Rescued by the Brooding Tycoon by Lucy Gordon

Author:Lucy Gordon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-06-24T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

SUDDENLY Darius’s face lit up at something he’d seen over Harriet’s shoulder. ‘Jackson, you young devil. Where have you been?’

The young man approaching them was sufficiently like Darius to be his brother, yet better looking. His features were more regular, less interesting, she thought. Most women would have called him handsome.

He greeted Darius with a friendly thump on the shoulder and stood back to survey him with pleasure.

‘I’ve been abroad,’ he said. ‘I just got back yesterday to find that nobody had seen hide nor hair of you for ages. Where did you vanish to?’

‘Herringdean. I’m the unexpected owner of an island off the south coast. This lady—’ he drew Harriet forward ‘—lives there and has been kind enough to be my guide and friend.’

Jackson beamed and engulfed her hand in his. ‘I don’t know how you put up with him,’ he said.

‘Neither do I,’ she said, liking him immensely.

‘Did I hear right? Herringdean? The Herringdean?’

‘I don’t know of any other,’ she said.

Delight broke over his face. ‘You’ve got fulmars there, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, plenty of them. They’re beautiful.’ Light dawned. ‘Hey, I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? On television?’

‘I’ve done a programme or two,’ he agreed. ‘But never one about fulmars. Could you and I have a talk some time soon?’

‘Of course we can.’

‘Then you can really have a deep discussion about fulmars,’ Darius observed. ‘I don’t know how you can bear the suspense.’

Laughing, the other two turned on him.

‘They’re birds,’ Harriet said. ‘Very big and lovely. They look like gulls but they’re really petrels.’

‘Fascinating!’ said Darius, who wouldn’t have known a gull from a petrel if they’d attacked him together.

‘They nest high up on cliffs,’ Harriet continued, ‘and they’re one of the beauties of Herringdean.’

Darius regarded her with comic irony. ‘And I’ve owned these fabulous creatures all this time and you didn’t tell me?’

‘Nobody owns fulmars,’ Harriet said. ‘It’s they who own the world, especially that bit of it called Herringdean.’

Jackson looked at her with appreciation. ‘I see you’re an expert,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste yourself on this fellow. Let’s go and have that talk now.’

‘Yes, be off while I make some duty calls,’ Darius said.

She was briefly afraid that the exchange might have offended him, but he kissed her cheek, saying, ‘Take care of her, Jackson.’

Now she remembered Darius saying that his brother was a naturalist. ‘Not an academic. He just works a lot with animals and charities. Does TV a bit, goes off on expeditions. You’d find him interesting.’

And she did. Jackson knew his stuff, and as she also knew hers they plunged into a knowledgeable discussion that pleased them both.

Darius did his duty, going from acquaintance to acquaintance, saying the right things, avoiding the wrong things, smiling mechanically, performing as expected. Nothing in his demeanour revealed that he was intensely conscious of Harriet and Jackson sitting at a side table, their heads close together, each so absorbed that they seemed to have forgotten the rest of the world.

Gradually, he managed to get near enough to eavesdrop but what he heard brought him no comfort.

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