Page 55 of Needs Must
And probably not even then.
Donna Harte was the only woman in England who would likely decline his proposal. She was unimpressed by his status and having endured a marriage to a philanderer and a bully, she rightly valued her independence.
Foolish woman!
Local society, wherever she eventually settled, would look upon her with suspicion. The men would attempt to seduce her, while the women would see her as a threat to their own security and turn their collective backs on her. The ladies in his drawing room had already shown that tendency. She would be condemned to a lonely, isolated existence, which would be a travesty.
‘You may not be able to offer guarantees,’ she said, her soft, melodious tone dragging Cal’s mind away from a delightful speculation in which Donna had finally put aside her fierce independence and agreed to place her complete trust in him. A man could dream! ‘But I should be interested to know how you think you can play Ackroyd against my brother-in-law.’
‘Greed,’ Cal replied succinctly. ‘And mistrust. If Ackroyd felt any loyalty towards Harte, he would already have told him where you are. The fact that he doesn’t appear to have done soandhe deliberately allowed you to see him is, in my view, an indication that he’s unsure which side he would prefer to back.’
‘Especially if he has misinterpreted the nature of my acquaintance with you,’ Donna added, nodding.
‘Precisely so. Therefore, and with your permission, I intend to have one of my people invite Aykroyd to meet me at the gatehouse to discover what – if anything – he knows about your husband’s death.’
‘He wasn’t there.’
‘Even so, Harte would not have been able to help boasting about what he had done, and Aykroyd, as his nemesis, is the most likely person he would have enlightened, if only to frighten the man.’
‘All well and good, but Aykroyd is not a respectable person. No magistrate would take his word against Ian’s.’
‘You appear to forget that Aykroyd has something that Harte desperately wants to get his hands on.’
‘But he doesn’t have the letters!’ she cried, exasperated.
‘Not the letters, you goose.’ He paused, drilling her with a look as deep as a verbal question. ‘You.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Harte wants more from you than just those letters, I think.’
Cal permitted the charged silence that followed his words to prevail, giving her an opportunity to tell him everything.
‘You’re right,’ she conceded eventually, flapping a hand as though the matter was barely worthy of consideration. In her mind perhaps it was not, but he suspected that a vain, arrogant man of Harte’s ilk would not take rejection well and would not have given up on his pursuit of her. In fact, he would look upon it as a challenge. ‘He had the audacity to say to me just one day after Jonathan’s death that there would now be no impediment to our being together.’ She drew in a shuddering breath. ‘Such arrogance! I told him in no uncertain terms that it would never happen, but he didn’t believe me.’
‘He’s not the sort to give up without a fight.’
‘Indeed he is not.’ Donna rippled her shoulders indignantly. ‘He told me that I would need to be looked after and protected. That I would have no money of my own and would need a man to take care of me. Of course, I did not realise at the time that he planned to steal what was lawfully mine and that I would be left near destitute, but that changes nothing.’ A combination of frustration and determination shimmered in the depths of her eyes. ‘I will scrub floors for a living before I succumb to his poisonous charm.’
‘Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.’ He took her hand again and this time she didn’t snatch it back. ‘My suggestion is that I have someone take Aykroyd to the gatehouse. Only then can we discover where his true loyalties lie. If, as I suspect will be the case, he chooses to throw in his lot with us – if only because he still harbours a burning hatred for Harte and wants to see him get his comeuppance, as do we all – then we will be in a much stronger bargaining position.’
‘Is Aykroyd still in the district? He might have returned to Chichester already to tell Ian that he has found me.’
‘He’s still here,’ Cal said with authority.
‘How can you be so … oh, of course.’ Her eyes flared with awareness. ‘You have been watching him.’ She tried to sound severe, but it didn’t quite work, and a smile broke through her reserve.
‘I cannot have subversives frequenting the village, tormenting innocent females,’ he said easily. ‘So yes, I am aware of his whereabouts. We thought at first that he must be sleeping in a barn somewhere, but one of my men followed him to a cottage in the next village, and I have just learned that he is the guest of a farmer’s widow.’
Donna pulled a wry face and clucked her tongue. ‘That sounds plausible enough.’ She paused. ‘Very well, have him come to the gatehouse. But,’ she added, waving a gloved finger beneath Cal’s nose. ‘I want to be there. It is essential that I am, in fact, so there can be no doubt in Aykroyd’s mind that I am well protected.’ She smiled with suspicious innocence. ‘Even I can occasionally see the need for the services of a strong, formidable gentleman.’
‘Witch! Of course you must be there. In fact, your presence is essential to our plan.’
‘Which is?’
‘I will tell you as soon as I have devised one.’ A strong gust of wind caused her to shudder, and the clouds directly overhead had darkened. If they didn’t leave immediately, they would be in for a soaking. ‘Come.’ He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I have kept you in the cold for quite long enough.’
She looked up at him, the distance separating them gossamer thin, and the gratitude in her expression was his undoing. His arms closed around her, and her body collided against his with a soft thud.
