The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride. Daphne Clair

      She certainly was different from the rather gauche innocent who sometimes appeared in his dreams.

      Bryn had to quell an impulse to exact a sweet revenge on her lovely mouth even as it mocked him.

      There was an intriguing dislocation between the Rachel Moore he remembered and the Rachel he’d met today. Now and then a glimpse of the ardent, uncomplicated girl peeked through the cool reserve of the woman, arousing in him a capricious desire to probe deeper and find out just how much she had really changed.

      Daphne Clair lives in subtropical New Zealand, with her Dutch-born husband. They have five children. At eight years old she embarked on her first novel, about taming a tiger. This epic never reached a publisher, but metamorphosed male tigers still prowl the pages of her romances, of which she has written over thirty for Harlequin Mills & Boon, and over sixty all told. Her other writing includes non-fiction, poetry and short stories, and she has won literary prizes in New Zealand and America.

      Readers are invited to visit Daphne Clair’s website at www.daphneclair.com

      THE TIMBER BARON’S VIRGIN BRIDE

      BY

      DAPHNE CLAIR

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      “RACHEL?” BRYN DONOVAN’S grey-green eyes sharpened as he met his mother’s cornflower-blue gaze.

      Black brows drawing closer together, he sat slightly forward on the dark green velvet of the wing-chair that, like most of the furniture in the room, had been in the family for as long as the big old house. “You don’t mean Rachel Moore?”

      Pearl, Lady Donovan spread her hands in a surprised gesture. Her slight frame seemed engulfed by the wide chair that matched the one her son occupied on the other side of the brass-screened fireplace.

      “Why not?” Her mouth, once a perfect cupid’s bow, today painted a muted coral, firmed in a way Bryn knew well. Behind the scarcely lined milk-and-roses complexion and artfully lightened short curls was a keen brain and a will of solid iron.

      Bryn said, “Isn’t she rather young?”

      His mother laughed as only a mother can at a thirty-four-year-old man whose name in New Zealand’s business and financial circles engendered almost universal respect. The nay-sayers were mostly competitors jealous of the way he had expanded his family company and increased its already substantial fortunes, or employees who had fallen foul of his rigidly enforced standards. “Bryn,” she chided him, “it’s ten years since her family left us. Rachel is a highly qualified historian, and I’m sure I told you she’s already written a book—in fact, two, I think.”

      He could hardly tell her he’d tried to expunge all information about the girl from his mind.

      Pearl pressed on. “You know your father always intended to write a family history.”

      “He talked about it.” It had been one of the old man’s planned retirement projects, until an apparently harmless penchant for the best wines and liqueurs had wreaked a sudden and fatal revenge.

      “Well—” the widow’s prettily determined chin lifted “—I want to do this as a memorial to him. I thought you’d be pleased.” A suspicious sheen filmed her eyes.

      Bryn’s reputation as a hard-headed though not unprincipled businessman wasn’t proof against this feminine form of assault. His mother had emerged from a year and a half of grieving to at last show real interest in something. Her expression today was less strained and her movements more purposeful than since his father’s death.

      That Rachel Moore’s barely seventeen-year-old face under a halo of soft, unruly dark hair, her trusting brown eyes and shockingly tempting, too-young mouth occasionally entered Bryn’s dreams, and left him on waking with a lingering guilt and embarrassment, was his own problem. He couldn’t in conscience pour cold water on his mother’s new project.

      He said, “I thought she was in America.” Rachel had gone to the States for postgraduate study after gaining her MA in English and history, and had since been teaching university students there.

      “She’s back.” Pearl looked pleased. “She’s taking up a lectureship in Auckland next year, but she needs something to tide her over for six months or so because of the different semesters from America. It’s ideal, and so nice that we can get someone who isn’t a stranger to do this for us. She can stay here—”

      “Here? Aren’t her parents—” The former estate manager and his wife, who had helped with housekeeping, had left to go sharemilking in the lush green fields of the Waikato district when their daughter started her university studies there. Bryn had vaguely assumed the only contact with his own family since then had been a yearly exchange of Christmas cards and family news. But his mother had always been an inveterate telephone user.

      “She’s with them now,” Lady Donovan told him, “and ready to start in a week or two. She’ll need access to our family records, and I wouldn’t let them go out of the house.” Her expression became faintly anxious. “Of course it will cost, but surely we can afford—”

      “No problem,” he assured her, reluctantly conceding a rare defeat. “If she wants the job.” With any luck Rachel might turn it down.

      Pearl gave him her sweetest smile. “Her mother and I have it all arranged.”

      Rachel had told herself that in ten years Bryn Donovan would have changed, perhaps lost some of his thick, dark hair, developed a paunch from too many business dinners, his aristocratic nose reddened and broadened by the wine imbibed with those dinners if he took after his father. Not that Sir Malcolm hadn’t also worked hard and been generous with the fruits of his labours—his knighthood owed as much to his contribution to the national economy as did his public philanthropy.

      But his only son and heir was as good-looking as ever.

      As she alighted from the bus in Auckland she immediately spotted him among the dozen or so people waiting to greet other passengers or to climb aboard. As if they recognised a man who required more space than ordinary mortals, he seemed to stand apart from those milling around him.

      Jeans hugged his long legs. A casual black knit shirt hardly concealed broad shoulders and a lean torso that showed no sign of flab.

      If anything had changed much, it was that his habitual understated self-assurance had morphed into a positively commanding presence. Something fluttered in Rachel’s midriff and she hesitated on the bottom step of the bus before stepping onto the pavement.

      Bryn’s eyes seemed silvery in the afternoon light as he inspected the arrivals. When the sweep of his gaze found her and she started towards him, she saw a flash of surprised recognition.

      He didn’t move, except that his mouth curved slightly into a controlled smile as he watched her approach, while his eyes appraised her jade-green linen jacket over a white lawn blouse, the matching skirt that skimmed her knees, and the Brazilian plaited leather shoes she’d worn for travelling.

      He seemed to approve, giving a slight nod before raising his eyes again to the dark hair she’d tamed into a tight knot, which she hoped gave both an illusion of extra height and a mature, businesslike appearance.

      Only when she came to a halt in front of him did she notice the incipient lines fanning from the corners of his eyes, a faint crease on his forehead.

      “Rachel,” he said, his voice deeper than she remembered. “You look very…smart.”

      Meaning, she supposed, she was no longer the hoydenish teenager he remembered. “It’s been a long time.” She was glad her voice sounded crisp and steady, befitting a successful