A Most Suitable Wife

Jessica Steele is the much-loved author of over seventy novels.

Praise for some of Jessica’s novels:

“Jessica Steele pens an unforgettable tale filled with vivid, lively characters, fabulous dialogue and a touching conflict.”

—Romantic Times

“A Professional Marriage is a book to sit back and enjoy on the days that you want to bring joy to your heart and a smile to your face. It is a definite feel-good book.”

—www.writersunlimited.com

“Jessica Steele pens a lovely romance…with brilliant characters, charming scenes and an endearing premise.”

—www.romantictimes.com

Jessica Steele llives in a friendly Worcestershire village with her super husband, Peter. They are owned by a gorgeous Staffordshire bull terrier called Florence, who is boisterous and manic, but also adorable. It was Peter who first prompted Jessica to try writing and, after her first rejection, encouraged her to keep on trying. Luckily, with the exception of Uruguay, she has so far managed to research inside all the countries in which she has set her books—traveling to places as far apart as Siberia and Egypt. Her thanks go to Peter for his help and encouragement.

Books by Jessica Steele

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3763—A PAPER MARRIAGE

3787—HER BOSS’S MARRIAGE AGENDA

3824—A PRETEND ENGAGEMENT

3839—VACANCY: WIFE OF CONVENIENCE

A Most Suitable Wife
Jessica Steele

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

TAYE let herself back into the apartment and wandered into the sitting room. Looking around at the smart furniture and fittings, she recalled the poky bed-sit she had lived in for most of the three years previously, and knew that she just could not bear to go back to that way of living.

Not only could she not, but, with the rent of this apartment being very much more than she could afford on her own now that Paula had left, Taye determined that she would not give up the apartment unless she absolutely had to.

To that end, and after a very great deal of thought, she had just taken the first steps in getting someone to pay half of the rent. She did so hope that someone would see the advert and apply soon.

Unfortunately, because Paula, while giving her the name and address of the letting agent, had taken the lease with her, Taye felt on very rocky ground with regard to her own tenancy agreement. The fact was, although Taye had looked high and low for the lease, she had been unable to find it, and so was unsure of her actual tenancy position.

The lease was in Paula’s name and while Paula had said that provided the rent was paid on time—quarterly in advance—she was sure the agents would not care who was living there or who paid the rent, Taye was not so certain.

She would have liked a sight of the lease before Paula had left, if only to have some idea if there was any restriction on sub-letting. Because it seemed to Taye to be fairly obvious that a lease would not be worth as much as the paper it was written on if the tenant went ahead their own merry way.

But she had a feeling that any approach to the agent to check might see Wally, Warner and Quayle saying that there was a ‘no flat-share sub-let’ clause—and that caused Taye to hesitate to approach them. Yes, she knew that she should approach them. That she ought to go and see them and explain that Paula Neale had left the area. Fear that they might say that she would have to leave too, caused Taye to hold back. Should they be even likely to enquire into her suitability to be a tenant—her financial suitability that was—they would know straight away that by no chance could she pay the high rent required on her own.

Burying her head in the sand it might be but, bearing in mind that she had been Paula’s sub-tenant, Taye preferred to look on it from Paula’s viewpoint: that as long as the rent was paid they would not care who lived there provided they were respectable and paid the rent when due.

All the same, when considering her options—pay up or leave—Taye knew she did not want to leave and go back to the way she had up until three months ago been living.

Which left the only answer—she must get someone else to pay half the rent the way she had paid half the rent to Paula. And how to go about that? Advertise.

The only problem with that was that Taye felt she could hardly advertise in the paper. Without question she suspected that any agent worthy of the name would keep their eyes on the ‘To Let’ column of the local paper. Which meant—Her thoughts were interrupted when someone rapped smartly on the wood panelling of the door. Anticipating it would be one of her neighbouring apartment dwellers, Taye went to answer it.

But, although she thought she had met all of the other tenants in the building in the time she had been there, she would swear she had never caught so much as a glimpse of the tall dark-haired man who stood there before her.

‘How did you get in?’ she questioned abruptly when for what seemed like ageless seconds the man just stared arrogantly back at her.

She thought she was going to have to whistle for an answer. Then Rex Bagnall, who had a flat on the next floor, rushed by. ‘Forget my head…’ he said in passing, making it obvious he had just gone out but had dashed back for something he had forgotten—and that answered her question. The man who had knocked at her door had slipped in as Rex had gone out.

Then suddenly it clicked. ‘You’ve come about the flat?’ she exclaimed.

For long silent minutes the stern-faced man studied her, and she began to think she was going to have to run for any answer to her questions. But then finally, his tones clipped, ‘I have,’ he replied.

Oh, grief! She had been thinking in terms of a female to flat-share with! She could not say either that she was very taken with this grim-expressioned mid-thirties-looking man, but she supposed even if she had no intention of renting half the flat to him that there were certain courtesies to be observed.

‘That was quick,’ she remarked pleasantly. ‘I’ve only just returned from putting the ad in the newsagent’s window.’ She might have gone on to say that she had been looking for someone of the female gender but Rex Bagnall was back again, dashing along the communal hallway. Not wanting him to hear any of her business, ‘Come in,’ she invited the unsuccessful candidate.

He followed her into her hall, but so seemed to dominate it that she quickly led the way to the sitting room. She turned, the light was better there, and she observed he was broad-shouldered and casually, if expensively, dressed. He could see her better too, his glance flicking momentarily to her white-blonde hair.

‘I—er…’ she began, faltered and, began again. ‘I know I didn’t say so, but I was rather anticipating a female.’

‘A female?’ he enquired loftily—causing her to wish she knew more about the Sex Discrimination Act and if it came into force in a situation like this.

‘Have you shared a flat with a female before?’ she asked, feeling a trifle hot under the collar. ‘I mean, I don’t mean to be personal or anything but…’ She hesitated, hoping he would help her out, but clearly he was not going to and she found she was saying, ‘Perhaps it won’t be suitable for you.’

He looked back at her, unspeaking for a second or two. Then deigned to reply, ‘Perhaps I’d better take a look around.’

And such was his air of confidence that, albeit reluctantly, Taye, with the exception of her own bedroom, found she was showing him around the apartment. ‘This, obviously, is the sitting room,’ she began, and went on to show him the dining room, followed by the bathroom and kitchen and utility room. ‘That’s my bedroom,’ she said, indicating her bedroom door in passing. ‘And this is the other bedroom.’

‘The one for your—tenant?’

‘That’s right,’ she replied, glad, when he had silently and without comment inspected everywhere else, to hear him say something at last.

He went into what had been Paula’s bedroom and glanced around. Taye left him to it. She returned to the sitting room and was preparing to tell him that she would let him know—it seemed more polite than to straight away tell him, No chance. He was some minutes before he joined her in the sitting room—obviously he had been looking his fill and weighing everything up.

‘I see you have a garden,’ he remarked, going over to the sitting room window and looking out.

‘It’s shared by all of us,’ she replied. ‘The agents send someone to tidy up now and again but it doesn’t require too much maintenance. Now, about—’

‘Your name?’ he cut in. ‘I can’t go around calling you Mrs de Winter the whole time.’

Her lips twitched. Somehow, when she wasn’t sure she even liked the man, his dry comment caught at her sense of humour. He all too plainly was referring to the Mrs de Winter in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. The Mrs de Winter who all through the book had never been given a first name.

‘Taye,’ she replied, in the face of his unsmiling look controlling her urge to smile. ‘Tayce, actually, but I’m called Taye.’ She felt a bit foolish all at once, it suddenly seeming stupid to go on to tell him that her younger brother had not been able to manage Tayce when he had been small, and how Taye had just kind of stuck. ‘Taye Trafford,’ she completed briefly. Only then did it dawn on her that she should have asked his name the minute he had stepped over the threshold. ‘And you are?’

‘Magnus—Ashthorpe,’ he supplied.

‘Well, Mr Ashthorpe—’

‘I’ll take it,’ he butted in decisively.

That took her aback somewhat. ‘Oh, I don’t think…’

‘Naturally there are matters to discuss.’ He took over the interview, if interview it be.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to discuss it a little, she supposed. At least she could be civilised. ‘Would you like coffee?’ she offered.

‘Black, no sugar,’ he accepted, and she was glad to escape to the kitchen.

No way did she want him for a fellow tenant! No way! Yet, as she busied herself with coffee, cups and saucers, she began to realise that she must not be too hasty here. What if no one else applied? The rent was quite steep after all. Yes, but she might well have a whole horde of people interested in a flat-share. Look how quickly he had seen her ad. That card could not have been in the local newsagent’s window above ten minutes, she was sure.

‘Coffee!’ she announced brightly, taking the tray into the sitting room, setting in down and inviting him to take a seat. She placed a cup and saucer down on the low table near him, and, taking the seat opposite, thought it about time to let him know who was doing the interviewing here. ‘The flat—the flat-share—it’s for yourself?’ she enquired. He stared into her wide blue eyes as though thinking it an odd question. ‘I mean—you’re not married or anything?’ she ploughed on. And when he looked unsmiling back, as if to ask what the devil that had to do with her, ‘I only advertised for one person. I wouldn’t consider a married couple,’ she stated bluntly. She was beginning to regret giving him coffee. She would not mind at all if he left now.

‘I’m not married,’ he enlightened her.

She looked at him. He was quite good-looking, she observed. No doubt he was more interested in playing the field than in making any long-term commitment. ‘This is a fairly quiet building,’ she felt she ought to warn him. ‘We—um—don’t go in for riotous parties.’ He took that on board without comment, and she began to wonder why she had bothered mentioning it, because she was growing more and more certain that there was no way she was going to have him as a fellow flat-share. He had not touched his coffee—she could hardly stand up and tell him she would let him know. ‘The—er—rent would not be a problem?’ she enquired. ‘It’s paid quarterly—thirteen weeks—and in advance.’ From his clothes she would have thought he was used to paying for the best, but she had to talk about something. ‘I—er—the landlord prefers the rent to be paid on the old quarter days to fall in line with his quarter-day ground rent payments. He owns the building but not the land on which it’s built,’ she added, but, conscious that she was talking just for the sake of it, she skidded to an abrupt stop.

Magnus Ashthorpe surveyed her coolly before stating, ‘I think I’ll be able to scrape my share together.’ Which, despite his good clothes, gave her the impression that he was in pretty much the same financial state that she was. Her clothes, limited though they were, were of good quality too.

‘Er—what sort of work do you do?’ she asked, but as he reached for his coffee she noticed a smear of paint on his index finger: the sort of smudgy mark one got when touching paintwork to see if it was dry.

She saw his eyes follow hers, saw him examine the paint smudge himself. ‘I’m an artist,’ he revealed, looking across at her.

‘Magnus Ashthorpe,’ she murmured half to herself. She had never heard of him, but it might embarrass him were she to say so, and she had no wish to hurt his feelings. ‘You’re—um—quite successful?’ she asked instead.

‘I get by,’ he replied modestly.

‘You wouldn’t be able to paint here,’ she said swiftly, latching on to a tailor-made excuse to turn him down. ‘The landlord wouldn’t care to—’

‘I’m allowed the attic where I’m now living. That serves well as a studio,’ Magnus Ashthorpe interrupted her.

‘Ah,’ she murmured. And, feeling desperate to take charge again, ‘Where are you living at present?’ she asked.

‘With a friend,’ he answered promptly.

‘You’re—um…’ Heavens, this interviewing business was all uphill. ‘You’re—er—in a—relationship that—er…’ She couldn’t finish. By the sound of it he was in a relationship that was falling apart. But she just could not ask about it.

Grey eyes continued to appraise her, but briefly his hard expression seemed to soften marginally, as if he had gleaned something of her sensitivity. But any impression she had of a warmer side to the man was gone in an instant. And his voice was cool when he let her know she could not be more wrong if she thought he would tie himself down to any sort of one-to-one relationship.

‘Nick Knight and I have been friends for years. He let me move in a year back, but now he wants to move his girlfriend in.’ He shrugged. ‘While I prefer not to play gooseberry, Nick prefers to have his spare room back.’

‘But you’ll continue to work from his attic?’

He nodded, and Taye started to feel better. While she had no intention of offering the flat-share to him, if he had a studio—be it just an attic—then at least he had somewhere he could use as a base if this Nick Knight wanted him to leave sooner rather than later.

Magnus Ashthorpe had finished his coffee, Taye noticed. She got to her feet. ‘I’m not awfully sure…’ she began, to let him down gently.

‘You’ll want to see other applicants, of course,’ he butted in smoothly.

‘Well, I have arranged for the flat-share to be advertised all next week and to include next weekend,’ she replied. ‘And—um—there will be a question of references,’ she brought out from an unthought nowhere.

For answer Magnus Ashthorpe went over to the telephone notepad and in a speedy hand wrote down something and tore the sheet of paper from the pad. ‘My mobile number,’ he said, handing the paper to her. ‘I’ve also noted the name of my previous landlady. Should you want to take up a reference, I’m sure Mrs Sturgess will be pleased to answer any questions you may have about me.’

Since he was not going to be her co-tenant, Taye did not think she would need the piece of paper, but she took it from him anyhow. ‘I’ll—um—see you out,’ she said, and smiled. It cost nothing and she was unlikely to see him ever again. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. They shook hands.

She closed the door behind him and went swiftly to the dining room. Standing well back from the window, she saw him emerge from the building. But she need not have worried that he might look up and see her lurking near the dining room window—he was already busy in conversation with someone he had called on his mobile phone. No doubt telling his friend Nick Knight that he had found a place!

Taye went back to the sitting room, the feel of his hand on hers still there. He had a wonderful handshake. Still the same, she knew she would not be phoning this Mrs Sturgess for a reference.

Taye purposely stayed in all of that Saturday and the whole of Sunday, and frequently watched from the dining room window for callers. But callers there were none. She had thought there was a huge demand for accommodation to rent, but apparently no one was interested in renting at such a high rent.

And that was worrying. She had not lived in what was termed the ‘garden flat’ all that long herself, but already she loved it. She had moved to London three years ago after one gigantic fall-out with her mother. But only now was she in any sort of position to pay half of the rent herself. To find all of the rent would be an impossibility.

Taye had a good job, and was well paid, but she just had to keep something back for those calls from her mother. Despite her mother all but throwing her out, it had not stopped her parent from requiring financial assistance from time to time.

Worriedly, knowing that she did not want to go back to the bed-sit existence she had known before her promotion and pay rise, and prior to Paula Neale’s invite to move in and share expenses, Taye thought back to how her life had changed—for the better.

There had always been rows at home—even before her father had decided after one row too many that enough was enough and that they would all be happier, himself included, if he moved out.

His financial ability had made the move viable only when his father had died and he had come into a fund which he had been able to assign during her lifetime to his money-loving wife. The fact that Taye’s father had no illusions about her mother’s spendthrift ways was borne out by the fact that he had made sure that the fund was paid out to her monthly and not in the lump sum she had demanded.

Taye had been fourteen, her brother Hadleigh five years younger when, nine years ago now, their father had packed his bags and left. She loved him, she missed him, and she had been unhappy to see him go. But perhaps they would all be free of the daily rows and constant carping. Perhaps with him no longer there, the rows would stop.

Wrong! Without her father there for her mother to vent her spleen on, Taye had become her mother’s target. Though if being daily harangued by Greta Trafford for some over-exaggerated misdemeanour kept the sharpness of her tongue from Taye’s nine-year-old brother, then Taye had supposed she could put up with it. What would happen to Hadleigh, though, when she eventually went off to university Taye had not wanted to dwell on.

Then she had discovered that she need not have worried about it, because when she reached the age of sixteen she discovered that her mother had other plans for her.

‘University!’ she had exclaimed when Taye had begun talking of staying on at school, and of taking her ‘A’ levels. ‘You can forget that, young lady. You can leave school as soon as you can, get a job and start bringing some money in.’

‘But—it’s all planned!’ Taye remembered protesting.

‘I’ve just unplanned it!’ Greta Trafford had snapped viperously.

‘But Daddy said…’

‘Daddy isn’t here! Daddy,’ her mother mocked, ‘was delighted to shelve his responsibilities. Daddy—’

‘But—’

‘Don’t you interrupt me!’ Greta Trafford threatened. ‘And you can “but” all you want. You’re still not going.’

And that Taye had had to accept. But while she had struggled to get over her disappointment and upset at the loss of her dream, she’d known she was going to have to hide how she was feeling from her father. He had been so keen for her to go to university that all she could do was to let him think that she had gone off the idea.

She might have had to accept her mother’s assertion that there was no money to spare, but what Taye would not accept was that her father had shelved his responsibilities. He had maybe given up the occupation that had provided them with a very high standard of living, so that his income was nowhere near what it had been. But now working on a farm and living in a tiny cottage that went with the job, his needs small, she knew that in addition to the fund he had assigned for their upkeep, he still sent money to his former home when he could.

It was not enough. Nor was it ever going to be enough. Even when he had been a high earner it had not been enough. Money went through her mother’s hands like water. She did not know the meaning of the word thrift. If she saw something she wanted, then nothing would do but that she must have it—regardless of which member of her family ultimately paid.

As bidden, Taye had left school and, having inherited her father’s head for figures, she had got a job with a firm of accountants. Her mother had insisted that she hand over her salary to her each month. But by then Taye had started to think for herself. There were things Hadleigh needed for his school work, his school trips, and he was growing faster than they could keep up with. Taye held back as much of her salary as she could get away with, and it was she who kept him kitted out in shoes and any other major essential.

Taye had been ready to leave home years before the actual crunch came. It was only for the sake of Hadleigh that she had stayed, for he had been a shy, gentle boy.

Taye had reached nineteen and Hadleigh fourteen when Hadleigh, after a row where their mother had gone in for her favourite pastime of deviating from the truth, with the first signs of asserting himself had told Taye, ‘You should leave home, Taye.’ And when she had shaken her head, ‘I’ll be all right,’ he had assured her. ‘And it won’t be for much longer. I shall go to university—and I won’t come back.’

Perhaps a trace of his words had still been lingering in Taye’s head when she journeyed home from work one Friday a year later. She had anticipated that Hadleigh would be grinning from ear to ear at the brand-new bicycle she had saved hard for and had arranged to be delivered on his fifteenth birthday. But she had arrived home to discover her mother had somehow managed to exchange the bicycle she had chosen for a much inferior second-hand one—and had pocketed the difference.

‘How could you?’ Taye had gasped, totally appalled.

‘How could I not?’ her mother had replied airily. ‘The bicycle I got him is perfectly adequate.’

‘I wanted him to have something new, something special!’ Taye had protested. ‘You had no right…’

‘No right! Don’t you talk to me about rights! What about my rights?’

‘It wasn’t your money, it was mine. It was dishonest of you to—’

‘Dishonest!’ Her mother’s voice had risen an octave—which was always a signal for Taye to back down. Only this time she would not back down. She was incensed at what her money-grubbing mother had done.

So, ‘Yes, dishonest,’ she had challenged, and it had gone on and on from there, with Taye for once in her life refusing to buckle under the tirade of venom her mother hurled at her.

And, seeing that for the first time she was not going to get the better of her daughter, Greta Trafford had resorted to telling her to follow in her father’s footsteps and to pack her bags and leave.

And Taye, like her father, had suddenly had enough. ‘I will,’ she had retorted, and did. Though it was true she did almost weaken when she went in to say goodbye to Hadleigh. ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked him.

‘You bet,’ he said, and gave her a brave grin, and, having witnessed most of the row before he’d disappeared, ‘You can’t stay. Not now,’ he had told her.

Taye had gone to London and had been fortunate to find a room to rent, and more fortunate to soon find a job. A job in finance that she became particularly good at. When her salary improved, she found a better, if still poky, bed-sit.

She had by then written to both Hadleigh and her mother, telling them where she was now living. She also wrote to her father, playing down the row that had seen her leave home. Her mother was the first to reply—the electricity bill was more than she had expected. Since Taye had used some of the electricity—even though she had been at home contributing when she had used it—her mother would be obliged to receive her cheque at her earliest convenience.

Her mother’s ‘requests’ for money continued over the next three years. Which was why—having many times shared a lunch table with Paula Neale in the firm’s canteen, and having commented that she would not mind moving from ‘bed-sit land’—when Paula one day said she had half a flat to let if she was interested, and mentioned the rent required, instead of leaping at the chance, Taye had to consider it very carefully.

Could she really afford it? Could she not? She was twenty-three, for goodness’ sake, Hadleigh coming up to eighteen. And their mother had this time promised he should go to university. Was she to wait until he was at university, Taye wondered, or dared she take the plunge now? It had been late February then, and Hadleigh would go to university in October. Taye—while keeping her fingers crossed that nothing calamitous in the way of unforeseen expenditure was heading her way—plunged.

And here she was now and it was calamitous—though this time that calamity did not stem from her mother but was because, unless she could find someone to share, Taye could see she was in a whole heap of financial trouble. But, so far, no one except for one Magnus Ashthorpe had shown an interest. And, as an interested party, he was the one party she did not want.

All that week Taye hurried home ready to greet the influx of potential flat-share candidates. Julian Coombs, the son of the owner of Julian Coombs Comestibles, where she worked, asked her out, but she declined. She had been out with Julian a few times. He was nice, pleasant and uncomplicated. But she did not want to be absent should anyone see her card in the newsagent’s window and call.

But she might just as well have gone out with Julian because each evening she retired to her bed having seen not one single solitary applicant.

She toyed with the idea of inviting Hadleigh to come and stay at the weekend. But he worked most weekends waiting at tables in a smart restaurant about five miles from Pemberton. It was, he said, within easy cycling distance of Pemberton, the village on the outskirts of Hertfordshire where he and their mother lived. And, besides Hadleigh not wishing to miss a chance to earn a little money for himself, Pemberton was not the easiest place to get back to by public transport on a Sunday.

So Taye stayed home and almost took root by the dining room window. Much good did it do. Plenty of people passed by but, apart from other residents in the building, no one came near the door.

And early on Monday evening Taye knew that it was decision time. By now the newsagent would have taken her card out of his window, and she could see no point in advertising again. Clearly the rent required was more than most people wanted to pay. In the nine days since she had placed that card in the newsagent’s she had received only one reply. So far as she could see, with the rent due on quarter day in a few weeks’ time she had to either give up the apartment—and heaven alone knew what she was going to do if they demanded a quarter’s rent in lieu of notice—or she had to consider sharing the flat with a male of the species; a male who, for that matter, she was not even sure she could like.

Oh, she didn’t want to leave, she didn’t! How could she give up the apartment? It was tranquil here, peaceful here. And with the advantage of the small enclosed garden—a wonderful place to sit out in on warm summer evenings, perhaps with a glass of wine, perhaps chatting to one of her fellow flat dwellers. Perhaps, at weekends, to sit under the old apple tree halfway down the garden. There was a glitzy tinsel Christmassy kind of star lodged in that tree—it had been there, Paula had told her, since January, when a gust of wind had blown it there from who knew where. And Taye loved that too. She was in London, but it felt just like being in the country.

On impulse she went into the kitchen and found the piece of paper with Magnus Ashthorpe’s phone number on it. She should have thrown it away, but with no other applicant in sight she rather supposed it must be meant that she had not scrapped it. Not that she intended to ring him. She would see what sort of a reference this Mrs Sturgess gave him.

‘Hello?’ answered what sounded like a mature and genteel voice when she had dialled.

‘Is that Mrs Sturgess?’ Taye enquired.

‘Claudia Sturgess speaking,’ that lady confirmed.

‘Oh, good evening. I’m sorry to bother you,’ Taye said in a rush, ‘but a man named Magnus Ashthorpe said I might contact you with regard to a reference.’