Blackmailing the Society Bride. PENNY JORDAN

events of the previous afternoon and evening formed images inside her head—images she was forced to view without the protection of her earlier adrenaline-induced armour.

      What on earth had possessed her to behave like that? Granted, she loved Marcus, and always would love him, but last night she had…She swallowed uncomfortably whilst her whole body burned in the flames of her own shocking memories.

      She looked at her watch. Ten a.m.

      She shot upright in the bed. It couldn’t possibly be! She’d always woken up at seven at the very latest—always. Even on her honeymoon.

      But last night with Marcus she’d had the kind of sex, the quality of sex that she most definitely had not had with Nick—either on her honeymoon or at any other time.

      Marcus? Where was he? She hauled up the duvet, holding it to cover her naked breasts, even though some sixth sense told her that the house was a Marcus-free zone. Her clothes, which she could blush-makingly remember abandoning all over the place, had been thoughtfully retrieved and neatly folded—although she couldn’t see her knickers—and there was an envelope propped up on the tallboy with her name written across it in Marcus’s imperious hand. Keeping the duvet wrapped around herself, she got out of bed and padded over to the tallboy. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper on which Marcus had written economically.

      Your underwear is in the dryer. Don’t leave without having some breakfast—coffee, fruit, cereal, etc, in cupboards and fridge. Will be in touch this p.m. re visit to Beatrice.

      Her knickers were in the dryer! How domestic, how authoritarian—how Marcus.

      And how lovely to know they would be clean. If she had one tiny little hang-up, it was that she was almost too neat and tidy—and everything that went with that, Lucy admitted as she hurried into the bathroom. But then boarding school did that to a person, she reflected, as she stood beneath the refreshing sting of the shower, lathering her skin and her hair.

      The décor in Marcus’s house might be slightly old-fashioned, but the guest bathroom was well stocked with everything that an overnight visitor minus her sponge bag might need. Lucy smiled approvingly when she found a new toothbrush as well as toothpaste in the basket beside the basin, along with a new comb, a small unopened jar of face cream and even deodorant.

      Fortunately her hair was naturally straight, so she had no need to do anything other than wash and comb it, knowing that by the time she reached her office it would have dried. And even more fortunately, given the time and the fact that she had a considerable amount of paperwork to attend to, she could go straight there and change into a pair of jeans once she got there. She always kept several changes of clothes there, just in case.

      Her head had begun to ache unpleasantly—a combination of anxiety about what Marcus might be likely to say to her about last night and lack of caffeine, Lucy decided as she made her way downstairs in her silk dress but minus her stiletto shoes.

      Marcus’s kitchen was, of course, immaculate. Having retrieved her underwear from the laundry room and quickly put it on—no matter how saucy it might be, she simply was not a ‘no knickers’ girl, Lucy decided firmly—she hurried into the kitchen, desperately in need of a very strong cup of coffee.

      Ten minutes later, after going through every cupboard and finding only decaf, she was forced to admit that there was an unbridgeable gap between her idea of what constituted a proper breakfast drink and Marcus’s.

      Decaf. She screwed up her nose in distaste as she made herself a cup and munched half-heartedly on a banana.