She drove through the gateway, slowing down after doing so, looking reluctantly in her driving-mirror. The rain seemed to be coming down heavier than ever, and the thought of going out into it again didn't appeal to her one bit but, on the other hand, a little voice at the back of her head kept saying something about the ‘country code’ and ‘always shutting gates after you'. A town girl born and bred, she must have read it somewhere, because in all of her twenty-six years the only time she had spent in the countryside had been when she was working in some provincial theatre, and then she hadn't had time to explore her surroundings. But that voice kept nagging, and besides, she couldn't get any wetter than she already was.
Water dripped down her neck and into her eyes as she turned back to the car, but for the first time she had a clear view of the hotel that stood at the end of the driveway. It only needed Edward Rochester to come thundering up behind her and the whole scene could have stepped straight out of Jane Eyre!
The shiver Merlyn gave as she once again climbed into the car wasn't completely one of damp and cold, and she chided herself for her imagination. It had been that imagination that had influenced her into seeking success in a career that her two doctor parents and lawyer brother had been scandalised about. Her mother still explained the insanity by telling people her daughter had received a concussion as a child!
Her poor mother had never recovered from the shock of finding herself pregnant again at thirty-seven, after deciding at the birth of her son eight years earlier that she wanted no more children, and had taken the necessary steps to ensure that. The interruption to the career she had entered only three years earlier, while she gave birth to Merlyn, had been a brief one—Merlyn, and Richard to a degree, cared for by a full-time nanny.
Nanny Sylvia had been kind, but she hadn't been their own mother, and the experience had left Merlyn with a desire to fill her own house with children if she married, and it wouldn't be the sort of house her parents had either, elegant but lacking warmth; she wanted a real home. Not that she was any closer to finding the man she wanted to share that with. After seeing Christopher for only a week, she knew he wasn't that man; she had known that after only a few minutes in his company. A wife and family would definitely not fit in with his lifestyle.
Still, he was fun to be with, and he really did want her to play Suzie Forrester. All she had to do was convince Brandon Carmichael into agreeing to it. All? Hah!
‘Hotel and country club’ Anne had described The Forest, and although there wasn't much sign of the country club at the moment the hotel looked to be very comfortable. Anne and Suzie had come from a wealthy family, and this had obviously once been the family home.
The service could use a little improving, though, the front door remaining firmly closed, no one outside to open her car door for her or to take in the luggage either, as there would have been at a London hotel. Well, she didn't mind opening her own door—she had done it enough already today for one more time not to count!—but someone would have to take in the large suitcase and vanity case she had in the boot of the car; she refused to get soaked again while she grappled with them.
She pressed on the car horn, looking expectantly at the huge oak doors at the side of her. The doors remained closed. Obviously they weren't expecting any guests in this downpour, but even so—! She hooted again, keeping her hand pressed down on it. It was an act guaranteed to make her unpopular, but she was feeling too cold and miserable to care.
Her hand faltered slightly as one of the doors swung open. She heard the crash as it hit the wall with force even with the doors and windows to her car closed and the sound of the rain falling. She had long since ceased pressing on the horn.
Her eyes widened with apprehension as a giant of a man filled the doorway, and she had the fleeting impression of immense power—and anger—before he strode out into the rain as if it were no more than a light drizzle falling. Merlyn caught only a glimpse of overlong black hair, an equally unkempt black beard, and the fiercest silver eyes she had ever seen, before he disappeared behind her car. She turned anxiously in her seat to see where he had gone, almost falling out on to the driveway as her door was suddenly wrenched open.
‘Have you ever heard of just ringing the doorbell like other people do?’ the man exploded. ‘I happened to be on the telephone when you arrived. What do you—–?'
Merlyn barely registered what he was saying, let alone the fact that he had broken off the tirade so suddenly. Their gazes were locked, green merging into silver, and where once there had been a damp chill to her body there was now a quivering heat that she had never known before. She couldn't even see the man's face properly beneath the beard and the overlong hair being whipped about his features by the fierce wind. She had always preferred slender elegance in a man to the muscles she could see beneath the thick black sweater and fitted cords he wore, and yet as she gazed—drowned!—in those silvery depths, she knew this man could have carried her into the house and up to his bedroom without a word of protest from her.
As she gazed into his eyes, Merlyn knew that she wanted him. Now!
The man seemed to shake off the spell that had been weaving about them, anger darkening his eyes. ‘What the hell do you think you're doing?’ he rasped harshly.
She still wanted him. Unless she was becoming feverish already from the numerous soakings she had received today! His next words seemed to say she had to be.
‘If you prefer to just sit there looking like a drowned cat than answer me then you can damn well do so!’ He slammed the car door back in her face.
‘No—please!’ He had reached the front door by the time Merlyn had managed to open her door and scramble out of the car to talk to him. He stood on the step looking back at her, oblivious of the rain streaming on his hair, over his face and body. Maybe if you lived with this weather long enough it did that to you! ‘I—Could you take my luggage inside—please?’ she added hopefully, feeling as if she had walked on to the set of Fawlty Towers and encountered John Cleese in his classic role as Basil Fawlty!
A dark scowl settled over those curiously light-coloured eyes. ‘Do I look like a porter?’ he scorned.
Merlyn chewed on her bottom lip. He was like no other porter she had ever met, possessed too much arrogance and authority for the—Oh no, this wasn't Anne's husband, James, was it? If it was she had committed a double gaffe, that of assuming he was one of his own porters, and of finding herself attracted to a married man, her own hostess's husband.
‘Well?’ He arched mockingly arrogant brows at her lack of response to his question.
Merlyn moistened her lips. ‘Er—I'm sorry if I made a mistake about your position here. I—–'
‘I would say that's the second mistake you've made in the last few minutes,’ he derided, his teeth gleaming very white against the darkness of his beard as he grinned at her discomfort.
Merlyn was so bemused by the unexpectedness of that grin that for a moment she was too mesmerised by the change it made in his appearance—his eyes a warm grey, deep grooves etched into the leanness of his cheeks—to realise exactly what he had said. But once she did realise, her gaze became wary. Had she shown so clearly the impact he had had on her? If she had she would never be able to look Anne Benton in the eye when they were introduced.
‘Oh?’ she queried with a casualness she was far from feeling.
‘You're looking for The Forest hotel, right?’ he drawled, arms folded confidently across the power of his chest, his stance challenging.
She frowned. ‘Yes …'
‘Well, you didn't find it,’ he seemed to take great pleasure in informing her.
‘Oh, but—–’ The sky seemed to open up at that moment, blinding Merlyn in its deluge so that she gave a start of surprise as lean fingers closed about her arm.
‘For God's sake,’ the man at her side exclaimed, ‘let's get inside where it's at least dry!'
It was ‘at least’ the most