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«Their Engagement is Announced» - Кэрол Мортимер

“Of course it’s my business, Griffin,”

“Of course it’s my business, Griffin,”

his mother dismissed scathingly. “You’re my son.”

“But being your son does not give you the right—especially at thirty-four years of age!—to choose my friends for me! Or the woman I marry,” he added forcefully.

“But—”

“You seem determined that I marry someone, Mother, so—” he moved slightly so that he could place his arm around Dora’s shoulders “—I would like you to meet your future daughter-in-law, Isadora Baxter!”

Dora drew in a sharp breath, not sure who was the more shocked by his triumphant announcement—his mother or herself!

CAROLE MORTIMER says, “I was born in England, the youngest of three children— I have two older brothers. I started writing in 1978, and have now written over one hundred books for Harlequin®.

“I have four sons— Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie called Merlyn. I’m married to Peter senior, we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live on the Isle of Man.”

Their Engagement is Announced

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Peter,

As Always.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE bell over the shop doorway rang as cheerfully as usual to announce the arrival of a customer. Its innocent sound did nothing to alert her to the fact that this customer was going to be any different from any other she’d had in today, that Griffin Sinclair was about to burst into her life—again!

‘Izzy? Izzy! I just called in to— Good God, woman, what the hell have you done to yourself? Your erstwhile fiancé, my dear brother Charles, has been dead almost a year now. Did no one tell you that the deceased’s nearest and dearest no longer have to wear black for a whole year, let alone throw themselves on the funeral pyre with them?’

She had felt her blood turn to ice at the first sound of that mocking voice, but the words that followed shocked her so much that she couldn’t even speak!

She had always found this man’s outspokenness, his whole overpowering personality uncomfortable to be around. And despite the fact that she hadn’t seen him since Charles’s funeral ten months ago—it was exactly ten months ago—today was no exception!

‘Izzy, are you ill?’ He frowned across at her where she sat behind the desk that also housed the till, his brows narrowed over emerald-green eyes. ‘Izzy?’ he prompted again, impatient now at her lack of response.

‘Dora.’ She finally spoke softly.

‘What?’ Griffin scowled his irritated impatience.

‘My name is Dora,’ She told him more firmly, recovering slightly from the shock of seeing him again. ‘And would you either come in or go out of that doorway? You’re letting in a draught!’

He came fully into the shop, the bell over the door ringing again as he closed it behind him. ‘You know, I’ve never liked the name Dora.’ He arrogantly dismissed her first statement, grinning his satisfaction now that he had at least got some sort of response from her.

He looked, Dora decided, completely incongruous in the intimate confines of this speciality bookshop. His denims were as old and faded as the brown boots he wore, a black tee-shirt was tucked in at his flat waist, and a brown leather jacket seemed to have been thrown on carelessly over this. But for all his seeming indifference to the clothes he wore, his physique was powerful with vitality, like a lion about to pounce. Dora just wished she didn’t feel quite so much like the prey he intended pouncing upon!

He really was the most unorthodox man she had ever seen, Dora decided. His hair was even longer than when she had last seen him, golden waves of it reaching to his shoulders now, looking as if the most he did with it was run his fingers through it in the mornings just to push it back off his face. And the length of that unruly hair was totally off-set by the rugged strength of his face, which looked as if it had been hewn from stone: a square chin, full lips, straight, arrogant nose, and those deep green eyes. At the moment he was still grinning at her, those green eyes laughing at her, forcing lines to appear beside his eyes and mouth.

In fact, Griffin Sinclair was so altogether male that he set Dora’s teeth on edge! A fact that had always made it difficult for her to believe he really was Charles’s younger brother.

‘I don’t believe it’s actually significant whether or not you actually like my name, Griffin—’

‘Oh, I love your name—Izzy,’ He drawled pointedly. ‘And I quite like Isadora. It’s only Dora that I can’t stand.’ He grimaced with feeling. ‘It makes you sound like a Dickensian heroine!’

She raised her auburn brows.

Griffin strolled further into the shop, his derisive expression showing exactly what he thought of the shelves and shelves of non-fiction and classical books that surrounded the two of them.

‘Of course,’ he agreed softly, standing only feet away from her now. ‘Dora sounds like an old maid, and old-fashioned to boot.’ Once again his critical gaze swept over her sombre clothing.

And Dora knew exactly what he would see, too. The black calf-length skirt and black jumper were completely unflattering to either her figure or the natural paleness of her complexion. Only the vibrant red of her own shoulder-length hair gave her any colour at all, and that was secured at her nape with a black ribbon.

‘Isadora is coolly elegant,’ Griffin continued consideringly. ‘But Izzy—well, Izzy is something else!’ he murmured appreciatively.

The red colour that flooded her cheeks at this comment almost matched the colour of her hair. ‘I thought we’d agreed never to refer to that again!’ she bit out stiffly.

He shrugged unconcernedly. ‘That was before. Things are different now.’

‘Not for me, they aren’t,’ Dora cut in sharply, her hands tightly gripping two books she had picked up to replace back on the shelf.

That green gaze swept scathingly over her appearance once again. ‘Obviously not,’ he derided, shaking his head reprovingly. ‘Charles was my brother, Izzy, and as such I loved him but nevertheless I was also aware of his faults. And one thing I’m damned sure of—he was not the type of man to inspire a love that would result in a lifetime of mourning at his death!’

Dora gasped. ‘You’re so—’

‘Good God, woman,’ Griffin continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘even my mother has picked herself up from the blow Charles’s death was to her plans of continued glory for the family name! And we all know how determined she was that Charles should have a respectable marriage—so that he could follow our father into politics and eventually obtain a Knighthood!’ Griffin’s mouth twisted derisively at the latter.

But he was right, of course. Dora had always known of Margaret Sinclair’s ambition for her eldest son to take over in the political arena where her late husband had left off after his death twenty years ago. And as the daughter of Professor Baxter, famous university lecturer until his retirement ten years ago, Dora had been the perfect choice as a wife for Charles.

Unfortunately Charles had been killed in a car accident ten months ago, and all of Margaret’s plans with him. Because even if Griffin Sinclair had been in the least bit interested in politics—which he most assuredly wasn’t!—he was not a man, at aged thirty-four, to be moulded into anyone’s else’s ambitions, and least of all those of his mother!

‘Something else I’m damned sure of,’ Griffin continued, his eyes glittering. ‘If the boot had been on the other foot—if you had been the one to die in that crash instead of him— Charles wouldn’t still be mourning you! After a period of grief, followed by a respectable time-lapse, he would have been looking around for your replacement! Or my mother would—so that he could get on with his career!’

Dora knew that he was right about that too, her face pale now at the deliberate cruelty of his words.

‘And how about you?’ Griffin challenged. ‘Hasn’t your father found you another rising star yet, who can be moulded into a suitable son-in-law for him?’

Dora thought briefly of Sam, a doctor she had seen several times during the last few months, and knew that he didn’t fit that description at all. Sam was dedicated enough; it was just that Dora didn’t feel that way about him. And her father, she knew, on the one occasion he’d happened to meet Sam, hadn’t been impressed.

‘You know…’ Griffin shook his head disgustedly, his smile humourless now. ‘I always thought, with both their partners passed away, your father and my mother should have been the ones to marry each other—they’re both ruthless, conniving, manipulative—’

‘My father died last week, Griffin,’ Dora cut in flatly. ‘That’s the reason I’m wearing black.’

He looked stunned for a moment, and then his mouth twisted wryly. ‘Are you sure? Did you double check before they—?’

‘Griffin!’ she gasped, incredulous at his complete lack of feeling for her loss, as well as the death of another human being. In their short acquaintance, Griffin had struck her as many things, but unfeeling wasn’t one of them…

‘His sort don’t die, Izzy,’ Griffin maintained grimly. ‘They’re usually stuffed and put on exhibition—’

‘He wasn’t a ‘‘sort’’, Griffin,’ she bit out tautly. ‘He was my father.’

‘Oh, I know who he was, Izzy,’ he dismissed scathingly, ‘I also know what he was,’ he added grimly.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never understood this dislike you had for my father.’ What had he ever done to Griffin? Except disapprove of the younger man’s whole lifestyle, of course!

Griffin was everything her father despised in a man: no permanent home, a job that he did if and when he felt like it—and Dora would be surprised if he even so much as possessed a suit! And as for that overlong hair—! No, Griffin wasn’t a man her father could ever have approved of. But she had never quite understood why Griffin felt the same aversion towards her father… Maybe it was the reverse, and Griffin had despised her father’s own respectable lifestyle? Whatever it was, the two men had heartily disliked each other from the moment they had been introduced.

‘I realise that,’ Griffin answered harshly. ‘And I’m not about to be the one to shatter your illusions about him!’

She sighed. ‘Griffin, when you arrived you said you had just called in to do something,’ she reminded him firmly. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what that ‘‘something’’ was, and then I can get on with my work?’ She looked at him with steady grey eyes.

He looked about them pointedly at the bookcases of mainly leather-bound books. ‘Not exactly bursting over with customers, are you,’ he said dryly.

‘I have no intention of selling this shop,’ Dora burst out indignantly. ‘I—have plans of my own. Changes in mind,’ she added guardedly.

It still sounded more than a little disrespectful to talk of making changes in the shop which had been her father’s work for the last ten years of his life when he had only been dead for ten days.

Her father had been—difficult; she acknowledged that. Since her mother had died, ten years ago, when Dora was sixteen and studying for her A levels, it had been just the two of them. And, once her A levels had been completed and attained, Dora had spent her time taking care of their home and helping her father in the shop, putting her own plans for going to university on hold.

Until her father no longer needed her, she had told herself at the time, not realising that that time would never come. Her father’s health hadn’t been particularly good after the death of Dora’s mother; his heart-attack ten days ago had been devastating, but not exactly unexpected.

So now, at twenty-six, Dora was at last free to pursue her own aborted plans. But after all this time she felt it was too late. She had the house, and this shop, and had every intention of making something of her life. Despite Griffin Sinclair’s derision!

He really was the most incredible man. It seemed he abided by none of the conventions that most other people lived by. His remarks concerning her father’s death, for example, had been disgraceful.

Oh, Dora accepted there had been no love lost between the two men, her father considering the younger man to be a Bohemian reprobate while Griffin had believed her father to be—what had he called him earlier?—ruthless, conniving and manipulative.

Dora didn’t completely agree with either of those opinions, but she had been left in no doubt that the two men disliked each other intensely.

And as for Griffin’s reference to ‘Izzy’…! That wasn’t just something they had agreed never to talk about; it was something she preferred not to even think about, either!

‘What sort of ‘‘plans’’?’ Griffin was watching her with narrowed eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’re actually going to drag this place into the twentieth century?’

He could mock all he liked, but her plans were her business, and she wasn’t about to discuss them with him. Griffin was the last person she would tell her plans to!

‘I know this is difficult for you to believe, Griffin,’ she told him tauntingly, ‘but not everyone wants to travel the world, calling no place home, living out of a suitcase—by the way, what could possibly be important enough to have brought you home this time?’ she added pointedly.

His mouth had tightened grimly at her deliberate barbs. And, in truth, she wasn’t being exactly fair. The last she had heard of Griffin he’d had an apartment in London he called ‘home’, and when he ‘lived out of a suitcase’ it was usually in first-class hotels. And as for ‘travelling the world’, that was Griffin’s job; the travel books he wrote after making those trips were highly successful, being amusing as well as informative.

Not that there was a copy of any of those books in this shop. Her father had considered Griffin’s writing to be too light and frivolous to be taken seriously, let alone take up any space on his shelves! Once Dora had picked up a copy of one of his books at a hotel she’d stayed in on a business trip for her father. She’d found that Griffin’s personality came through in every word; concise, humorous, derisive, but with warmth and charm also apparent if he had particularly liked the place he was writing about.

‘Family crisis,’ he abruptly answered her mocking question. ‘Which brings me to— Aha,’ he murmured softly as the bell pealed over the door as it was opened once again. ‘I’ll browse through the books and try to look like another customer,’ he told Dora conspiratorially. ‘That way it will look as if you have a rush on!’

Dora had trouble keeping her face straight as that was exactly what he proceeded to do. The woman who’d entered the shop, probably aged somewhere in her sixties, glanced across at Griffin as he began to amass a pile of books in his arms. Books, Dora was sure, that he chose from the shelves at random, and was convinced of the fact when she saw him put a copy of a book about the Titanic on the pile.

The elderly lady’s own attention seemed to be only half on the row of books she was perusing too, her glances in Griffin’s direction becoming more and more frequent as the minutes ticked by. Griffin pointedly ignored her glances, his attention seeming enrapt now on a shelf of books on prehistoric animals!

It was almost Dora’s undoing when he glanced across at her sideways, waited until the other woman wasn’t looking at him, and gave Dora a knowing wink!

She gave him a reproving frown. Dreadful man! His irreverence—in any situation—was unbelievable!

‘I say, miss.’ the elderly lady had now sidled up to her, talking to her in a whisper. ‘That young man over there.’ She nodded in Griffin’s direction.

‘Young man’? At age thirty-four, Griffin hardly fitted that description! But with a definite lack of any other young men in the vicinity…

‘Yes?’ Dora prompted attentively.

‘He looks very like Griffin Sinclair,’ she told Dora avidly. ‘You know, the man who does those travel programmes on the television,’ she prompted at Dora’s blank look. ‘Do you suppose it could be him?’ she added excitedly, looking quite youthfully flushed at the idea it just might be Griffin Sinclair.

As Dora knew only too well, it definitely was him. But it was the first she had heard of him being involved in a television programme. Not that that was exactly surprising; they didn’t possess a television at home for her to have seen him on. Her father had never liked that form of entertainment, and preferred to listen to the radio if he bothered with anything at all. Or rather—he had…

‘Why don’t you go and ask him?’ Dora suggested lightly, looking across at Griffin with new eyes.

He would be good on television, Dora thought to herself. He had the looks and presence to carry off such a role. And if this elderly lady’s reaction to him was anything to go by, he obviously had quite a female following of the programme, at least!

‘Do you think I should?’ The woman gave another nervous but also coy look in Griffin’s direction.

Dora definitely thought that she should—if only so that she could witness his reaction to the obvious admiration this woman had for him.

‘I’m sure you should,’ she encouraged lightly.

‘You don’t think he would be offended by a perfect stranger going up and talking to him in that way?’ The woman looked quite concerned that he might be.

‘How could he possibly be offended when you are obviously an admirer of his television programmes?’ Dora was beginning to feel sorry for the woman now, and regretted her subterfuge in not owning up to being completely aware of Griffin’s identity—if not the television programmes the woman was talking about.

‘But if it isn’t him—’

‘I’m sure that it is.’ Dora put a reassuring hand on the other woman’s arm. ‘Besides,’ she added mischievously, ‘I doubt that any man could look that much like him and not actually be him!’ As she knew only too well herself, Griffin was a one-off, if only in his unorthodox ways.

The woman looked across at him with adoring eyes. ‘He is rather unique, isn’t he?’ she sighed wistfully.

‘Unique’ described Griffin completely—at least, Dora had never met anyone remotely like him, either in looks or outspoken manner.

‘Exactly,’ she agreed with the other woman emphatically.

‘I suppose you think I’m rather silly; I know that my husband does,’ the elderly woman acknowledged ruefully. ‘But the truth of the matter is, I absolutely adore novels that have swashbuckling pirates and rogues in, and Griffin Sinclair looks just like a modern-day version of one to me!’

Dora glanced across at him. The pile of books that he carried reached up to his cleanly shaven chin—she really wasn’t that desperate to make a sale! But with his long blond hair, that ruggedly handsome face, and with his complete disregard for outward appearances, she had to admit he did look a bit like a modern-day pirate…!

‘Come on.’ She put her hand lightly in the crook of the other woman’s arm. ‘We’ll go and face this particular pirate together.’ It was the least she could do after not being completely honest with this woman from the outset.

Dora was sure Griffin was well aware of the two women approaching him, but he continued to maintain his interest in the shelves in front of him.

‘Mr Sinclair?’ Dora tilted her head questioningly in front of him. ‘This lady is a fan of yours, and would like to say hello.’

Was it her imagination or did he raise mocking brows in her direction before placing his pile of books down on the table beside him and turning the warmth of his charm on to his fan?

No, Dora decided wryly as she walked away and left the two of them to their conversation—gushing on the woman’s part, huskily warm on Griffin’s—she hadn’t imagined that mockery at all. She didn’t doubt for a minute that Griffin knew damn well that until the woman had told her so a few minutes ago she had had no knowledge that Griffin did anything to merit having fans! He was well aware of the fact that the Baxter household did not possess a television, because of her father’s aversion to them—and she would hardly have been out and purchased one in the ten days since his death.

Although, she acknowledged with a frown, just the sight and sound of one might have been preferable to the silence that had fallen over the house in the last week. Not that her father had been a great conversationalist; he’d usually been busy either reading one of his beloved books or restoring one, a hobby that had become a profession over the last few years. But just knowing the house was empty, apart from herself, had made the silence seem all the more oppressive…

‘—so kind of you, Mr Sinclair.’

Dora was brought back to an awareness of her surroundings by the elderly woman’s gushing thanks.

‘I’ll treasure it always!’ she added breathlessly.

‘It’ was a book that Griffin had insisted on buying for the other woman, gallantly opening the door for her too, a couple of minutes later, so that she could leave.

‘Take that look off your face, Izzy Baxter,’ Griffin drawled as he strolled back to where she sat behind the till. ‘And don’t say, What look?’ He sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘I know you too well to be in the least fooled by the innocent calm of your grey eyes!’

A shutter instantly came down over those ‘calm grey eyes’. ‘The truth of the matter is, Griffin,’ she told him coolly, ‘you don’t know me at all!’

‘I beg to differ—Izzy.’ He raised one blond brow pointedly. ‘But enough of that,’ he dismissed lightly as she continued to look at him coldly. ‘I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever sold a biography of Dickens with a Griffin Sinclair autograph in the front of it!’

He hadn’t? He couldn’t have?

He had, she realised increduously as she saw the laughter in his eyes.

‘I doubt that has increased its value,’ she bit out waspishly.

‘Ouch!’ he murmured ruefully, his gaze lingering on her face. ‘But it’s good to see that, between the two of them, Charles and your father didn’t knock all the spirit and fun out of you.’ His expression was grim now, green eyes hard as the emeralds they resembled.

‘Neither Charles or my father ever raised a hand to me,’ she defended indignantly.

‘They didn’t need to,’ Griffin scorned. ‘Verbal abuse, in the form of constant put-downs in your case, can be as effective as a physical blow.’

Dora looked up at him wordlessly for several long seconds. But finally, seeing in his demeanour no hint of apology for what he’d just said, she turned away, before getting restlessly to her feet, needing to put some distance between the two of them.

‘You’re talking absolute nonsense,’ she dismissed impatiently. ‘Now I wish you would just state your reason for being here and then go.’ Because, as always, he was shaking her natural calm. And after the recent strain, she needed to hold on to that. ‘I’m sure your mother—for one—would not approve of your paying a visit to your brother’s exfiancée!’ Dora couldn’t resist making a dig of her own; Margaret had always disapproved of Griffin’s apparent familiarity with Dora in the past, and Dora had no reason to think it was any different now, even with Charles dead.

Griffin relaxed. ‘I’m sure my mother’s opinion—‘‘for one’’!—is of no interest to me!’

It had always amazed Dora in the past that it never had been of much interest to Griffin. Margaret Sinclair was tall and autocratic. Widowed while her children were all still quite young, she had taken over as the head of the family, seemingly without pause for mourning her husband’s demise.

Charles, as the eldest son, had been groomed for the family’s re-entry into the political arena his mother had loved so well. Charlotte, as the youngest child and only daughter, had been brought up to be a wife and mother—although she was neither of those things yet, as far as Dora was aware. Griffin, the second son and the middle child, was as different from his siblings as night was from day—his blond good looks against their darker colouring. He was also the rebel in the family, fitting into none of the careers Margaret would have liked him to follow.

It was a role, Dora had learnt after a very short acquaintance with the whole family, that Griffin nurtured and loved!

She gave him a rueful grimace. ‘How has she taken to your television career?’

He gave her a sideways glance, green gaze openly laughing. ‘What do you think?’ he drawled mockingly.

‘Oh, no.’ Dora laughed softly. ‘You aren’t going to draw me into that one!’ Although she could well imagine how Margaret had reacted to her middle child being on public television in a programme that, knowing Griffin, would be slightly less than serious. But, as in the past, Dora had every intention of keeping well out of the feud that existed between Griffin and his mother. Anyone caught in the middle of that animosity was likely to get trampled underfoot by one or both of them!

‘She’s horrified.’ Griffin cheerfully confirmed Dora’s suspicions, at the same time giving the impression—once again!—that his mother’s opinion was of no interest to him. ‘In fact,’ he continued dryly, ‘she was so angry with me when the first programme was televised that she didn’t speak to me for a month. That was the most peaceful month of my life!’ he added with feeling.

Dora gave another laugh, realising even as she did so that it was the first time for a very long time she had found anything to laugh about…

She sobered, feeling almost guilty at her humour now, with her father only dead a matter of days. And here, too, of all places, in the shop he had spent so much time in.

‘And yet,’ Dora murmured softly, ‘it’s you who she called when there was a family crisis.’ This last was said half questioningly; Margaret had always been so in control, so self-possessed, it was hard to imagine a situation she couldn’t deal with herself.

Griffin shrugged. ‘Mother hasn’t been quite her—autocratic self since Charles’s death.’ He frowned, as if he had only just realised that particular fact for himself. ‘In fact, it was that that caused the row between Mother and Charlotte.’

‘Charles’s death?’ Dora looked at him sharply.

The two brothers hadn’t always seen eye to eye, being far too different in outlook and temperament for that, but Margaret and Charlotte had both adored Charles; Dora couldn’t imagine the two women arguing about him.

‘The time-scale of it.’ Griffin nodded grimly. ‘Charlotte’s finacé, Stuart— I’m sure you remember him? Well, he’s been offered a job in the States,’ Griffin continued at her affirmative nod. ‘Which he is due to start in a couple of months’ time. Charlotte, quite naturally, wants to go with him.’

‘And your mother isn’t happy about the two of them living together?’ Dora nodded—although she still didn’t see how that involved Charles.

Griffin gave a mischievous grin. ‘She certainly wouldn’t be happy if that were the case,’ he acknowledged tauntingly. ‘Although, at twenty-eight, Charlotte is old enough to make up her own mind how she wants to live her life! But, no, Charlotte and Stuart are going to do the decent thing and get married. It was the date Charlotte set for the wedding that caused the problem. Four weeks on Saturday,’ he explained as Dora still looked confused. ‘That way the two of them will be able to have a honeymoon before Stuart is due to start his new job.’

By which time Charles would only have been dead for eleven months… And, bearing in mind Griffin’s earlier comment to her today about wearing black for a year, it all began to make perfect sense.

‘Your mother believes the wedding date is disrespectful to Charles’s memory,’ she guessed knowingly.

Once again Griffin gave her that sideways glance. ‘Don’t tell me you agree with her?’

‘No, of course I don’t,’ she answered impatiently. ‘You have a very strange opinion of me, Griffin.’ She frowned, remembering some of his earlier remarks concerning her father and Charles. ‘I’m very pleased for Charlotte and Stuart.’ She had always been very fond of the other couple; in fact Charlotte was the only member of the family that she had continued to see for coffee occasionally after Charles died.

‘Because they’re getting married—or because they’re moving far away from my mother?’ Griffin muttered grimly.

Dora shook her head at him. He really was the most disrespectful man! ‘I’m sure your mother means well, Griffin,’ she reasoned evasively; she had been more than aware, during her brief engagement to Charles, that Margaret would make a formidable mother-in-law…!

‘Are you?’ Griffin looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘I wish I had your confidence,’ he added disgustedly. ‘Whatever, the wedding is going ahead as planned in four weeks’ time.’

‘How did you manage that?’ Dora wondered curiously. If his mother could stop speaking to him for a month simply because he appeared on public television in what she considered amounted to a role of entertainer, how much deeper would her response have been to Charlotte thwarting her wishes?

‘Bribery and corruption,’ Griffin bit out grimly. ‘But it’s done now, and—well, that’s why I’m here today.’ He searched in the pockets of his leather jacket. ‘To personally bring you your wedding invitation. Sorry.’ He grimaced as he finally found it. ‘It seems to have got a bit crushed in my pocket.’ He handed her the dog-eared envelope.

Dora looked blankly at the envelope, making no effort to take it. Her invitation? Not just to the wedding, but back into the midst of the Sinclair family…!

‘It isn’t going to bite,’ Griffin mocked as he still held out the envelope.

She hadn’t seen Charlotte for several months now, both of them having other commitments, otherwise she would probably already have known about the hastily arranged marriage. And it was very kind of the other woman to invite her to her wedding, but, in truth, Dora felt her own involvement with the Sinclair family had ended with Charles’s death. And the way Griffin had just breezed in here today, on the basis of delivering this invitation, proved to her she was right to have made that decision!

She shook her head. ‘I doubt I’ll be able to make it.’

‘Why not?’

She gave Griffin an irritated frown. ‘In view of your mother’s initial reaction to the wedding date, and the reason for it, I would have thought I was the last person she would expect to see there!’

He raised blond brows. ‘Scared, Izzy?’ he taunted.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Griffin,’ she snapped dismissively. ‘I was trying to be sensitive to your mother’s feelings.’

‘In view of the fact that she is never ‘‘sensitive’’ to other people’s feelings, I wouldn’t bother!’ He pushed himself up off the desk, instantly making the shop look small once again. ‘Besides, now that we’ve settled her initial—misgivings, she’s thrown herself into the wedding arrangements with a vengeance! Charlotte’s ‘‘quiet wedding’’ has been turned into a social circus!’ he explained disgustedly.

All the more reason, Dora would have thought, for her not to attend. Oh, she still had all the social attributes Charles—and his mother!—had found so suitable for her future role as Charles’s wife: she found it easy to converse with people from all walks of life, on most subjects—themselves, she had learnt, was usually a pretty safe bet for most people!—she was attractive enough, in a quiet and unassuming way, and, best of all, she was sure, there was no hint of scandal attached to her name.

She just didn’t particularly relish her role now as ‘poor Charles’s fiancée’, the object of pitying curiosity. And surely her father’s recent death was excuse enough not to accept.

‘In view of the fact that none of the family were aware of your father’s death, he was, of course, included in the invitation.’ Griffin seemed to have read at least some of her thoughts. ‘But don’t give that another thought; it will be simple enough for you to come to the wedding as my partner for the day.’

Now Dora did stare at him. His partner? ‘I don’t think so, Griffin—’

‘Well, I do,’ he returned in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Now, could you ring through the sale of these books?’ He indicated the pile he had accumulated when the elderly lady was in the shop, having put them down on the desk. ‘I have another appointment in an hour.’

Dora frowned. ‘Surely you don’t really want all these books?’

He grimaced. ‘As well as not talking to me for a month, my mother decided to clear out the bedroom she keeps for me at the house. The ‘‘clearing out’’ included throwing away a collection of classics I had had since I was a boy,’ he told her grimly. ‘I’m attempting to replace them.’

Mother and son never had really got on, Dora knew, but even so!

Griffin might dismiss his mother’s behaviour now, but she was sure he had been far from pleased at the time. ‘If you can remember some of the others that are still—missing, I might be able to get them for you,’ she offered helpfully. Books had always been a big part of her own life, and she could imagine nothing more awful than losing any of the collection she had amassed over the years, and still read over and over.

‘Thanks.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll make a list and give it to you.’

She wished he wouldn’t watch her so intently as she totalled up the books; he made her feel nervous, and she had trouble concentrating at all.

But he continued to watch her with those knowing green eyes, and it seemed to take her for ever to get through the twenty or so books he had picked up.

‘You must have had quite a library,’ she said lightly as she stacked them into carrier bags, having noted that some of them were copies of books she had in her own library at home.

‘And there you were thinking I couldn’t read!’ he drawled mockingly.

‘You’re being ridiculous again.’ She looked up at him with calm grey eyes, able to breathe again now that she knew he was on the point of leaving. ‘I am aware of the fact that you’ve written several books of your own.’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘I’ll lay odds on there not being any of them in here, though.’ He looked about him pointedly.

She stiffed at his deliberate mockery. ‘We do have travel books—’

‘But not by Griffin Sinclair,’ he said with certainty. ‘Your father didn’t approve of me any more than I liked him!’

He was right, of course; her father had never made any secret of his disapproval of Charles’s ‘disreputable’ younger brother. Although Dora very much doubted the oversight had been deliberately because of who Griffin was; the shop simply didn’t stock the sort of books Griffin had written.

‘I told you I intend making changes,’ she replied abruptly. ‘And books written by well-known television personalities are sure to be good sellers,’ she added teasingly.

‘Very funny!’ Griffin grimaced, picking up the two bags of books. ‘I’ll see you in four weeks’ time, then.’ He strode across the shop to the door. ‘The wedding is at three o’clock, so I’ll call for you at your home at about two o’clock.’

Then she would accompany him to his sister’s wedding, as his partner…

‘Oh, and Izzy…?’ He paused at the open doorway.

She looked at him warily. ‘Yes?’

He grinned at her obvious reluctance. ‘Don’t wear black, hmm? For one thing, it isn’t an appropriate colour to wear to a wedding,’ he continued before she could make any comment. ‘And for another,’ he added tauntingly, ‘it doesn’t suit you!’

Dora sank down weakly into her chair once Griffin had gone, closing the door softly behind him. Griffin Sinclair, she decided—and not for the first time!—was the most outrageous man she had ever had the misfortune to meet.

But how strange it was that the elderly lady had earlier likened him to a modern-day pirate, because when Dora had first met him he had seemed like a man from another time to her, too.

Of course, their surroundings had added to that illusion. At least, she had felt they did then, and she had made that excuse to herself since as a way of explaining her behaviour. Whatever the reason, she had allowed herself to be cast under some sort of spell. If only for a brief time…

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