‘Because I have no intention of driving to London with you dressed like that. I’ll come and pick up your bags in a few minutes. You’ll need something long for tonight, by the way. It’s a gala.’
She stood her ground. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Jordan. You’re not driving me to London, or anywhere else for that matter. And I loathe the opera,’ she added, without the slightest qualm at uttering such fiction.
‘Noah,’ he insisted, ignoring her protest. ‘My sister has married your father. We’re practically related. That’s why I have been lumbered with you.’
‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘And you can consider yourself unlumbered. I’m perfectly happy here.’
One dark brow kinked at the vehemence of her reply, then his hands grasped her shoulders and forcibly propelled her towards the hall. ‘Causing as much mischief as you can, no doubt. Think again. Staying here is not an option.’ The hard edge to his voice left no room for doubt.
‘But...’ It was ridiculous. When her father had first broached the idea that she should stay with Noah for a few weeks after the wedding she hadn’t made a fuss. She had made other plans—to visit New York with Peter...
She gave a little gasp as she was jolted back to reality. Her plans had been nothing but daydreams. But she still had a month while Olivia and her father were away to make her own arrangements. ‘The house shouldn’t be left empty,’ she objected.
‘I may have misread the situation, but I don’t think you were planning on house-sitting for the next month, Elizabeth.’
She flushed angrily. ‘My plans are none of your business.’
‘I wish that were true,’ he replied, with feeling. ‘However, if you’d had the good manners to stay and listen to Olivia, instead of making a fool of yourself over Hallam, you would know that there’s been a last-minute change of plan. She has been advised not to fly. Which is why, like it or not, you’re coming to London with me. Right now.’
‘Not to fly? Why on earth...?’ Lizzie felt the angry flush drain from her cheeks. There could be only one reason why a perfectly fit woman shouldn’t fly. ‘She’s pregnant!’
Noah eyed her sudden pallor. ‘You didn’t know?’
‘Obviously not. Presumably, after all the lectures about the dangers of unwanted pregnancies, Dad found it difficult to tell me.’
A small muscle tightened at the side of his mouth. ‘This baby may not have been planned, but if you believe that it’s unwanted I suggest you think again. When I had lunch with your father last week he was overjoyed at the possibility of a son. I certainly understand why he wouldn’t want any more daughters.’ He glanced around him. ‘Although I can see that you might be a little piqued at having to step aside and surrender all this for such a late arrival.’
‘Step aside?’ Lizzie repeated, too bewildered for a moment to respond more vigorously to his barely cloaked aggression. A baby? For a moment—just a moment—she thought that everything might, after all, work out. Then she knew, understood the full horror of that triumphant telephone call the day after the wedding had been announced, when Olivia had thought that she was in the house alone.
‘We’re saved, darling. I’ve got the man in the palm of my hand. Lord, but it took some acting to convince the old fool... But it’s the perfect cover...’
There had been a pause and Olivia had laughed softly. ‘I can’t run away from my honeymoon, my darling, much as I’d like to. But after that, well...I’m keeping my London flat so I can see you any time I want. The only fly in the ointment is Daddy’s little girl...she’s so protective...but I’m working on a little plan to deal with her...’ And after a few more seconds there had been the little ting as the phone had been replaced.
And Olivia hadn’t wasted any time putting her plan into action. The next day her father had called her into the study and suggested that she might like to spend a few weeks in London. It would give Olivia a chance to take control of the house, he had explained. With Lizzie there...well, the staff would naturally look first to her... He knew she would understand.
Olivia’s brother had kindly offered to put Lizzie up at his London home for a few weeks, he told her. There had been just a touch of awkwardness about his smile. She had spent too much time looking after her old dad, he’d said, and patted her hand. Noah would see that she had some real fun.
How reasonable it would have sounded if she hadn’t known better. It was then that she had made the mistake of trying to tell her father what Olivia was really like beneath that sugar-sweet exterior.
Now she stared at Noah. Whatever ‘little plan’ Olivia had devised, her brother was quite obviously a part of it. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, turning abruptly away.
‘Quick as you can, Elizabeth. And don’t forget the long dress.’
She glared at him, but didn’t bother to reply. She would be quick, but not because he demanded it. Her own desperate need to get away from all of them was encouragement enough. And she certainly wouldn’t be needing a long dress.
She regarded her reflection in the cheval-glass in the corner of her bedroom with distaste. Was it only a few hours ago when she had stood in that same spot, certain that if Peter responded to her olive branch, came to the wedding, it might just be possible to make a life for herself, to be strong for the time when her father would need her again?
She stripped off the cream silk dress and threw it on the bed, then tore the tiny rosebuds from her hair, angrily brushing it until she had obliterated every vestige of the hairdresser’s art and it hung as straight and plain as a yard of tap water down her back. Then she felt marginally better, back in control, because if they all thought that she was going to fall in with the plans Olivia had made to dispose of ‘Daddy’s little girl’ they could think again.
She would spend a few nights with an old school-friend who lived on the outskirts of London. It would give her time to sort herself out and make some decisions about the future. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere with Noah Jordan. Not even, she thought, with just the tiniest regret, to the opera.
Then she took a deep breath and, dressed in her most comfortable jeans and a defiant scarlet T-shirt, she descended to the hall.
Noah was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He took in her change of appearance with a single, exasperated glance, and for just a moment she felt a touch of something between anger and shame. She’d wanted to shout her rage to the world. Too late she realised that flaunting her pain was simply emphasising her humiliation.
But there was no time for self-analysis because he seized her arm and thrust her back up the stairs before she could utter more than the feeblest protest. He didn’t bother to ask which room was hers. He simply flung open every door he passed until he came to the one where her silk dress had slipped and crumpled into an untidy heap on the rosebud-strewn carpet, betraying her misery.
He stepped over it without comment, flung open her wardrobe and began to flip through the remaining contents.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded as she regained the use of her tongue, furiously pushing herself between him and her clothes.
‘I’m not about to walk out of here with you in a pair of jeans—’
‘Mr Jordan, you’re not about to walk out of here with me, full stop!’
He ignored this outburst and reached over her head to lift a soft voile print dress from its hanger. ‘Put this on.’ He turned back to the wardrobe. ‘Is this the only evening dress you have?’
She regarded the pink taffeta garment with loathing. ‘That’s none of your business.’
He flipped it across his arm without comment and glanced around. ‘Where are your bags?’
‘Downstairs. In the boot room,’ she said, crossing