the man who had fathered Rosie while working in the gardens of his home during the long summer break from the horticultural college she was attending. And, after finding the letter on the Troone Manor headed notepaper, that snippet had fallen neatly into place. Her grandfather had worked in the Manor’s gardens; she knew that much. What would be more natural than that he should choose his daughter to help out during her summer break when temporary staff would be taken on to help with the extra seasonal work?
Her mother had gone on to confide that her lover had been married and that they’d both known that what they were doing was dreadfully wrong but had loved each other so much they simply couldn’t help themselves.
A likely story! Rosie had thought, hanging her head in case Mrs Partridge should see the burning mixture of anger and pain in her eyes and think she was demented. She knew her mother had adored her lover, but what kind of man would leave the girl he’d seduced—barely eighteen years old at the time—to abandon her career to care for the child he refused to acknowledge or support, to live out her life in borderline poverty?
And the wretch wasn’t even here! During the interview it had been revealed that Sir Marcus was in Spain and would be returning in a few weeks’ time with his new wife-to-be, which was why the neglect of years had to be swept, dusted and polished away.
At that point Rosie had known she should terminate the interview, apologise, and walk away. But doubts, and, let’s face it, she told herself now as she bent to her task of locating the off-white spots of paint on the broad oak boards, the need to find out everything she could about her father and hope to goodness he wasn’t as black as her imagination had painted him, had her dumbly accepting the offered temporary position.
A big mistake. She felt really sneaky and it wasn’t a nice feeling.
‘Hunt him down! He should know who you are,’ Jean had said. But it was unworthy. Her mother had been wise enough to put the past behind her, accept that the father of her child was no part of her life, and in honour of her memory Rosie knew she should have done the same.
More tears threatened. Rosie sniffed loudly and started to scrub ferociously at a spot that stubbornly refused to budge.
Sebastian walked through the open door of his usual bedroom and did a double take at what appeared to be a mound of brown nylon fabric, the soles of a pair of beat-up plimsolls and a bucket.
The mound emitted a loudly prolonged sniff and a smile played at the edges of his mouth in instinctive male appreciation as a neat little backside began to sway to and fro as the scrubbing brush was wielded in a sudden burst of savage energy.
This was not the big, bulgy girl of Madge’s description so it had to be the other. Rosie Lambert. That bobbing backside couldn’t be called big by any stretch of the imagination. Neat, curvy and very, very feminine.
He cleared his throat brusquely to slap down his libido and gain her attention. Then widened his eyes as ‘the little bit of a thing’ scrambled to her feet as if she’d been shot, clutching her scrubbing brush in front of her in rubber-gloved hands.
The vulnerable beauty of her wide sapphire eyes stunned him. She’d been crying. Bright drops were tangled in her thick lashes and when the scarlet receded, leaving her delicately hollowed cheeks milky pale, he could see grubby streaks marring the perfection of her skin.
Compassion, or something very like it, stirred sharply inside him. Hadn’t Madge said she’d recently lost her mother? What about her father, siblings? Such a little scrap of a thing needed someone to look out for her!
Surprised by the powerful intensity of his thoughts, he placed his suitcase at the foot of the bed, black brows meeting in a frown. Such fraternal feelings were totally unlike him and he didn’t know where they were coming from. He’d naturally felt protective towards his mother and Aunt Lucia. And that was it. In his experience, the female of the species was pretty good at looking out for number one.
‘You must be Rosie,’ he stated softly when he became aware that his scowl was making the poor scrap quiver, his eyes drawn, for some reason, to her parted lips. Bee-stung? Rosebud? He searched for the most appropriate adjective and whimsically decided on kissable.
Dios! He was either losing his marbles or he had been without a woman for far too long! Plastering a smile that he hoped was reassuring on a face that felt oddly stiff, he introduced himself, ‘I’m Sebastian Garcia. I’ll be around for a while making sure that everything’s as it should be when Sir Marcus returns.’
‘You know my—’ Rosie smartly zipped her mouth. Heaven help her—she’d been about to say ‘father’ and had only just stopped herself in time. Blushing hotly, she lowered her head and added, ‘Employer?’
Oh, my, she didn’t know what had come over her; she really didn’t. When she’d heard that masculine attention-commanding throat-clearing thing she’d immediately and foolishly assumed that the father she had never known had unexpectedly returned.
Wild and conflicting emotions had propelled her upright at the speed of light and she’d found herself staring at the most compulsively attractive male she’d ever clapped eyes on. So heart-thumpingly sexy she just couldn’t force her eyes off him.
Gorgeous smoky-grey eyes with unbelievable dark lashes, midnight hair, a thin blade of a nose that made him look a real aristo and a wide narrow mouth that sent unaccountable shudders up and down her spine. Add a lean but powerful physique and a slight but oh-so-sexy Spanish accent and it was no wonder she was feeling a bit—overwhelmed.
‘Marcus is my business partner, my godfather and a long-time family friend.’ A slight smile curved the sculpted lines of that wicked mouth and Rosie felt her stomach turn over. A lump of irrational disappointment lodged behind her breastbone; she had hoped he was just another employee, more on her level, not a member of the wealthy, exalted clan she and her poor dead mother had been excluded from. Though why she should think that way, she had no idea. Except—
To her shame she felt another of those wretched blushes crawling over her face and dipped her head so that her hair, which had finally escaped its ponytail, fell forward and hid her burning cheeks. Trust her to have silly thoughts about a man who was so far out of her reach he might just as well be inhabiting a parallel universe, a man who had the kind of looks which only existed in female fantasies!
Sebastian grinned with wry amusement. Females who moved in his social circles didn’t blush when spoken to. They bridled, pouted, husked, and sent explicit messages from calculating eyes. Rosie Lambert’s reaction to him was a new and intriguing experience. And she had beautiful hair. It fell around her face like a waterfall of softest, palest silk and a curl of string, presumably used to tie it out of the way, was tangled up in the silky strands.
Ignoring the impulse to pluck the string away—she would probably faint like a Victorian virgin if he so much as touched her—he heard her mumble, ‘I’ll get out of your way.’
Her slight body was trembling as she turned back to her bucket, her spine rigid with tension. Unaccountably, he had a compelling urge to ask why she was so uptight, try to help. Sensibly, he ignored it. She would probably run a mile if he became personal on such a short acquaintanceship. It would have to wait. Instead, he said blandly, ‘No, please carry on with your work. It’s got to be done and you won’t be bothering me.’
Somehow Rosie found the strength to turn and look at him. He was shrugging out of his leather jacket, revealing a torso of utterly perfect proportions covered by a dark, fine wool sweater. And he had endless legs; sexily narrow hips. Her mouth ran dry and she couldn’t breathe, because there was the strangest, most unnerving sensation of heat deep inside her.
And, for a big man—he had to be well over six feet tall to her diminutive almost three inches over five feet—he moved with surprising grace, she noted as he walked to the vast hanging cupboard to stow away his jacket.
Sebastian Garcia was the first man who had ever made her feel this weird, almost as if she no longer had any control over her body or her thoughts. But thankfully he hadn’t noticed the way she was gawping at him or suspected the effect