Merger By Matrimony

‘Sorry? You? For having said something you shouldn’t? Why? Why break habits of a lifetime?’ But there was lazy amusement in his voice. ‘These are all part of the grounds. The sheep keep the grass down, but there are still six acres of lawned land. Look ahead. You can see the house coming into view.’

She leaned forward and watched as the impressive façade rose up ahead of them, like a matriarch surveying her domain. She had never seen anything quite like it before in her life. The fact that it belonged to her seemed unreal.

‘Did you bring a swimsuit?’ Stephanie asked suddenly. ‘It’s hot enough for us to swim and I could do with a tan. I can’t bear English weather. All rain and fog and light drizzles.’

‘I don’t possess a swimsuit,’ Destiny told her.

‘Not at all?’ Her stepcousin sounded horrified.

‘No.’

‘But how are you going to go into the pool? I’m sure I have a couple here, but you’d never fit into them!’

‘I shall have quite enough to do looking around, honestly.’ The thought of trying to cram her huge frame into one of her stepcousin’s swimsuits wasn’t worth thinking about. She looked comical enough next to her as things stood.

In fact, as they all trooped into the overwhelming hall, she wondered whether two days was going to be long enough to see everything. Harold, a wizened middle-aged man with eyes that seemed permanently focused on his feet, welcomed them in and he and Callum conferred in hushed voices for a few minutes, while Destiny continued to stare open-mouthed around her. Stephanie, well accustomed to all the grandeur, stood unimpressed to one side and then, as soon as Harold had disappeared with the cases, announced that she wanted to go for a dip in the pool. Just in case it decides to rain later. You know what the weather’s like over here.

‘Sure you won’t come with me and try on one of my swimsuits?’ she asked kindly, and Destiny shook her head with a laugh.

‘I don’t think that would work, do you?’ She wanted to tell her stepcousin to run along and have a good time. Even though they were more or less the same age, Destiny felt decades older. There was something very young and childlike about Stephanie, something very much in need of protection. Which brought her round to Callum.

He was standing, watching them with some amusement; and as soon as Stephanie had disappeared up the stairs, lightly running, he turned to her and said in a drawling voice, ‘It’s hard to believe that you two are roughly the same age. You treat her as though she was your daughter.’

Destiny smiled indulgently. ‘Actually, sometimes I feel as though she is. She’s so…young…in her ways.’ She sighed and caught herself. ‘Anyway, the house. Should we start now? Looking around? Or do you need time to recover from the car drive? Oh. You may want to go and have a dip in the pool as well,’ she added awkwardly. ‘I didn’t think.’

‘No. Playing at being a sun lizard isn’t my cup of tea.’ He looked at her with a shuttered expression and realised, with a certain amount of confused irritation, that he would have been more than happy to play the sun lizard game if it involved watching her frolic around in a swimming pool with next to nothing on.

He would, he decided, have to speak to Stephanie. Whether he liked it or not, the doubts that had been swelling over the past few months about their relationship were rapidly crystallising into the unpleasantly concrete fact that their relationship was sagging. Sex, which had been satisfactory enough to start with, had been almost nonexistent for months now, and lately had disappeared altogether from the agenda. He could kid himself that his work left him exhausted, but who was he trying to fool? The blunt truth of the matter was that however fond he was of his fiancée, he no longer felt any sexual urges when he was around her.

Why else was he mentally stripping the woman in front of him now? Wondering what that body of hers would look like uncovered? She was not his type. Too big, too forthright, too damned argumentative and clever. But she was on his mind more than he cared to think. Daydreaming and fantasising about her was obviously a symptom of the malaise in his own personal life.

Realising that he was staring at her, he frowned assertively and said in a clipped voice, ‘Right. The house. We’ll start with the top and work our way down.’

Destiny vaguely wondered whether two days was going to be enough to complete this daunting task, but she obediently followed him towards the impressive staircase that coiled upwards like a snake. Halfway up, Stephanie came bouncing towards them, towel in hand and a broad smile on her face.