Bittersweet Passion. LYNNE GRAHAM

grated shortly. ‘Go back to bed, Claire.’

      ‘Damn you!’ For the second time in the day, Claire lost her temper. ‘There’d be something quite peculiar about me if I’d carried a teenage crush this long without encouragement! I’m in love with Max and he wants to marry me and I want to marry him,’ she recited with relish. ‘But I can’t go to Max without a penny, Dane. It’s not fair. I can’t even get a decent job. And if you want to know, well I do resent the way I was taken from school before I even sat my exams. It left me fitted for nothing. One tiny sacrifice from you would settle all my problems.’ Her voice had sunk down to a less forceful hiss as she ran out of steam.

      Dane’s appraisal was close to fascinated. His mobile mouth twitched. ‘One tiny sacrifice?’ he queried.

      ‘Nobody outside the family would need to know,’ she protested tightly. ‘And I doubt if you have any deep-seated hang-ups about divorce.’

      ‘I’m hanging on your every word,’ he encouraged silkily. ‘I never expected to be so diverted at Ranbury. It’s been a truly amazing day.’

      Claire interlinked her fingers tautly. ‘It would be the perfect solution for everyone. The money could be divided up between all of us and then no one could be offended.’

      ‘If you think Carter would thank you for a quarter when he’s expecting the whole, you’re a fool. And yes, you can absolve me of circumventing the will to get a share.’

      His contempt was a new experience for Claire, but she kept going. ‘I have thought about that, and sometimes it’s a matter of what’s really right rather than paying dues to principles one can’t afford …’

      He swore half under his breath. ‘Yes, you have thought about this.’

      She flushed miserably. ‘It’s not any less ethical than Grandfather trying to force me into marriage with Carter, and it’s certainly wrong that he made no provision for Maisie and Sam. But I quite see that since you don’t get any profit out of it, it doesn’t appeal.’

      ‘Now that was below the belt,’ he murmured.

      Claire bit her lip. ‘Perhaps, but I’m getting a little tired of being patronised, Dane.’

      A winged ebony brow lifted with icy hauteur. ‘Really?’

      ‘Really!’ She was trembling now. ‘You think this is so damned amusing and so pathetically pushing of me, and you know very well I’m not like that. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if there was any other choice! But you don’t care what happens to those old people because they’re not your responsibility, and you’re acting insulted because I’m not the least pretty. I suppose it would have been less insulting if I had been,’ she muttered tearfully. ‘But I’d face anything before I had to face life with Carter, and I won’t do it, which proves that wretched money isn’t that important to me!’

      She whirled out of the room before she could let her tongue make a bigger fool of herself. Why had she done it! Dane required neither the money nor the hassle, and if he had ever put himself out for anybody she had yet to hear of it. For all his scathing comments on Carter, she would not be surprised to discover that at the back of his mind Dane considered him a very fair match for her.

      To give him his due, Carter had made no mention of love. He was not that big a liar. ‘We get on well and we have tastes in common,’ he had assumed in a rallying tone. ‘And I don’t need to tell you how pleased it would make Grandfather. But I see I’ve surprised you and I’m sure you want some time to think over the idea of marrying.’ He had dealt her a smug, conceited smile. ‘I expect you imagined you’d be staying single.’

      She wondered bitterly if she might have considered such a loveless union had she not, through Max, realised how much more was available to her. Her desire for children might have tempted her. She saw again how devastated Dane had been, the insolent way his mouth had curled when she talked of loving Max, and she so wished Max had been here in the flesh to silence Carter. Had he been, she wouldn’t have had to stupidly ask Dane for help. Dane didn’t give a damn about things that didn’t affect his comfort. She wiped her damp eyes crossly, deeply regretting the dignity she had abandoned with Dane.

      ‘Claire … wake up!’ A firm hand was shaking her shoulder and her eyes flew open with a start, blinking at the light shining from the bedside lamp.

      It was Dane standing over her, a sweater and a pair of jeans now covering him. ‘What time is it?’ she mumbled.

      ‘Three, and I’ve been thinking it over.’ He delivered her a searching glance as she sat up, pushing her copper hair off her brow, her drowsy eyes embarrassed and semi-veiled. ‘I guess you do feel pretty desperate, so I can understand why you suggested it.’

      Three? Claire suppressed a groan, dredged as she had been from a deep sleep. Dane was smoothing over the unpleasantness and about to unleash, she suspected, all the reasons against such a preposterous arrangement.

      ‘For some reason, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that I might have someone in my life who would make a marriage—discreet or otherwise—impossible.’

      Her astonishment was unconcealed. ‘Have you?’

      A very faint bar of colour accentuated his hard cheekbones. ‘No, as it happens. That doesn’t seem to surprise you,’ he noted drily.

      Helplessly she smiled. ‘You’re not the marrying kind.’

      ‘No,’ he agreed, a mocking slant to his beautiful mouth, a night’s dark stubble increasing his raw sex appeal. ‘I enjoy my freedom and I intend to keep it that way. Tell me about Max.’

      ‘Is that necessary? It’s private … I mean …’ she stammered under his amused scrutiny.

      ‘What does he do?’

      ‘He went to agricultural college. He’s twenty-five, and came up here to work with Roy Baxter as a trainee.’

      ‘So what happened to him?’

      Claire linked her hands loosely. ‘Grandfather sacked him once I told him that we wanted to get married. Max is in London now and he’s still out of work,’ she breathed bitterly.

      ‘And you want to bestow all your worldly goods on a guy who didn’t even have the interest to take you with him?’ Dane derided unfeelingly.

      ‘That’s unfair. Max knows I had no choice and he wouldn’t have asked me when he had nowhere to take me,’ she argued vehemently. ‘For goodness’ sake be practical, Dane. Max lives with his family.’

      His lashes screened his eyes to a mere glimmer of midnight-blue. ‘And maybe he didn’t want you without the blessing of yours.’

      Her breath rattled in her throat. My God, what a cruel cynic Dane was! ‘That’s a horrible thing to say. Max didn’t even know Grandfather was a rich man,’ she protested. ‘He could hardly have guessed, the way we live up here!’

      ‘Adam’s wealth is widely talked about locally and he was a legend of eccentricity.’ Dane viewed her furious face and sighed. ‘OK, I’ll make you a deal.’

      Her forehead furrowed. ‘A deal?’

      He came down lithely on the edge of the mattress and stretched out his long legs. ‘What do you propose to do after the ceremony?’

      She took in his implication with a fast-beating heart. ‘Move in with Max,’ she confided shyly.

      Dane treated her to a cold smile. ‘You’ve certainly grown up. I’ll do it, however, but on one condition.’

      ‘What?’ she prompted apprehensively.

      ‘I control Adam’s estate.’ He interpreted her blank stare. ‘I’m not prepared to stand by and let you gaily dispose of the money as soon as you get it. Adam clearly wanted that money to be yours, and I wouldn’t agree to you making any big decisions on what you do with it too quickly,’