The Reluctant Duke. Carole Mortimer

ruthless mouth twisted into a humourless smile as he nodded haughtily. ‘I’ll expect you back here in an hour, then, with your case duly packed.’

      Lexie could feel the panic rising inside her. She couldn’t go to the St Claire estate in Gloucestershire with this man. She simply couldn’t!

      Her grandmother’s cottage was only half a mile away from Mulberry Hall, the majestic mansion that was the St Claire ducal home. Lexie had played in the woods there when she was a child, had taken long walks in the grounds with her grandmother and Grandpa Alex, had often used the indoor swimming pool that had been built onto the back of Mulberry Hall.

      Admittedly Lexie had never stayed at Mulberry Hall itself, her grandmother having always refused to live there with Alexander even after his divorce, but Lexie knew she would only have to make one slip, one remark that revealed she had been inside the house or on the estate before, for Lucan to demand an explanation. An explanation she had no intention of giving him.

      This wasn’t just a tangled web, it was a steel trap, waiting to snap shut behind her.

      Lexie gave a firm shake of her head. ‘I really would prefer not to accompany you to Gloucestershire—’

      ‘In that case,’ he interrupted grimly, ‘I have no doubt that Premier Personnel will have no choice but to dispense with your services altogether. For their own sake.’

      ‘Are you threatening me, Mr St Claire?’ Lexie snapped, easily able to guess what that meant. This man had the power and influence to totally ruin Premier Personnel’s reputation in the business world with only a few cutting words.

      Something Lexie should definitely have thought of earlier.

      ‘I haven’t even begun to threaten you yet, Lexie,’ he assured her succinctly.

      There was no mistaking the hard implacability of that coal-black gaze—an indication that Lucan was determined to have his own way. What Lexie didn’t understand was why. Why was he was so set on her accompanying him to Gloucestershire when she so obviously didn’t want to go?

      Unless that was the very reason Lucan was being so insistent?

      This man was hard, cold, ruthless. A man used to people doing exactly as he wanted them to. Who insisted on it. By arguing with him Lexie had no doubt she was just making Lucan all the more determined to bend her to his indomitable will.

      And Lexie, fool that she was, had placed herself—and Premier Personnel—in a position where she could do nothing to stop him.

      Her eyes glittered her dislike as she glared up at him. ‘An hour, I believe you said?’

      Lucan felt absolutely no satisfaction in having forced Lexie to his will. Just as he had absolutely no idea what thoughts had been going through that beautiful head while Lexie deliberated as to whether or not she was going to do as he asked. But whatever those thoughts had been they didn’t appear to have been particularly pleasant ones.

      He couldn’t read this woman at all—which was unusual in itself; most women of his acquaintance seemed intent on either sharing his bed or attempting to get him to the altar. Usually with an avaricious eye on the fortune and power he had amassed these last ten years.

      Lexie Hamilton made it obvious she was unimpressed with both him and his obvious wealth, and behaved towards him accordingly. Namely, she treated him with an offhand disdain that—contrary to what she’d obviously hoped—had only succeeded in increasing his interest in her.

      Enough so that he welcomed the distraction of her presence, unwilling or otherwise, during this forced second visit to Mulberry Hall in as many weeks.

      ‘An hour,’ he confirmed abruptly.

      She nodded. ‘Would you like me to find out the times of the trains?’

      ‘I intend driving up,’ Lucan dismissed. ‘Normally we would have flown up in the company-owned helicopter, but it’s being serviced at the moment.’

      The St Claires really were a breed apart, Lexie decided slightly dazedly. Super-rich. Super-powerful.

      How on earth her gentle and unassuming grandmother had ever dared to fall in love with the head of that rich and powerful family was a wonder in itself!

      ‘Silly me.’ Lexie grimaced.

      He nodded. ‘You should pack warm clothing—’

      ‘I believe I’m intelligent enough to have worked that out for myself,’ she snapped in her irritation.

      ‘I don’t think I’ve ever given you reason to think I believe you lacking in intelligence, Lexie,’ he assured her huskily.

      ‘So far,’ she challenged.

      ‘Ever,’ Lucan corrected gruffly.

      Lexie looked at him uncertainly, slightly unnerved by the throaty huskiness of his tone, and even more so by what she could see in those dark eyes as Lucan steadily returned her gaze.

      Dear Lord, she was going away with this man for two days. Would be in his company for the same amount of time. Constantly in his disturbing company…!

      ‘I’ll be back within the hour,’ she confirmed.

      But first Lexie had to go to the office of Premier Personnel and explain the situation to Brenda.

      Attempt to explain something Lexie couldn’t fully explain to herself!

      ‘Put your seat belt on,’ Lucan advised as he turned on the ignition of his black Range Rover.

      Lexie had looked disturbingly attractive when she’d returned to the offices of the St Claire Corporation an hour or so ago, carrying a thick calf-length woollen coat and an overnight bag, and dressed in a blue sweater the same colour as her eyes, with denims that fitted snugly over that shapely bottom and slender legs before being tucked into calf-high boots. The long length of that gloriously wild black hair was secured in a loose plait down her spine, revealing that she wore small pearls in the lobes of her ears. An oval gold locket was also visible against the blue of her sweater.

      Closed in the confines of the Range Rover with her, Lucan was also aware of the subtleness of the perfume she wore, along with a softer, even more subtle smell that was provocatively feminine. In fact the small and very womanly bundle beside him was—as Lucan had hoped she would be—a distraction from the fact that their destination was Mulberry Hall.

      Although Lucan knew that no one, and nothing, would ever make him feel completely relaxed about returning to the house he had lived in until he was eleven years old.

      Lucan knew from attending Jordan’s wedding almost a week ago that the house had changed little since he’d last spent any time there. There was no reason for it to have done. The furnishings and draperies were antiques, the floors downstairs mainly marble, the paintings on the walls originals, as were the ornamental statues, and the impressive chandeliers that hung from the high ceilings were of very old Venetian glass.

      No, there was no doubting that Mulberry Hall was a beautiful house. A gracious house. A house fit for a duke. The Duke of Stourbridge. A title Lucan currently held.

      Something else he had avoided thinking about for the last eight years.

      As the eldest child of a broken marriage Lucan had found it all too easy to blame Mulberry Hall and the demands of holding the title of Duke of Stourbridge, as much as his father’s and Sian Thomas’s affair, for wrecking his parents’ marriage and creating a schism in his own young life and that of his brothers. Lucan wanted to avoid all of those things. Mulberry Hall. His father. The title of Duke. Most of all, Sian Thomas—the woman Alexander had loved enough to sacrifice his whole family for.

      Initially, after the divorce was over and emotions had calmed somewhat, Alexander had tried to encourage his three sons to meet and get to know Sian Thomas. An encouragement that had fallen on stony ground as they’d all refused to go anywhere near the woman they held responsible for their parents’ separation