Catherine Spencer - Mistress on his Terms

“Stop it, Lily!”

“Why, am I speaking the truth too plainly?”

“It’s not the truth and you know it.”

“No?” A lone tear trembled on her lashes.

“You want to know something?” he muttered. “I wish we could have met under different circumstances. Perhaps if we had…”

“We might have fallen in love? I don’t think so, Sebastian. Love doesn’t come calling only when it’s convenient. Please let me go. I can’t bear your being kind to me like this.”

“It’s not kindness. God help me, I want you, Lily. More than ever. And I think you want me, too.”

CATHERINE SPENCER, once an English teacher, fell into writing through eavesdropping on a conversation about Harlequin romances. Within two months she changed careers and sold her first book to Harlequin in 1984. She moved to Canada from England more than thirty years ago and lives in Vancouver. She is married to a Canadian and has four grown children—two daughters and two sons—plus three dogs and a cat. In her spare time she plays the piano, collects antiques and grows tropical shrubs.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I’LL be waiting by the baggage claim carousel,” Hugo Preston had told her, when they’d spoken by phone the night before. “You’ll know me by my gray hair and the bouquet of roses I’ll have brought for you—red roses, because tomorrow’s a red-letter day for me. I’m counting the hours until we meet, Lily.”

But the other passengers had already collected their belongings and gone, leaving Lily standing alone with her two suitcases and carry-on bags stowed in a luggage cart. Although there’d been a number of older men with gray hair waiting to meet the Vancouver flight when it landed on time in Toronto, none had been carrying roses, nor had any come forward to identify himself as her biological father.

Caught between a sense of letdown and resentment—so much for his anxiety to connect with the daughter he’d always known about but never met!—Lily took out the map tucked in the side pocket of her purse.

Stentonbridge, the small town where Hugo maintained a year-round residence, lay some hundred and fifty miles northeast of Toronto, so she supposed that, because of the heavy rains in the area, it was conceivable that the drive had taken longer than he’d expected.

But then, another scenario rose up to haunt her. What if, even as she stood there silently berating him for his apparent parental disregard, a car crushed beyond recognition was being hauled out of a ravine, and the man she’d come so far to meet lay covered by a sheet in an ambulance bound for the nearest morgue?

Refusing to allow the thought to take root, she stuffed the map back into her bag. Tragedy like that didn’t strike twice in a row; it was the terrible exception, not the rule. There was some other perfectly plausible reason for Hugo’s tardiness, and quite possibly a message explaining it waiting to be picked up at the airline information desk. If not, he’d given her a number where he could be reached.

Wheeling around, she scanned the arrivals terminal again. A lull between incoming flights left the immediate area relatively uncrowded. Apart from a family of four trying to pack a baby as well as their overflowing bags into one cart, a group of students gathered around their tour leader, and a man forging a purposeful path between the lot of them, she remained in conspicuous isolation.

The man was imposingly tall and the crowd, small though it was, fell back to allow him passage in much the same way, Lily thought with dry amusement, that Moses might have parted the Red Sea. Craning her neck, she peered past him, searching for the familiar Air Canada logo.

He, however, appeared determined not only to obstruct her view but also to occupy the one spot in the whole vast place to which she’d laid claim. In fact, the way he was zeroing in on her, he might have intended running her clean into the ground.

“You’re looking for me,” he announced tersely, coming to a stop so close that she had to tilt her head back to look into his face and the most arrestingly cold blue eyes she’d ever seen.

But gray-haired, elderly and kindly hardly fit his description. “Oh, no, I’m not!” she informed him with equal brevity and attempted to push past him.

He had a hold of her buggy, though, and it wasn’t going anywhere without his permission. “You’re Lily Talbot,” he said, and it occurred to Lily that any other man would have couched the words as a question. But this modern-day Moses wasn’t subject to the limitations of the rest of humanity. Preferential treatment from on high had blessed him with special powers. No doubt he could have told her what brand of toothpaste she used, if she’d been of a mind to inquire!

Instead she said stiffly, “More to the point, who are you?”

“Sebastian Caine.”

He introduced himself as if the mere mention of his name should be enough to start bells of recognition clanging in the mind of even the most dim-witted person. Not about to cater to such a monumental ego, Lily said, “How nice!” and gave her buggy a determined shove. “Unhand my cart, please. I’d like to make a phone call and find out what happened to the person I’m supposed to meet.”

“No need,” he said, not budging an inch. “I’m your chauffeur.”

Clearly he no more relished the idea of driving her to Stentonbridge than she did. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t climb into cars with strange men.”

A flicker of what might have been a smile twitched the corners of his mouth before he wrestled it back into its former severe line. “You haven’t known me long enough to label me ‘strange,’ Miss Talbot.”

“It’s ‘Ms.,’” she said. “And regardless of whatever label you care to hang around your neck, I’m not getting into a car with you. I’ll wait until Mr. Preston gets here.”

“Hugo isn’t coming.”

She’d been afraid of that. “Why not?”

“Because I persuaded him to stay at home.”

“And he always does as you tell him, does he?”

“Not as often as he should,” Sebastian Caine said bitterly. “If he did, you wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t be wasting my time carrying on this inane conversation. Let go of the damned luggage cart, for pity’s sake! I’m not about to abscond with it—or you, come to that. But I would like to load up and be out of here before the rush hour gets any worse.”

He’d referred to Hugo by his first name without any prompting from her. He’d known who she was. He wore a look of unimpeachable propriety. His clothes, his watch, even his haircut were expensive, and he no more resembled a kidnapper than she did a call girl. But appearances could be deceiving, as she’d learned to her considerable cost. “I’m not going anywhere with you until I’ve verified your identity with my father,” she said.

He stiffened and a grimace of aversion rolled over his face, as if her referring to Hugo as her father was an affront to decent society. Lips compressed in annoyance, he produced a cell phone from the inside pocket of his jacket, punched in a two-digit code and thrust the instrument at her. “Be my guest.”

She accepted it warily, still not entirely sure she ought to trust him. But a glance at the illuminated screen showed Hugo’s name and number.

“Will you for pity’s sake hit Send and get on with it,” Sebastian Caine snapped, noting her reluctance. “It’s a phone, not a bomb. It won’t explode in your hand.”

Hugo answered on the third ring. “I’m so glad you called, Lily,” he said. “There’s been a slight change in plan—an old back injury’s flared up to give me grief, so my stepson Sebastian’s meeting your flight and driving you up here. He’s about six foot three, dark haired, good-looking so the women tell me, and hard to miss even in a crowd.”

Add rude, arrogant and condescending, and the description would be complete, Lily thought. “We’ve met,” she said, glaring at Sebastian Caine and itching to wipe the smug expression off his face. “He’s standing in front of me, even as we speak.” Not to mention practically stealing the air I breathe!

“Excellent! Ask him if we should hold dinner for you.”

She did so, and could have been forgiven for thinking, from the way Sebastian commandeered the phone and hunched one shoulder away from her, that his answer conveyed information pertinent to national security. His voice carried loud and clear, though, as he said, “Hugo? Better not wait dinner for us. This afternoon’s meeting ran late and I’ve got one more call to make before I head back.”

Whatever Hugo replied had Sebastian casting her another of his disapproving looks. “I suppose so, if you like that sort of thing,” he eventually said, “but I can’t say I see any startling family resemblance. She could be anybody from anywhere.”

He made it sound as if she were something unwholesome he’d scraped off the sidewalk! If it weren’t that she had no more sense of direction than a drunken field mouse, she’d have dearly loved to rent her own car and tell him to stick his offer to drive her where it would lodge most uncomfortably. Instead she swallowed her pride and allowed him to hustle her and her baggage out to the parking area.

Practically sprinting to keep up with him as he plowed his way to where he’d left his car, she asked, “How long will it take to drive to Stentonbridge?”

“Normally around three hours. Today, because of the weather and delays, more like four or five.”

To say he sounded ticked off gave grim new meaning to the word understatement. “I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced on my account. I’d have been just as happy to take a train or bus.”

“None run from here to Stentonbridge and even if one did, Hugo wouldn’t hear of it.” His voice took on a derisive edge. “You’re the long-lost daughter returning to the fold, and he wants you welcomed in style.”

“It’s rather obvious you don’t share his enthusiasm.”

He spared her a brief, dismissive glance. “Why should I? Even if you’re who you claim you are—”

“There’s no even if about it,” she said. “I have documented proof.”

“Which has yet to be verified as authentic.” He swung the luggage cart to a halt behind a sports car as long, dark and sleekly handsome as its owner, popped open the trunk and started piling her bags inside. “You want any of this stuff in the front with you?”

“No.”

“Then since the door’s unlocked, climb in and get settled. I’m in a hurry.”

“Well, silly me!” she said sweetly. “Here I thought you were merely in training for a decathlon!”

He raised one winged brow and cast her a look that might have turned a more prudent woman to stone. “Don’t push your luck, Ms. Talbot. You’ve already tried my patience to the limit.”

“And how have I done that, Sebastian?”

His pinched nostrils told her exactly what he thought of such untoward familiarity. “You’re here, aren’t you?” he said. “Isn’t that enough?”

“But I’m not here to see you. In fact, crushing though it might be for you to hear this, I didn’t even know of your existence until ten minutes ago.”