The Return of the Stranger. Kate Walker

twenty-first birthday. That the big house had become a hated prison; the elegant way of life nothing but a lie.

      ‘My husband died!’

      ‘I know … But that’s no great loss. Though originally it was your husband that I thought I would have come to see.’

      ‘Why? What did you want with Arthur?’

      ‘We had—business to discuss.’

      The emphasis on that word ‘business’ sent a shiver of warning down her spine. So many ‘business’ meetings lately had resulted in worse news piling on bad news.

      ‘What sort of business?’

      ‘It’s hardly relevant now.’

      Heath’s expression deliberately blanked off so that she could have no idea what was going on behind those opaque ebony eyes.

      ‘I can’t believe that Arthur would ever want to do any business deals with you. He never said anything about it.’

      ‘Your husband talked about his business with you?’ Was there something else behind that question? Something that put the darker note into his voice? ‘Well—no.’

      Arthur hadn’t talked to her about anything if the truth was told. He had issued orders, insisted on how things were to appear. But she had only been a couple of weeks into her marriage when she had discovered that a trophy wife was all her husband wanted. A woman who could look elegant at his side, display around her neck or dangling from her ears the jewellery that was the Charlton heirlooms everyone knew about, and organise the society parties he put so much emphasis on.

      Of course she now knew just why those parties were so important to him. The image they had been planned to present to the world while he hid the reality behind a smokescreen. The truth had been that he had never really wanted a wife, not in the true sense of the word. Their marriage had been as fake as the ‘heirlooms’ that were really only paste copies, the originals sold long ago.

      ‘That—wasn’t Arthur’s way.’

      ‘I thought not.’

      His response caught on her nerves. It took her back to his declaration that he had business to discuss with her late husband. What connection had he had with Arthur’s business dealings?

      The question had formed on her lips only to be caught back sharply as the sound of light, hurrying footsteps in the hall gave notice of a new arrival. And knowing who it must be, Kat knew she couldn’t continue her questioning now.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE door swung open and the slim, blonde-haired figure of her sister-in-law came into the room. Isobel had obviously been into town on a shopping spree. Half a dozen elegant carrier bags swung from her hands and she had the smug look of someone who had just given her credit cards a hammering.

      Inwardly Kat sighed at the thought that she and Isobel were going to have to have a heart to heart about their situation. Obviously the younger woman had not taken in—or had refused to accept—the gravity of their situation. Quite frankly she was amazed that those credit cards hadn’t bounced. They very soon would. Once all their creditors realised the seriousness of the situation there would be a huge number of final demands for payment.

      But that was a showdown she didn’t want to have in front of Heath. Isobel was so like Arthur in her determination to go her own way and listen to no one. So she forced herself to keep calm, even to smile at Isobel while inside every nerve was screaming a protest at her sister-in-law’s actions.

      ‘I’ve had a fantastic time!’ Isobel declared. ‘Lacey’s had their new summer range in and they had some gorgeous stuff. I …’

      Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of the tall, dark man standing by the window, a silent, watchful observer of this new arrival in the room.

      ‘Hello!’ she said, the rising lift in her voice, the sparkle of her smile making Kat’s heart twist, her nerves tugging painfully as she recognised the signs she knew only too well.

      Isobel had spotted someone she fancied. That much was obvious. And the man who had sparked her interest was none other than Heath. Which Kat supposed shouldn’t have surprised her. Compared with the skinny, scruffily dressed boys her sister-in-law usually hung around with, Heath was all man. His height and his bearing seemed to fill the room, those deep-set black eyes burned like burnished jet under dark, arched brows and when he smiled …

      Dear heaven, when he smiled, his face was transformed, Kat admitted, feeling her stomach twist and lurch almost as if she were on board a ship that had suddenly pitched sharply downwards in the waves. It was shocking to realise that this was the very first time that his sexy mouth had even curved into any sort of a smile or that his forcefully carved face had shown any warmth, since he had appeared in the room so unexpectedly.

      ‘Hello, Isobel.’

      It seemed as if that trace of the accent on Heath’s words had deepened, darkened, making him sound so much more exotic, so much more foreign.

      ‘You know who I am?’ her sister-in-law was definitely intrigued and the smile that played over her mouth was a blend of curiosity and provocation.

      ‘Of course. You are young Isobel all grown up.’

      ‘And you are?’

      Isobel fluttered her long, mascaraed eyelashes flirtatiously, and Kat felt the twist of something cruel in her heart as she saw Heath switch on another swift, easy smile in response.

      It was even more shocking to realise that the sharp burn of reaction had a double-edged source, one that made her mouth dry in horror as she recognised it for what it was. When he smiled, Heath looked so very different, so devastatingly sexy that the heat of her response was like a flash of electricity along her nerves. But it was blended with something else, something that was far less comfortable to endure. Deep in her memory where she had tried long ago to bury it, she could hear the echo of Arthur’s voice, vicious and savage-toned. You’re still dreaming of your bit of rough—that gipsy. That’s what turns you on.

      ‘Don’t you recognise Heath?’ she put in hastily, rather too sharply.

      ‘Heath?’ her sister-in-law queried. ‘Heath who?’ And the jolt of realisation brought Kat up sharp against the fact that she had no idea how to answer that question. She hadn’t even thought about what Heath might be calling himself now.

      She hadn’t thought of anything beyond the fact that he was here, back in her life again.

      ‘Heath Montanha,’ Heath supplied, those dark eyes of his still fixed on Isobel.

      And no wonder. The girl who had been little more than a child at eleven when Heath had left the village all those years before had blossomed in the time he had been away. She was a small blonde bombshell, curvy and sensually glamorous, beside whom Kat always felt too tall and rangy, taken back to the tomboyish adolescent she had been who had never quite fitted in anywhere.

      Anywhere but with Heath.

      Remembered pain twisted in her gut as she recalled how once he had always been at her side, her friend, her support. Heath had never needed to belong in the way that she had longed to. He had laughed at the girls who had thought they were so cool, turned his back on any need to be conventional or fashionable. It had been her own need to find the femininity that she had felt had been so lacking in herself that had drawn her to the sort of society offered by the Charltons. That had ultimately led to the ‘dream wedding’ that was supposed to give her everything she had ever fantasised about.

      A dream wedding that had opened the door to a private nightmare.

      ‘Heath Montanha?’

      Not Nicholls, Kat added to herself. Well, who could blame him? Obviously the thing he had most wanted to do once he was away and free of the village was to discard the name of the family he had never belonged to in the first place. And the name of the man who had once made