‘Just a minute.’ Jason halted this monologue with a curt intervention. ‘Don’t you think you ought to explain why you chose to leave me in ignorance of the fact that you’re female, and what the hell you expect me to do about it as you are?’
She frowned then, a furrow appearing on the smooth brow. ‘What I expect you to do about it?’ she repeated softly. ‘What do you mean? You’re my guardian, aren’t you? Whatever sex I happen to be.’
Jason expelled his breath on a heavy sigh. ‘I can’t believe you’re that naïve, Miss Durham. You know as well as I do that I expected a boy!’
‘So you keep telling me, but I don’t see what I can do about that,’ she retorted, half laughingly, and her amusement was the last straw as far as Jason was concerned.
‘Then I’ll tell you,’ he snapped angrily. ‘Your father was a good friend to me when I needed one, and I’ve never forgotten it. When I heard that he’d died leaving his—child—in my care, I was prepared to do everything in my power to give the boy a decent start in life——’
‘I know,’ she exclaimed, covering the space between them and laying a hand on the sleeve of his mohair jacket, but he brushed her away, continuing:
‘My correspondence with you was addressed to Master Alex Durham, and you know it. All my arrangements, all my plans, have been for a boy of perhaps twelve, thirteen years of age——’
‘Well, I can’t help that,’ she protested now, the movement of her head spilling the swathe of silky hair across the dark green suede of her jacket. ‘I didn’t ask to be willed to you. I couldn’t choose what sex I was. If I could, believe me I’d have satisfied you in every detail!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that my father never wanted a daughter, any more than you want me now,’ she retorted, and Jason felt a twinge of remorse for the pained anguish in her eyes. ‘I’d have been a boy all right. Then perhaps Daddy might have taken me with him on his trips to Greece and South America, instead of leaving me in the convent until I thought I should die of boredom!’
Jason’s eyes narrowed. ‘Exactly how old are you?’
‘Seventeen!’
‘Seventeen?’ He stared at her disbelievingly. ‘But—but——’
‘Daddy never mentioned me?’ She shrugged, but he could tell she was fighting her emotions. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. He never wanted to get married, you know. He never should have. Then—then when my mother died when I was born—well …’ She shrugged again. ‘He put me in the care of the nuns at Sainte Sœur.’
Jason shook his head. ‘You speak very good English. But the convent was in France, I gather.’
‘Yes. Just outside Paris, actually. My mother was French, you see. But many of the nuns at the convent were English, and my father insisted that as he spoke little French, I should be educated in his language.’
‘I see.’ Jason ran an impatient hand round the back of his neck, trying to restrain the sense of injustice that was threatening to erupt once more. How could Durham have ignored his child’s existence to the extent that never once in the two years he had known him had he mentioned the fact that he had a daughter? It was cold and callous; and totally out of keeping with the man he had thought he had known. But perhaps that was exactly why Durham had helped him, out of a sense of guilt towards this—girl, this child, who could have been little more than an infant when Durham was excavating at Los Lobos. Then: ‘You say—your father mentioned me?’
‘Yes!’ Animation entered the girl’s features again. ‘I don’t know whether he wrote you about his expeditions, but towards the end, when he was confined …’ she faltered, ‘… confined to his bed, he spoke about you a lot.’
Jason drew a deep breath and gestured towards one of the low comfortable couches that faced one another across the width of the hearth. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I think you’d better sit down. We have to talk, and I guess—I guess it would be easier if we at least tried to understand one another.’
‘Of course.’ The girl’s smile reappeared, and she subsided obediently on to cushions of dark blue brocade. As she did so, the lapels of her jacket parted to reveal the dusky hollow between her breasts, and their rounded fullness pressing against the soft suede was an added indication of her burgeoning maturity. Jason hesitated a moment, and then, with some reluctance, took the couch opposite her, stretching his long legs out in front of him, his fingers curving loosely over the cushions on either side of him.
‘Now,’ he said, when she raised inquisitive eyebrows, ‘tell me a little about what happened to your father—after he returned from Mexico.’
‘Oh …’ Alexandra frowned. ‘Well, that isn’t too easy. I didn’t always know where he was or what he was doing. I think he financed an expedition to Egypt, but I’m not sure.’
‘But the institute,’ said Jason patiently. ‘What about the research institute?’ The girl looked puzzled now, and his own frown returned. ‘Your father intended to use the money he gained from our successful excavation at Los Lobos to create a research institute,’ he explained, but Alexandra clearly had no knowledge of this.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘If—if you think my father died a wealthy man——’
‘I didn’t say that!’ retorted Jason shortly, stung by the implication, and she went on:
‘Every penny he had went to finance his last expedition. It was to Turkey—a remote valley in the Taurus mountains. That was where he was taken ill, you see. A chill, followed by a lung infection. They’d been living in tents at the dig, and by the time they got him down to the hospital in Maras it had developed into pneumonia. He recovered, of course, but he wasn’t strong enough to go on, and he was flown back to London. That was when he sent for me.’
‘And how long ago was that?’ asked Jason, watching the play of emotions across her expressive features.
‘Six months, I guess,’ she answered at once. ‘Perhaps he realised the lung infection had weakened the muscles of his heart, and that he hadn’t long to live. Or maybe he just wanted to get to know his daughter …’ The words trailed away as a trace of emotion brought a slightly higher note to her voice, but she controlled it. ‘I didn’t know he’d written to the solicitor—until after—after he was dead. He knew I wouldn’t have wanted him to. I mean—I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, you know.’
‘Are you?’ Jason’s tone was dry, but inwardly he admired her spirit. It could not have been an easy six months, whatever way you looked at it.
‘Yes.’ She squared her shoulders now and looked at him. ‘Well? Are you going to disown me?’
‘No!’ Jason’s denial was abrupt, and pushing himself up with his hands, he stood over her, tall and dark and slightly menacing, although he was unaware of it. ‘I just need some time to—to revise my plans.’
She rose too, then, and the scent of some perfume she was wearing rose disturbingly to his nostrils. It was fresh and slightly heady, like the lemon groves back home, and for a moment he looked down at her, his dark eyes mirroring the gentler shade of hers. Unwillingly, his senses stirred at the unconscious allure of those gold-fringed irises, pansy-soft as she gazed up at him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and quite unselfconsciously pressed two fingers against her lips before transferring them to his mouth. ‘Daddy was right about you. You are a good man.’
What Jason would have replied to this totally unexpected provocation he hardly knew, but a sudden knocking at the door to the suite provided a welcome distraction. Of course, he thought abstractedly, it would be the governess, the woman he had been waiting to interview when this frustrating creature erupted into his life. At least the interruption would