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  Damian was standing beside her, watching the expressions cross her face. She turned to him at last, shaking her head. ‘Damian, what on earth are we doing here? Why have you brought me to this house?’

  ‘To get your opinion.’

  ‘You’re thinking of making an investment? Here?’

  ‘I want to buy this house. To live in.’

  Her throat was constricted again. ‘I didn’t know you were thinking of moving back to Braythorpe.’

  ‘I’ve more or less decided,’ he said casually. ‘These days I can keep in touch with my business interests via telephone, cable or fax. I don’t need to be in London any more. I’m getting tired of city life. And I’m getting tired of my bachelor flat. I was starting to long for my roots, for something a little more …permanent.’

  ‘Well, this is permanent all right,’ she said, as they moved onward through the house. ‘It’s been here around four hundred years already. God, it’s beautiful―look at that stonework. And that fireplace looks like genuine Adam. The furniture is fabulous.’

  ‘That’s for sale, too. The family who own it now are wealthy Middle Easterners. They’ve never used it, and now they want to sell up, furnishings included. Some of the pieces were made especially for the house when it was built, around 1620, by the Ely family.’

  Kirby glanced at him. ‘It is rather a jump from a bachelor flat, Damian. Mrs Carstairs was telling me only this morning that a big house is no more than a burden to a single person.’

  ‘True. But I’m not planning to live here alone. I’m planning to share the house with the woman I love… and our children.’ He said this while gazing thoughtfully round the room, but Kirby felt her heart lurch.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he added absently, ‘it’s just the right size for a growing family … wouldn’t you say?’

  Unperturbed by the fact that Kirby did not answer, he led her upstairs. The bedrooms were large and airy, with luxurious modern bathrooms en suite. The master bedroom was huge, and had a massive bay window whose leaded panes looked down on to the topiary garden, to the lush fields beyond, and to the soft hills of Yorkshire beyond them. It was a view that took her breath away.

  ‘The land extends beyond those woods,’ he told her, pointing at a distant blaze of autumn colours. ‘It comes to around thirty or forty acres in all.’

  ‘This property must be astronomically expensive,’ she said, finding her voice at last.

  ‘It isn’t cheap, no. But I’m not a poor man, Kirby. And, when you’re buying a house that will be your home for the rest of your life, and your children’s home after you … well, price doesn’t come into it.’

  She traced the lead of the panes with her fingertips.

  ‘Don’t you think,’ she asked quietly, ‘that this is putting unfair pressure on me?’

  ‘Pressure?’ he asked innocently.

  ‘Pressure to get me to say yes.’

  She heard his soft laugh. ‘I haven’t asked you anything yet.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ She turned and met his eyes. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t accept you without this house as a make-weight?’

  He moved to her, his expression changing subtly.

  ‘Judging from the last couple of interviews we’ve had, I wouldn’t bank on your accepting me if I locked you up in a lighthouse for twenty years.’ He took her hands in his, his strong fingers twining round hers.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, slate-blue eyes searching hers with profound enquiry. ‘Would you accept me without this house as a make-weight? '

  Her fingers tightened around his. ‘Damian,’ she whispered, ‘you were always too good to be true. I’ve loved you half my life without ever being able to hope that this moment would come true. And now…’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’ve been blind about you, Damian. Blind to your true character. Oh, it wasn’t Wendy’s phone call, though that helped me face up to the truth. Even if you were the exploitative monster I tried to pretend you were, I’d still have been yours … helplessly yours.’

  She saw the emotion move, deep within his eyes.

  ‘Kirby, I don’t deserve you. The mistake I made six years ago was so terrible that I can hardly bear to think of it now … When you married Keith Waterford, it was as though my heart stopped beating. As though my emotions, all of me, went into some kind of suspended animation. For the first couple of years, I lived in hope that the marriage wouldn’t work. I lived in hope of a separation, a divorce … God forgive me, but I couldn’t believe you could ever be happy with another man. But you stayed married. And you seemed to love Keith. And I had to face the fact that you could be happy with another man, and that I’d made the biggest miscalculation of my entire life.’

  ‘ "Happy",’ she said quietly. ‘That’s a word with so many meanings, Damian. Sometimes we use it just to mean that we’re not suffering.’ She searched his face, that beautiful face she knew better than her own, that had been in her dreams ever since she could remember.‘We almost never use it to mean what it really ought to mean―true joy, the feeling that so many people only have for one-or two moments. 1wasn’t happy with Keith. It’s not disloyal to his memory to say that any more. I didn’t love him. And a woman can only know happiness with the man she loves. Keith was very kind, a wonderful man in so many ways. But all he could ever do was stop me from suffering. Happiness …that’s what you make me feel, Damian. Even when you’re breaking my heart.’

  He smiled with a touch of sadness. ‘I can’t even say I wasn’t suffering. I was. All those years. Oh, yes, I’ve been brilliantly successful, the whiz-kid of the decade. From the outside, I do a good impression of a dynamic human being who speaks and walks and achieves things. But inside, where it mattered, 1wasn’t really alive at all. I’d destroyed the most important part of myself in a moment of folly. All the rest-the money, the success, the razzmatazz-none of it really mattered a damn. I drifted into that engagement without hope, without any expectations of love or joy. I’d left all that behind me six years ago. But when I saw you again at Caroline Langton’s house, and you told me Keith was dead…’ he shook his head ‘ … it was like an earthquake. I don’t know how else to describe it. Everything seemed to crumble around me. I didn’t dare hope―and yet I no longer felt that crushing sense of despair.’

  They moved unthinkingly to the bed, and sat facing one another, their fingers still locked together.

  ‘I told Wendy how I felt the next day,’ Damian went on. ‘I was completely open with her. We never pretended to be in love with one another, and, whatever her failings, Wendy is a very honest person. She knew that I had always loved you. When I told her that, with you now free, I couldn’t marry her, she wasn’t heartbroken. But she suggested we give each other a week to see whether it was the right decision. I felt I had to agree, even though 1had no doubt about the way I felt. That’s why she went back to London on Monday. When she came back, she knew at once that I’d been right. I was in love with you, and I could never marry anyone else.’

  Kirby swallowed, trying to ease the choking sensation of breathlessness that had overcome her.

  Damian went on, ‘She insisted on coming to L’Escargot on Friday to take what she called “a last look at the conqueror”. You can’t blame her for needling you a little over that lunch. After you stormed out, as a matter of fact, she told me I was a very lucky man. She called you a very classy lady, which is probably the biggest compliment Wendy can give. She knew then why I loved you so much.’

  Kirby couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘She told me the real facts behind that pollution business this morning,’ she said at last. ‘How you used your own money to put things right. When 1was so sharp with you…why didn’t you just put me over your knee? And then tell me the truth?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m not proud of myself, Kirby. Paying up was the least I could do. That chemical spillage was a disaster. I had to protect my shareholders, but I couldn’t have let those people suffer, either. I felt terrible. Despite the corp
orate image, my politics are more green than any other colour.’

  ‘And your plans for Waterford Electronics… the most minor of your recent acquisitions? I’ve been wrong about those, too, haven’t I?’

  ‘You haven’t shown the best judgement in the world’ he said solemnly. ‘

  ‘No… perhaps not. But I’m showing it now.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said decisively, sliding her arms around his neck.‘Because I’m not going to let you get away again, Damian.’

  His mouth was so close to hers that she could feel its warmth touch her, sending her pulses racing. ‘Does this mean you’ll marry me?’ he whispered.

  ‘Well, now,’ she hedged. ‘I can’t make any promises, but— ‘

  His mouth silenced her.

  The moment had no end. The silence of the untenanted house was gentle, somehow welcoming, as though it were wistful for the emotional warmth that had been missing for so long. Kirby ran her hands slowly across Damian’s shoulders, tracing the precise symmetry of his muscles. Their tongues caressed with slow, gentle tenderness, until the first flare of desire awoke, like a flame that never died down completely.

  ‘I love you, Kirby,’ he whispered. ‘Haven’t you made me suffer enough already?’

  ‘Not nearly enough,’ she laughed huskily. ‘You don’t think I’m going to give in just like that, do you?’

  He drew her close, burying his face against her throat hungrily. She moaned softly as she felt the sweet torment of his lips against her throbbing pulse. The wonderful magic was casting its spell all over again, setting fire to her nerve-ends, making her heart thud like a pagan drum.

  She ran her fingers through his crisp, dark hair, glorying in the sheer sensuality of him. He lifted the soft wool of her sweater gently, and bent to kiss the soft curve of her breasts.

  Kirby whispered his name, cradling his head as he tasted her scented skin, his mouth seeking the hardening peaks of her nipples. Desire flared up, hot and consuming.

  He seemed to know exactly how she wanted to be touched, his lips and teeth answering every unspoken command, every silent entreaty.

  She let him push her gently backwards on to the bed, surrendering her body to his passion. There was no sense of familiarity, no sense of repetition, even though they had made love more than once before. It was a voyage into a wonderful new world of experience and sensation.

  She wondered dizzily whether she would ever tire of their lovemaking … whether he would ever have enough of her.

  Not to judge by the way he was devouring her with kisses, caressing the satin of her skin, sucking her into a spinning whirlpool of passion!

  ‘Kirby, my darling,’ he said, his voice ragged, ‘you’re my life, my soul. You know I can’t live without you. Tell me you feel the same way!’

  ‘You know how I feel,’ she responded in a shaking whisper. ‘You’ve always known how I felt, Damian.’

  ‘We’ve spent so long apart…’ he paused to haul off his shirt, revealing the tanned magnificence of his torso , … we’re not going to spend a second apart ever again.’

  ‘Oh, darling, we can’t―not here!’

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded, coming to her again.

  ‘Because it’s not ours … not yet!’

  ‘If you want it, it’s yours, Kirby. I put down a deposit this morning, before I came to the Lodge. I know I should have consulted you, but I was terrified someone else would buy it first.’

  ‘And you were anticipating a long siege?’ She smiled up into his dazzling eyes.

  ‘As long as it took.’

  She ran her hands over his skin, tracing the muscles of his chest, the lithe waist and taut, flat stomach.

  ‘And do you really want me―little Kirby Bryant? You once thought I was too immature for you, Damian.’

  ‘Not any more,’ he said, his mouth roaming hungrily over her breasts. She felt his tongue encircle her swollen nipples, making her shudder with pleasure. ‘1 was the one who was immature, Kirby. Now I know exactly what I want. And I want only you.’

  She closed her eyes, lost in the closeness of him. Mrs Kirby Holt. She remembered how often she had thought those words, long ago, never really believing they could come true. And now they were real, within her grasp.

  The impossible had happened, and joy could be hers.

  All she had to do was reach out and touch it.

  ‘I love you, Damian,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve always loved you, with all my heart and soul. You were always the centre of my life. The most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I only have one real wish, and that’s to make you as happy as I know how, for the rest of our lives together.’

  ‘Then you’ll marry me?’ he asked, looking down at her with brilliant eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Tomorrow, if you want.’

  ‘Oh, yes. That’s what I want, Kirby.’

  Then there was only the need they felt for one another, the consuming hunger which wrapped their hearts in flame. Kirby had never loved any man like this, had never wanted any man the way she wanted Damian now. As he took her body in his arms, she felt her soul soar like an eagle, with his by its side, high into the immense darkness of space.

  ‘If there’s no further business,’ Damian said, ‘I leave the final word to the chair.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kirby nodded. She looked around the boardroom. She was wearing one of her most formal suits, a charcoal costume with a white blouse and black court shoes. It could not make her soft beauty any more severe, but it was certainly businesslike.

  The faces around the long, polished table were all smiling in contentment. It had probably been the most eventful and at the same time the most satisfactory board meeting in the history of Waterford Electronics.

  Her eyes lifted to the portrait of Keith that she had had moved from the main office so that it would from now on smile gently down on to the boardroom. Well, I did it, Keith, she told him silently. I’ve preserved the company as you would have wanted it.

  Then she took a deep breath. ‘As outgoing chairman of Waterford Electronics,’ she began, ‘I am confident of leaving the firm in the best possible hands. I mean that in three senses. Firstly, I think we ought to congratulate ourselves on acquiring our new chairman of the board―Mr Roderick Braithwaite. He has been an exceptional manager for several years, and we all know that the firm will go from strength to strength under his chairmanship.’

  There was a scattering of applause, and Roderick beamed around him, accepting handshakes and pats on the back from all sides. He had got what he wanted at last. And, with the new plans for expansion and a more dynamic marketing policy already on the drawing-board, Roderick Braithwaite was one of the happiest men in Yorkshire today.

  ‘Secondly,’ she went on, ‘we can also be confident that my late husband’s spirit of altruism will not be lost. We’ve approved the new constitution which commits Waterford Electronics to helping the community in the future, just as it has done in the past. I’m delighted to say that there is even a programme to increase charitable work over the next couple of years, as the profits increase.’

  She met Damian’s slate-blue eyes. They were amused, tender, loving―even though his face was expressionless.

  She had to fight down her own loving smile in reply.

  ‘Thirdly, and most importantly,’ she concluded, ‘we should congratulate the Holt Corporation, in the form of its head, Mr. Damian Holt, who are now the major shareholders and new owners of the firm.’ She waited for the applause to die down. ‘I think I can safely say that every single member of this board welcomes the fact that we are now part of the large and successful family of companies under the Holt Corporation umbrella. We welcome the protection and support that implies … and we look forward to a relationship of unbroken success with our new parent company. The integrity of Mr. Holt himself is our best guarantee that Waterford Electronics will be run in a just and fair manner. Thank you all.’

  The boar
d meeting broke up in an atmosphere of jollity and good humour. Kirby found herself the centre of a group of board members, all wanting to shake her hand, and to congratulate her on the news.

  ‘You’ve been an absolutely splendid chairman,’ an elderly man was beaming. ‘We’ll miss you badly. But you’ve steered Waterford Electronics into a magnificent position. Don’t know how you did it, my dear, but well done!’

  She could see Damian at the other end of the room, and Roderick in the middle, both also the centres of similarly attentive groups. It took almost an hour to accept all the good wishes, and extricate herself from various invitations.

  At last she was leaving the boardroom with an escort of attentive males. Leaving it, she suddenly realised, for the last time. She walked through the office, looking around, and thinking back over the past year, as she listened with one ear to the conversation all around her.