The Mistress of His Manor by Catherine George Read Free Book Online Page A

better I couldn’t risk prodding his memory into life in case it put him back to square one. And of course I knew there’d been no one else in the car.’
    She shivered. ‘I suffered agonies of guilt afterwards because I’d failed to get Charlie’s keys away from him,’
    ‘Were you in love with him?’ asked March, surprising her.
    Jo thought it over. ‘It’s hard to believe now,’ she said wearily, ‘but I thought I was at the time.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘I was straight out of a girls’ school. Charlie was quite a bit older. If you met him you know he was rather good-looking. My head was turned when he singled me out. At first I thought his drinking was the usual student stuff, but it soon became obvious that Charlie was well on the way to becoming an alcoholic.’
    ‘Were you lovers?’
    Jo flushed. ‘Not a word I would use. We did sleep together once or twice, but it was the first time for me and not—not very successful. All my fault, according to Charlie.’
    March mouth tightened. ‘The idiot’s drink problem was to blame, not you. What happened to him afterwards?’
    ‘I refused to return his calls after the accident, so he wrote to me eventually, saying he’d dried out in some clinic. He was starting work at Peel Plastics, a small company owned by hisfather. Charlie loathed the idea, but knew he had no hope of graduating after what had happened.’ Jo’s eyes dulled. ‘Neither had I. He’d put an end to all possibility of that for me as well as himself.’
    ‘And you wanted to graduate?’
    ‘Of course I did! It was what I’d worked so hard for at school, and Jack and Kate were so proud when I got to Oxford.’ Her mouth twisted in disgust. ‘But I blew the whole thing. Someone made of sterner stuff than me would have stopped blaming Charlie, I suppose, and knuckled down to get a degree. But the whole Oxford experience was ruined for me—academically and every other way.’
    March nodded slowly. ‘It’s dawned on me at last why you looked familiar the first time I spotted you. I must have seen you outside the hospital.’
    ‘Very probably. I was there often enough.’
    He frowned. ‘When I referred to you as Miss Sutton, why the hell didn’t you put me right there and then?’
    Jo’s colour rose. ‘I had my reasons.’
    He was silent for a while, eyeing her closely. ‘Your name is Logan and your father is Jack. Would he, by any chance, be the moving force behind Logan Development?’
    Her chin lifted. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Ah. Not just a builder, but a well-known developer and conservationist.’
    ‘Yes.’
    His eyes speared hers. ‘You obviously didn’t want me to know that your father is a wealthy man.’
    Jo flushed guiltily. ‘Do you blame me? It was my main attraction for Charlie. And for some of the male students on my business course.’
    March eyed her in a silence that grew so prolonged and unbearable Jo was ready to scream by the time he broke it. ‘So you were afraid a mere jobbing gardener like myself might alsoget ideas about the little rich girl?’ he drawled, the words like shards of ice. He got to his feet, looking down his nose at her with such hostility she shrivelled inside. ‘We haven’t known each other long, but in my supreme vanity I thought you might have trusted me more than that. Have no fear. I’m not interested in your father’s wealth—nor in you any more, if that’s what you think of me,’ he added bitterly. ‘Goodbye.’
    Goodbye? Jo listened in numb disbelief as March walked out of the room and out of the house. At the growl of his car engine, mortified colour rose in her face. So that was that, then. Finding out that she was Jo Logan had damped down March Aubrey’s ardour pretty sharply. And, to top that, her reason for keeping her wealthy background secret had enraged him so much he had transformed into an implacable, arrogant stranger right before her eyes.
    Jo got up early next morning, feeling like death warmed up. Her bathroom mirror