Wildest Dreams

By Carole Mortimer

Holding out for a hero

Arabella adored the bestselling tales about Palfrey. No man she'd met in real life could quite match up to the gallant fictional hero!

But she knew nothing about the author of the Palfrey stories: the man guarded his real identity fiercely. Until Hollywood made a bid to film his books and it was up to Arabella to track him down.

One surprise was that Robert Lawrence turned out to be just as devilishly handsome as his character, and Arabella could have fallen for him at once! Another was that she realized Robert was someone about whom she already knew quite a lot. At best, this man of her dreams could only ever want an affair .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460871355

Carole Mortimer

Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and seventy books for Harlequin Mills and Boon®. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

ARABELLA stared at the huge double gates that led up to the house beyond. Forty-eight hours ago she had thought this visit impossible. But as she continued to look down the long driveway she knew that not only was it possible, it was imperative, if she was to salvage any relationship with Merlin at all. Despite what her father and Stephen had done to damage that relationship, she knew she had to do what she could. She still cringed when she recalled the conversation she had overheard between the two men two days ago.

‘What do you mean, the man wouldn’t even listen to you? You must have—’

‘I’ve told you, Father,’ Stephen had cut in exasperatedly. ‘I didn’t even get in the front gates of the damned house. There were two huge dogs—’

‘Stephen! Father!’ Arabella had admonished breathlessly as she’d reached the open doorway, entering the room before closing the door behind her. T could hear the two of you arguing all the way down the corridor in my own office.’ She looked at both of them with questioning blue eyes. ‘What on earth is going on?’

Her father’s face was flushed, and she guessed that wasn’t only due to his undoubted anger; it was three-thirty in the afternoon, and he enjoyed nothing more than a leisurely lunch accompanied by a liberal imbibing of his favourite wine. In fact, it was surprising he was back in his office at all just yet...

As for her brother, Stephen, he certainly wasn’t supposed to be here, her father having sent him away on business yesterday, expecting him to be away for several days. Although, from the little she had heard of their heated conversation, it was Stephen’s lack of success on his trip that had triggered the argument between father and son.

Her father sat down behind his imposing oak desk, sitting forward to rest his elbows on the green leather top. He was still a handsome man in his mid-fifties, with only a distinguished sprinkling of grey at his temples amongst his dark hair.

His eyes were icy grey now as he looked across the room at his only son. ‘Your brother has the answer to that,’ he dismissed contemptuously.

Stephen’s youthful face flushed resentfully. ‘I told you it wasn’t my fault, that—’

‘Give him more responsibility, you said,’ her father accused impatiently. ‘Let him show you what he can do,’ he added scathingly. ‘And what happens the first time I try to put that advice into practice?’ He slapped his hand down flat on the leather desktop with resounding finality. ‘He’s sent away with a flea in his ear, that’s what happens, just as if he were some door-to-door salesman!’ He gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘It’s not good enough, Arabella. You and I both know—’

‘Let’s all just calm down and discuss the problem sensibly,’ she cut in soothingly, her suggestion of calming down aimed at the two men; she was her usual unruffled self. She wasn’t absolutely sure that the problem under discussion was necessarily her brother’s fault; their father had a way of presenting him with impossibilities.

‘Stephen?’ She prompted him to sit down in the chair facing their father’s desk.

An action he chose to rebel against, deciding to sit in the leather armchair at the back of the room, a mutinous expression on his boyishly handsome face; his hair was as dark as their father’s, and his eyes were normally a warm blue, like Arabella’s own. Normally because, at this moment, Stephen’s were stormy with rebellion.

Arabella sighed as she contemplated the two stubborn, arrogant faces, sitting down in the chair opposite her father herself. She loved these two men enormously, but she had to concede that, despite the thirtyyear difference in their ages, they very often behaved as childishly as each other. She was often called in as arbitrator between the two, her father impatient with Stephen’s impetuous youthfulness, Stephen considering their father old and set in his ways, with a code for business that smacked of the Victorian.

Stephen might have been right in that last accusation, but as owner of a prestigious publishing company that had been in the family for almost a hundred years her father’s old-fashioned values made Atherton Publishing what it was. Up here, on the third floor of the building that housed the company, far removed from the rush and bustle of the editorial department of the two lower floors, time seemed to stand still; the furnishings in this office, as in all the executive offices on this floor, looked as if they had come straight out of Victoria’s reign.

Which was just the way her father liked it. Arabella too, if she were honest. It was only twenty-five-year-old Stephen who found it all claustrophobic, having left university three years before with a degree under his belt and a lot of new ideas to pull Atherton Publishing into the twentieth century, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Their father’s answer to that had been to put Stephen where he could do the least harm: the poor boy had been bogged down for the last three years with the acquisition and distribution of textbooks for schools. It was because Arabella couldn’t bear to watch her young brother going quietly insane that she had encouraged her father to give him something more interesting to do. It had taken months of gentle persuasion on her part to get her father to agree, and, from what she had gathered so far from the conversation between the two men, it had not been a successful endeavour.

‘Now, exactly what happened?’ she prompted her brother soothingly, having great affection for her sibling, although she often felt that her two years’ seniority in age was more like twenty! That was probably due to the fact that their mother had died fifteen years ago, leaving Arabella, at only twelve, to become the mother of the family, a role she had taken over all too successfully, if her father and brother’s dependence on her were anything to go by.

Stephen’s expression lost some of its sulkiness as he looked at her. ‘Well, I did as Father asked, and went to see this Merlin chap—’

‘Father, no!’ She couldn’t hide her shocked outrage. The author they all knew only as Merlin was well-known for being one of their most uncooperative, and appeared to be a recluse into the bargain. To have sent Stephen to see him was not only unfair, it was ridiculous. Besides, Merlin was one of her authors... ‘Did you send Stephen to talk to him about the film rights to one of his books?’ she challenged tensely.

Her father looked a little uncomfortable now, knowing by the glitter in Arabella’s deep blue eyes, behind the glasses she habitually wore, that her own temper was beginning to manifest itself. ‘You were the one who said Stephen needed to prove himself—’

‘But not with Merlin!’ She stood up, too agitated to remain seated any longer.

Stephen had been to see Merlin, a man she had been wanting to meet for years, a man who steadfastly refused to agree to such a meeting...!

‘Why didn’t you tell me where Stephen had gone?’ she demanded of her father—although she already knew the answer to that; her father hadn’t told her where he had sent Stephen because he had known that if he had, she would have vehemently objected to Stephen going anywhere near ‘her’ author. All the editors had assigned authors, and Arabella was no exception, although her number was kept to a dozen or so. But Merlin was one of them... ‘If anyone was to go and see Merlin, then it should have been me,’ she told her father indignantly.

His handsome face creased into a pained expression. ‘I’m beginning to agree with you,’ he said harshly, shooting another scathing glance at his son.

Arabella knew this wasn’t strictly true, that her father was merely hitting out at Stephen again. Because, much as her father valued her, it was as his hostess, the woman who ran his house and social life with such efficiency, rather than as a professional colleague. Oh, she worked at the family company, had an office of her own on this very same floor that was almost as plush as her father’s. Nevertheless she had always known her place here was viewed with a certain amount of paternal indulgence, that her father didn’t really believe the world of business, especially the cut-throat one that publishing had become in recent years, was the place for a woman—especially a woman as delicate as he preferred to think of Arabella as being.

His view was old-fashioned to say the least, but then, up here in this office, a room that didn’t seem to have changed much since her great-grandfather’s time, it was easy to see why her father felt that the world of business was strictly for men. Wasn’t the fact that her father had sent Stephen to see Merlin proof of that?

She was well aware, no matter what her father was now saying to the contrary, that he didn’t believe she should have gone to see Merlin; it had merely been another test for Stephen, one that her brother seemed to have failed. The fact that it had been completely against protocol for Stephen to go to see one of her authors had nothing to do with her father’s regret. And she knew it didn’t have anything to do with Stephen’s either. Her brother, unfortunately, had been brought up in his father’s image, and that was primarily to believe a woman’s place was in the home, keeping a man’s life running smoothly and with as little discomfort as possible.

Arabella had been the one deemed indispensable at home when the time had come for her to go to university nine years ago. The carrot of an office of her own at Atherton Publishing had been merely a sop to keep her living at home. She remembered how pleased she had felt at the time that her father thought her responsible enough for such a position in the company. She should have known better! Within a matter of days it had become obvious to her that the office, and position as assistant editor, was merely an indulgent pat on the head from her father, and that he rarely expected her to be there, usually only during the times when it didn’t inconvenience the smooth running of his own life.

No wonder her father had never remarried, she realised now; she had made life altogether too comfortable for him since her mother died for him to need to bother with the permanence of marrying one of the women he had been discreetly involved with over the last fifteen years!

But for the main part she had been aware of what her father was doing and hadn’t particularly let it bother her, because in her own quietly stubborn way she had made her mark on Atherton Publishing, and now had several successful authors to her personal credit.

Merlin was one of them, a chance discovery from an unsolicited manuscript submitted five years ago. Merlin—he had refused from the beginning to be known under any other name!—had written a swashbuckling tale of a secret agent working for the English during the Napoleonic wars. Not only was this one of Arabella’s favourite periods of history—hence the reason she had been given the manuscript in the first place—but it was also, she’d realised from the very first page, a tale well written: its hero, a Major Palfrey, was a devilishly handsome man who struck a man through with his sword and swept women off their feet into his more than accomplished arms with the same ease, while at the same time allowing neither incident to deter him from his real cause—to aid England.

It was all a Boys’ Own adventure, Arabella had freely admitted to her father, but, at the same time, the book was so well written it was a pleasure to read; the historical facts, so easily intertwined with the main story, were unquestionably correct.

In fact, Merlin’s books were a joy to edit. He had submitted a manuscript a year since that very first one five years ago, all with the same hero, Palfrey. A hero, if Arabella was completely honest, with whom she was half in love...

Robert Palfrey, the gentleman hero of an age long gone, was tall, with over-long blond hair, wicked blue eyes, and a lithe body that he seemed to use to full advantage, whether he was killing the enemy or caressing a beautiful woman. Arabella hadn’t been in the least surprised when a Hollywood film company had approached Atherton’s several months ago with the idea of putting Robert Palfrey on the big screen. There had been a most successful television series only last year with a similar main character, and the film company had obviously looked around for their own hero to try and cash in on this wave of nostalgia. The Palfrey books were an excellent choice.

Unfortunately, so far, Arabella hadn’t been able to convince the author of that. In fact, the two letters she had written to him on the subject had remained unanswered.

Although that was probably an answer in itself. From the acceptance of his first manuscript five years ago, Merlin himself had proved elusive, refusing to come up to London from his home in the south of England to talk with them in person, while at the same time refusing all advances from them to go to his home and speak with him there.

Reclusive hardly began to describe the man, and in five years none of them had ever found out anything about him other than that his name was Merlin; the negotiations over his contract were all done by mail, and always directly with the author himself, the man refusing to employ an agent to act on his behalf. Not that there was ever too much negotiation involved with Merlin; the monies paid were agreeable to both parties.

It was only the use of the single name, Merlin, that had caused some dispute. But the author was adamant, and in the end Arabella had managed to convince her father that this only added to the man’s mystique, and therefore to sales of his books. And that could only be good for all of them.

But over the years Arabella had built up a picture in her own mind as to what their author looked like: an irascible old man, with over-long grey hair, a ruggedly tanned