d been trying to do and Jaye smiled. ‘I like that. It’s honest.’
‘In a place this old you either have to strip everything out and start again, or you have to live with the irregularities.’ Jaye liked the irregularities.
She nodded, looking up at him. Her face was pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide. Jaye wondered whether she would object if he asked whether he could kiss her.
Or maybe he should just do it. She seemed closer now, and that definitely wasn’t a trick of the light. He was surrounded by her scent, and could almost feel the warmth of her body against his.
‘Oh…’ She gave him a startled look, and Jaye instinctively moved back. Her hand flew to her wrist. ‘My bangle. I think I’ve lost it.’
He brushed away the impulse to tell her that the bangle didn’t matter, and that he’d buy her as many new ones as she wanted, if she’d only stay in this moment with him. The look of dismay on Megan’s face told him that the bangle did matter.
‘I’m sorry… It’s really precious to me. It was given to me by the people I worked with when I left Africa.’
‘Do you remember where you last had it?’ This wasn’t just a chunk of silver, it was suddenly as important to Jaye as it obviously was to Megan.
‘I…’ She thought for a moment. ‘I took it off when I was with Tim in the snug… I didn’t want to examine him while I was wearing heavy jewellery.’
‘And you left it there?’
‘I think so. I must have done.’ She shrugged, trying to cover her dismay. ‘I dare say it’ll be safe enough. I can go and look for it first thing in the morning.’
‘There’s no point in worrying about it all night. We’ll go and find it now.’
* * *
Megan hurried towards the front door of his apartment, apparently quite prepared to go out into the night wearing just her dress if it meant she might find the bangle. Jaye turned her around, taking her hand and leading her to the back of the entrance hall.
‘This is a bit quicker.’ He grinned at her, unlocking the door that led to the narrow servants’ corridor and ushering her through to the concealed door at the other end, which opened into the main part of house.
‘You’d hardly know this was there.’ She ran her fingers along the mouldings that disguised the door.
Jaye nodded. ‘It’s how the servants used to appear out of nowhere and then disappear again. But it’s the best way of getting around the house.’
‘Do you have lots of secret passages like this?’
‘A few.’ He led her downstairs to the kitchen, flipping on the light.
Megan hurried through to where Tim had been sitting, looking under the table while Jaye moved the chairs. Then she got down on her hands and knees to scan the floor. ‘There it is. Look, under the sideboard.’
She tried to reach under the heavy piece of furniture, and frowned in exasperation, hitching her dress up a little to give herself more freedom of movement. Jaye moved her to one side, feeling a moment’s regret as her hemline slipped back down to her knees, and reached under the sideboard.
His fingers touched the bangle, and it rolled a little to one side. He reached a little further, and got hold of it.
‘Thank you.’ Her face was shining as he put it over her hand, back onto her wrist. ‘I don’t think I could have gone to sleep not knowing whether I’d lost it.’
The last thing that Jaye wanted to do right now was sleep. He wanted to kiss her, but that probably wasn’t anywhere on the agenda that Megan seemed to have planned so carefully for her life. He wasn’t anywhere on that agenda.
‘Is there another secret passage? That’ll take us back?’
She’d already seen the one that ran back to his apartment. But her bright excitement made Jaye feel like a boy again. A boy who knew every inch of this house, and who had often left his bed in the middle of the night to explore it when his friends came to stay. A boy who hadn’t been afraid of the reaction it might provoke, and who had just enjoyed sharing the excitement of the house’s secrets.
‘You want secret passages?’ He gazed into her shining eyes. ‘Your wish is my command, milady. Maybe not in those shoes, though.’
* * *
He rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs, and apologised when he could only find a pair of wellingtons. Megan’s fingers trembled as she pulled them on. Secret passages. A handsome man to show her through them. She couldn’t help hoping for shadows and a little darkness, too.
She wanted to go with him, into the shadows, even though she couldn’t see what lay ahead. Even though there could be no plan, no carefully thought-out assessment of cause and effect. The man she’d thought she’d known had been slowly chipped away this evening, and all she could see now was the boy who had named a tiny carved mouse. The one who’d climbed through windows and skinned his knees. The one who’d looked up at the paintings of his ancestors, knowing that his whole life was in front of him, and that he could be whatever he wanted to be.
‘Are you sure?’ She nodded down at the wellingtons. They fitted, but looked a little odd with her dress.
‘The passage runs under the house, and the floor’s pretty uneven and sometimes a bit wet. You’ll ruin your shoes.’ Jaye grinned. ‘Anyway, this is a midnight adventure. It’s a come-as-you-are thing. Did I tell you that you looked absolutely gorgeous tonight?’
‘No. You didn’t.’ She’d been so busy avoiding him that Jaye wouldn’t have had the chance. ‘I feel a bit rumpled now.’
‘But still gorgeous.’ He caught her hand, leading her past the kitchen and down another narrow flight of steps to the wine cellar. Megan was losing her bearings, but this must be the older part of the house, under Jaye’s apartment.
He stopped beside a metal grille, and Megan shivered as cool air brushed her face. Before she could tell him that she didn’t need it, he’d taken his jacket off, draping it around her shoulders.
Bending to open one of the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, he took out two candles, handing her one and lighting it. He swung the grille open and Megan peered into the gloom.
‘Where does this go? Is it an escape route?’
Jaye chuckled. ‘Yes, it comes up in the old stables. Apparently the fourth Duke had a habit of making this way out to the stables every time his debtors came knocking on the door. And the story is that the seventh Duke would smuggle his lover in through here. Not very convenient for the poor woman, I imagine.’
He held out his arm, and Megan slipped her hands into the sleeves of his jacket, pulling them up over her wrists so she could cling to him. Jaye was sure-footed in the half-light and obviously knew this tunnel well.
‘So what number are you?’ The Dukes of Marlowe seemed to go back a very long way.
‘My uncle was seventeen. Which makes me eighteen.’
‘Not your mother…?’ Megan had wondered how Jaye had inherited the title when his parents were both still alive.
‘No. My uncle had no children and I was the oldest male heir. It’s an old-fashioned system that doesn’t allow women to inherit. I’m hoping that’ll change for the next generation.’
‘And the house came with the title?’
‘Yes, the house and land are entailed. Although my parents have always run the estate. It suits us all and gives me the opportunity to spend more time with the charity.’
‘Then you don’t spend much time here?’
‘Not in the last few years. I haven’t been in this tunnel in a while. When I was a boy, and my friends stayed over, we used to creep down here at night all the time.’
So this was an escape for him, too. Megan imagined that the tunnel had been waiting, silent and dark beneath the house, for the moment when Jaye returned.
‘It’s wonderful. Every house should have one.’
‘I think so, too.’ Jaye stopped suddenly. Then she felt the brush of his fingers, as gentle on the side of her face as the cool breeze that ventilated the tunnel. Then his lips, leaving just the ghost of a kiss on her forehead.
‘It’s a tradition.’ Megan shivered as his breath caressed her ear. ‘No Duke of Marlowe can bring a woman down here without kissing her.’
‘Then it would be a shame if you fell short of your duties.’
‘My thoughts exactly. Particularly as I’ve never had the chance to fulfil this particular one before.’
Megan caught her breath. Suddenly it seemed important that she wasn’t just treading the same path that other women had taken, that this was something different, and that it was hers alone.
‘As it’s your first time, I’ll have to forgive you for taking half-measures.’
‘Half-measures?’ There was something suddenly taut about the feel of his body next to hers. Something deliciously compelling about the tone of his voice.
He took the candle from her, propping it next to his own on a ledge that ran along the side of the wall. She caught a tantalising glimpse of his smile in the flickering light as the candle flared and guttered.
Jaye’s arm steadied her. And then she was in his arms. She felt his lips against hers and almost cried out. He kissed her again, and this time it was like liquid fire running through her veins, making her knees shake.
‘You fulfil your duties very well, my lord.’
‘I find it deliciously easy, my lady…’ The pressure of his arm around her waist loosened. There was a way back if she chose to take it. But Megan didn’t want to.
* * *
They were just play-acting, weren’t they? Fooling around in a secret tunnel, like he had when he’d been a child.
But his blood was thundering through his veins. And the last time he’d been down here, fooling around, had merely consisted of lighting a few candles and sharing a chocolate bar with his friends, then creeping back to his bed, his pyjamas flapping wetly around his ankles.
When he let Megan go, she grabbed his shirt, pulling him back close. As his body touched hers, she gave a little sigh.
‘Jaye…’
When she whispered his name, it was an expression of the need that he felt too. And he needed so badly to touch her skin.
Jaye pulled the neck of his jacket to one side, wondering whether she’d stop him. As he ran his fingers across the bare skin of her neck, she gasped, stretching up against him for another kiss. Blindly, lost in a passion that robbed him of every restraint, he slid the jacket off her shoulders and down to her elbows.
She let out a gasp of approval as he bunched the fabric between his fingers, pinning her arms loosely at her sides and brushing his lips against her forehead.
‘That’s good. Jaye…’
He couldn’t resist. Imprisoning her tightly, he kissed her again. Megan’s response was immediate, kissing him back with an almost savage passion that left him reeling.
As soon as he released his grip, she put her arms around his neck, pulling him down for another kiss. He held her tightly against his chest, wondering what he could ever have done to deserve this second chance.
‘This… It’s not right…’ Megan deserved more than this dank, draughty tunnel. She deserved candlelight and soft sheets. Maybe a hot bath, to make her feel good, before he made love to her.
He could hardly breathe. Asking her back to his bed seemed like the biggest risk he’d ever taken.
‘No, it’s not…’ He felt her body pulling slowly away from his. ‘You’re my boss and…it’s too complicated.’
That wasn’t what he’d meant. But suddenly it seemed undeniably true. He pulled his jacket up around her shoulders, wrapping it around her.
He’d thought that Megan was so different. She’d seen past the privilege of his background, and that had blinded him to the one thing that was staring him right in the face. He was her boss, and she couldn’t see past that. She never would, her father had seen to that.
And this was no misunderstanding. It wasn’t right for either of them.
Jaye took her hand, brushing his lips against the backs of her fingers. ‘I’ll take you back. Tonight never happened.’
‘Thank you.’ Her eyes glistened as she looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry that…it couldn’t.’
So was Jaye. But he was beginning to feel as if he’d had a lucky escape.
He took her hand, leading her back out of the tunnel and through the basement to the kitchen. She took off the wellington books, stowing them carefully back into the cupboard under the stairs and slipping her shoes back on. Then she took his jacket off, carefully hanging it over the back of one of the chairs around the kitchen table, her hand smoothing the creases he’d made when he’d pulled her close and kissed her.
‘I can find my way from here.’ Clearly she didn’t want the indignity of being spotted with her boss at one in the morning. Anger surged through Jaye’s heart. Why couldn’t she see that he was different from her father?
‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ His words were a little more abrupt than he’d meant them to be and he struggled to smile at her. This was for the best, and the least he could do was be civil about it. ‘Goodnight. Sleep well.’
‘Thank you. You too.’ Megan turned and walked away from him.
* * *
Megan didn’t dare to go down to breakfast, making do with an oat bar she’d found at the bottom of her handbag and a glass of water. She packed her things, and sat down to write a note.
Everyone was leaving this morning, and she wondered whether it would be more inconspicuous to go with a group of the others or to walk across the entrance hall alone. Deciding that going it alone had the advantage of allowing her to make a dash for it, she crept downstairs into the quiet entrance hall.
‘Not again.’ She’d positioned the envelope, addressed to Caroline, next to the flowers on the hall table, when Jaye’s voice rang out. Megan jumped, letting out an involuntary yelp of surprise.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.’ He was sitting in an armchair right at the back of the entrance hall, behind the stairs.
‘I imagine if you had, you’d be leaving by the back door right now.’ His voice was kind, but his eyes were devoid of any emotion. The Jaye she’d got a glimpse of last night was lost behind the façade of a charming host.
‘I had to come this way, to leave a thank-you note for your mother.’ Megan picked up the envelope from the hall table.
‘That’s very thoughtful. I’ll give it to her.’
Megan hesitated. They were both thinking it, so she may as well say it. ‘So I’m not so much sneaking off as…leaving unobtrusively.’
‘That makes all the difference.’ For a moment she thought she saw Jaye’s warmth in the flash of his dark eyes.
She held out her hand to him, and he took it, his fingers squeezing hers slightly before he let go again. ‘Thank you very much. The last four days have been… It was a really good course.’
If he’d decided to withdraw the job offer after last night, he gave no hint of it. But Jaye was like her father, able to give or take away on a whim, without needing to explain himself.
‘Good luck. I’m really looking forward to hearing how you do in Sri Lanka. I hope we meet again on your return.’
He was speaking in code, but it was one that was easily cracked. Her job was safe, and she was still going to Sri Lanka. And he wasn’t going to do anything crazy, like turn up out of the blue while she was there.
‘Thank you Jaye. I really appreciate that.’
He nodded. ‘May I walk you to your car?’
‘Thank you. That would be nice.’
He lifted her suitcase into the boot for her and stood back, watching as she drove away. As the drive wound away from the house, and he disappeared from view, it was impossible not to feel a sense of relief, mixed with sadness. In the hothouse atmosphere of the last four days, Megan had experienced almost every emotion, most of them connected with Jaye in some way.
They’d done the right thing, though, in keeping things simple. When they saw each other next, they would both have forgotten all about what might so easily have happened, but hadn’t.
And in the meantime… Sri Lanka beckoned, like a golden glow on the horizon.