that. And to lose Scawfell as well,’ she said hollowly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sorry to have to say I’m all too sure.’
‘So... what will we do?’ She stared at him dazedly. ‘Ben is enough of a handful at the moment as it is.’ She stopped abruptly and bit her lip.
‘So they’re not all fine—what about the others?’
Arizona closed her eyes briefly then said a little bitterly, ‘I’m sure fifteen-year-old boys can be a handful without the trauma he’s gone through—’
‘Oh, I’m sure they can,’ Declan Holmes replied dryly. ‘Especially without a father. What about ten-year-old twins—and Daisy?’
‘How did you find them on the last of your monthly visits?’ Arizona countered.
He looked amused. ‘My monthly visits that you so pointedly went out of your way to avoid whenever you could? Daisy was—Daisy,’ he said. ‘The twins were extremely taken up with the model I brought down, and Ben was out, too.’
Arizona sighed. ‘Sarah and Richard do seem to have bounced back, but then they have each other,’ she said of Peter Adams’s ten-year-old twins. ‘As for Daisy, it took her months to understand he was never coming back, then she got weepy for a while, but I think she’s forgetting now, although she tends to cling, but I’m always here so—Ben is the only real problem.’
‘How so?’
‘He’s moody, he seems to have given up on schoolhe seems to hate the whole world, other than his horse and riding, at times.’
‘I see.’
‘That’s a great help,’ Arizona remarked after a pause.
‘I didn’t think you wanted my help.’
‘I don’t, but you insisted on knowing. Look,’ she said impatiently, ‘this is getting us nowhere. How come no-one has seen fit to let me know about all this before today?’
‘A lot of it wasn’t known for a time. There were offshore ventures that took quite some time and patience to unravel.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ she said, perplexed. ‘How have we been going along in the meantime?’
Declan Holmes paused, narrowed his eyes and said, ‘I hope you don’t hate this too much, Arizona, but with my help.’
She gasped. ‘Do you mean you’ve been supporting us?’
‘Precisely.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
He said reflectively, ‘I had several motives, Arizona. I didn’t want to add any more burdens for the kids to have to cope with so soon after losing their second parent, and I thought it would be difficult for you to carry on unconcernedly once you knew.’
‘Well, you’re right,’ she said through her teeth, ‘but it would have been on their behalf not mine that I would have been unable to remain unconcerned despite what I have no doubt you’re implying!’
‘Perhaps,’ he said mildly.
‘So what were your other motives?’ she demanded.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I guess I wanted to see how you did—conduct yourself over the last twelve months.’
‘Before you came back and asked me to marry you again? How do you know I haven’t taken a legion of lovers in the interim?’
‘Have you?’
Arizona made a sound of pure, despairing exasperation.
‘Look, don’t answer—I know you haven’t,’ he said with a lightening grin.
Arizona opened her mouth, closed it then all but spat, ‘Have you been having me followed or something like that?’
‘No, nothing like that, but I do have my sources,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘In fact,’ he continued softly, ‘it’s almost as if you’ve been waiting for me, my dear.’
‘So...it’s never entered your calculations,’ she said with difficulty, ‘that I might just have been grieving and not interested in forming any liaisons?’
‘Well, one day I’ll probably know a lot more about you, but in the meantime, will you marry me, Arizona?’
‘No. Definitely not,’ she added to give it more force and then tried a little more force. ‘It would be the very last thing I’d do. Do I make myself clear?’
His blue gaze didn’t alter much—perhaps a tinge of amusement crept into it. ‘Not even if I told you that it was one way, probably the only way, to save Scawfell for Pete’s kids?’
Arizona realized suddenly that she could hear her heart beating heavily, that her lips were dry and her breathing ragged. And nearly a minute passed before she said in a voice quite unlike her own, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that if you married me I would pay off the mortgage on the estate so that the children had something to inherit as well as a familiar beloved spot to live out their childhood, and I would support them as my own—as our own.’
‘Do you mean you would bring them up as your children?’ she said uncertainly.
‘We could bring them up as ours.’
Arizona stared at him dazedly then licked her lips. ‘What’s the alternative—for them, I mean?’
‘Well, I would certainly never let Pete’s children starve, but taking them on single-handedly wouldn’t be the same for them—I’d probably have to relocate them. I wouldn’t have a great deal of time for them although I suppose I could always get another governess for them.’
‘Stop,’ she whispered then cleared her throat. ‘This is the most arrant blackmail I’ve ever heard—why?’ she asked intensely.
‘Why?’ he mused. ‘I should have thought that was obvious—I want you, Arizona!’
‘There’s a saying about hell and fury and women scorned—are you sure you’re not suffering from being scorned, Declan?’ she asked scathingly.
He laughed. ‘It could be a bit of that, too, I guess.’
‘On the other hand what would you have thought of me if I had responded to your eyes across the fence?’
‘Well, I probably wouldn’t have had to marry you, would I?’ he said placidly.
‘That doesn’t make sense—it’s worse,’ she declared bitterly. ‘It puts me in a no-win situation, which is simply crazy!’
‘Well, now, that remains to be seen. Being married to me won’t be nearly so bad as you’re cracking it up, Arizona. At one stroke you’ll retain Scawfell, you’ll retain four children you’re very fond of and who need you—think of that if nothing else.’
Arizona closed her eyes and for the life of her couldn’t help thinking of it. Thinking of Daisy, whose natural mother had died when she was two, Daisy who didn’t remember her and didn’t understand about stepmothers and thought Arizona was her mother, Daisy who worried... Thought about Sarah and Richard, charming twins so long as you understood the full extent of their dependence on each other, and Ben. Poor, tortured Ben who was still bereft without his father, who now viewed the world with cynicism and disenchantment and was increasingly disruptive ... She opened her eyes and stared blankly at Declan Holmes.
‘Also,’ he said quietly, ‘you’ll have your sex life taken care of—and an awful lot of pin money to spend, Arizona.’
‘If I didn’t hate you before, I do now,’ she responded equally quietly.
He smiled briefly. ‘But you’ll do it?’
‘Only because I have no choice.’