Semua Bab Forbidden Seduction : Bab 71 - Bab 80

THEY had covered the ground floor of the house, walked the length of the elegant gallery, with its windows overlooking the parkland and the distant vista of the Derbyshire hills, and were just inspecting the enormous ballroom which opened off it when Elena acknowledged inwardly that Roth might have been right to advise her to wait until after she had rested to inspect the house. Haverton Hall’s rooms might not possess quite the vastness of the palazzo’s marble-floored rooms, nor the fading grandeur of the Prague palace, but Elena had already lost count of the number of salons and ante-chambers they had walked through on the lower floor. The gallery felt as though it stretched for miles, and as she studied the dusty wooden floor of the ballroom her heart sank at the thought of inspecting its lofty plasterwork ceiling and its elegantly inlaid panelling. And they still had the upper floors to go over! But she couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Roth and have him crowing ov

She and the fling she had, had never actually been lovers, although she knew that very few people would believe that, nor had she ever used drugs; but she had been tainted by his lifestyle, had had her eyes opened painfully to certain harsh realities of life, and after lucas had interceded for her with her mother and with the university authorities, getting her a place at Vassar where she had been able to complete her education, she had promised herself that she would pay him and Mia back for their kindness and their love and support by showing the world and her detractors just how worthy of that support she was. At Vassar she had gained a reputation as something of a recluse and a swot; dates and parties had been strictly out of bounds so far as she was concerned and her dedication had paid off with excellent exam results. And now, just as she had once felt the need to prove herself to Lucas and Mia, she felt a corresponding need to prove herself worthy of Michael's trust in her pro

The empty grate in the pretty fireplace, which she would have filled with a collection of dried flowers or covered with an embroidered firescreen, was simply that—an empty grate. The curtains and the bedding were modern and, she suspected, newly purchased for her visit. The same depressing brown carpet as downstairs covered the floor. ‘You’ve got your own bathroom,’ Roth told her as he crossed the floor to push open another door. ‘It’s old-fashioned but it works.’ As she looked into the bathroom past him, Elena said wryly, ‘It may be old￾fashioned to you, Roth, but this type of plain white Edwardian sanitaryware is very much in vogue right now.’ ‘There are wardrobes and cupboards on that wall,’ he told her unnecessarily, indicating the bank of built-in furniture. ‘I haven’t had the chance yet, but tomorrow I’ll bring up a desk from downstairs.’ ‘I’ll certainly need somewhere to put my laptop,’ She agreed. ‘But I will also need to have a room somewhere, I think preferably up at th

Elena laughed as she heard them, relieved, and shook her head at them as she told them cheerfully, ‘Yes, I may be an intruder now, but you’re going to have to get used to me. You and I shall be seeing an awful lot of one another, you know.’ She stayed with them for several minutes, watching them and talking to them. Soon, no doubt, when it became fully dark, they would be roosting somewhere out of the way of any predatory hunting foxes. Turning her back on them, Elena stared thoughtfully at the house, trying to visualise how it would look once the stone had been cleaned. That alone would cost a small fortune and would, no doubt, take almost as long as it would take for the interior to be renovated. She must ask Roth to give her any formal records from when the hall had originally been built and the work done on it since then. She wasn’t sure, but she suspected that the stairway she had seen had been, if not the work of Grinling Gibbons, then certainly the work of one of his more i

As he started to walk towards where he had left his car the fierce male ache in his body made him clench his teeth. Right now there was nothing, nothing, he wanted more than to finish what they had started. Nothing he wanted more and no one he could have less. Elena's body might still be responsive to him, but She herself hated him. He knew that. She had told him so often enough. ‘Dave the man I love,’ she had said, throwing the words at him like weapons, and he, too furious, too jealous to respond, had simply walked away without explaining to her that she was a wealthy man’s daughter and he might have nothing, but at least, unlike her precious dave, he genuinely cared about her, hadn’t just been using her! He had spent the next two days searching Oxford from top to bottom for her, but by then it was too late—she had disappeared. The next time he had seen her she had been with the band of New Age travellers who had invaded Lucas land, quite plainly enjoying flaunting her relations