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PRINCESS
ALISON FRASER
When Adam Carmichael had first met her, Serena Templeton had been a lost, tragic little
figure, a princess locked up in an ivory tower from which there seemed no escape. But
she was a responsibility that had virtually been left to him, so he did what he could and
left the rest to fate. And fate saw to it that by the next time they met, several years later,
Serena was a changed girl — no longer tragic but completely normal — and very
attractive. She no longer needed a prince to rescue her — and even if she had, there was
no possibility that Adam was the right prince!
CHAPTER ONE
Thesun should be brighter, she thought. And it shouldn’t rain so much, should it? It was
never this cold when her father was there—or this quiet, either. Maybe he would come
back soon, maybe they would walk through their favourite vineyard and work up an
appetite for sharing a king-sized pizza. Maybe...
But why was it so hard to remember? Why was it so cold?
Bleak, was Adam’s verdict. Real Bronte country, down to the wind threatening storm
that had carried away the bare eulogy at the graveside earlier that afternoon. Climbing out
of the passenger seat of an elderly Rover, he turned up his collar against it and let his
eyes range dispassionately over his late aunt’s home, Simmonds Hall.
Mr Alexander, the solicitor, came to stand at his side and observe. ‘Quite an impressive
house, Mr Carmichael.’
‘Really.’ It was a noncommittal sound. The house was large, certainly, over a dozen
narrow casement windows running the length of the upper storey, but the local stone was
badly weathered, its ivy covering grown rampant rather than picturesque.
Adam hoped he had misconstrued his required presence at the will reading. The house’s
windswept isolation held no appeal and its size and neglected state stamped it a white, or
perhaps more appropriately, grey elephant. With a touch of irreverence he prayed that his
widowed, childless aunt had been fond of cats or juvenile delinquents or some other
worthy cause that might have worked in his disfavour.
More familiar with their surroundings, the old solicitor led the way through the darkened
hallway to the library, bare of furniture save for a long oak table flanked by several high-
backed chairs. The air in the room was stale and oppressive, the heavy curtains closed to
mark a death in the family.
‘Do you mind?’ Adam asked perfunctorily, then presumed on his position as one half of
the dead woman’s surviving family to draw back the curtains. The cold grey daylight
made the room stark but tolerable. He turned back to Mr Alexander. ‘Will this take
long?’
The older man looked up from the papers he was sorting with a faintly surprised
expression. Curbing some of the impatience in his tone, Adam went on to explain, ‘I had
hoped to be back in London by early evening ‘
At this the solicitor’s surprise hardened to shock— presumably for his unseemly hurry to
dispense with the rituals of death, Adam mused.
‘Why, Mr Carmichael... I had assumed that you would be staying... at least overnight,’
Mr Alexander muttered agitatedly. ‘Although I did not draw up her last will, my late
client expressed a wish that you, her nephew, should take care of her... um... affairs.’
It was a repetition of what his mother had said when pressing Adam into representing her
at the funeral. At the time he had considered it merely an excuse for her delegation of the
duty.
‘Do you really think it necessary?’ Adam pursued with heavy reluctance to stay even one
night in Yorkshire.
Mr Alexander’s eyes almost boggled behind his round gold-rimmed spectacles. In his
worst imaginings of Adam Carmichael, based on a jaundiced view of bestselling writers,
he had not anticipated this.
‘Of course, Mr Carmichael, it’s your decision entirely. In the circumstances, however, to
settle so delicate a matter by postal communication alone, would be—well...’ the
solicitor, visibly flurried, trailed off.
Unable to see anything particularly delicate about winding up his aunt’s estate,
nevertheless Adam gave in with a measure of good grace. He had no desire to enter a
lengthy legal correspondence.
‘I understand. Is there a telephone I could use?’ he asked. ‘I must cancel a social
engagement.’
‘Certainly,’ the solicitor breathed on a note of relief, and indicating a door in the far
corner of the room, added, ‘You will find the adjoining room quite private.’
It was a sitting room, the furniture cumbersome and lacking in style, the decor chillingly
drab. From what Adam had seen so far, his aunt, or perhaps her first husband—that last
Simmonds of Simmonds Hall—had had very austere taste.
He sat for a moment, thinking about the dead woman. He had met Andrea Templeton
once briefly, and recalled atall, striking woman with titian hair and a brittle laugh. He had
neither liked nor disliked her; indeed he knew precious little about her, for his mother had
been more vague than usual on the subject of her half-sister. Concluding that he had been
chosen to take care of her affairs by default as her only male relative, he gave up his
concentration to the telephone.
Even at this relatively late hour, Julia sounded sleepy and languid when she answered,
but immediately dropped all casualness when he identified himself. He cut into her
enthusiastic outpourings to explain why he was ringing, listened impassively to her
petulant protests at being stood up, as she termed it, and then hung up on her when her
tone became strident.
Julia Montague, the latest in a long line of girl-friends, was a very attractive woman in
the physical sense, but Adam had no intention of dancing to her, or any woman’s, shrill
tune. At the beginning of their relationship he had made it plain that he was not in the
marriage stakes, and it was now reaching the stage where his interest was rapidly cooling.
He made a mental note to get some ‘it was nice knowing you’ jewellery that would
satisfy her acquisitive nature, and then completely dismissed her from his mind.
When Adam returned to the library, the lawyer was no longer alone. Seated on the far
side of the reading table was a schoolgirl, dressed in plain grey jersey and white blouse,
her head bent forward, a rash of fair hair obscuring her face.
And as Mr Alexander rose from his chair and turned to Adam, he gained perfect but
belated understanding of the other’s mystified expression. What he had taken for
callousness had, quite remarkably in his eyes, been total ignorance.
‘Mr Carmichael, this is Mrs Templeton’s stepdaughter, Serena,’ he hastily performed the
necessary introduction and then in a markedly slower tone, addressed the girl, ‘Mr
Carmichael is your mother’s nephew, Serena.’
‘I’m glad to meet you, Serena,’ Adam responded with a neutral politeness, despite being
more than a little put out by this large detail omitted by his mother in her sketchy account
of her sister’s life.
Head still bowed, the girl ignored both his outstretched hand and his greeting. Adam was
first stunned and then angry at the blatant rudeness, but catching the plea in the solicitor’s
eyes, he bit back any retort. His attention was distracted by the entry of a large cheerful
woman bearing a tray of tea and finely-cut sandwiches. This time he was acknowledged
with a broad pleasant smile.
‘Will that be all, sir?’ the newcomer enquired as she placed a cup of tea and sandwich in
front of the young girl, directing another quick curious glance in Adam’s direction.
‘Perhaps you could see that everything is ready for Mr Carmichael. He will be staying
overnight, Mrs Baker,’ the solicitor courteously dismissed her as he became increasingly
conscious of Adam’s fixed stare on the top of a golden head that remained rigidly still
and unresponsive, despite the reassuring squeeze her lifeless hand had received from the
departing housekeeper.
Shuffling papers about, he waited until the door was firmly shut before clearing his
throat and proceeding tonelessly, ‘I, Andrea Felicia Templeton, being of sound mind, do
make this my last will and testament. To my beloved stepdaughter, Serena Jane
Templeton, I leave my jade ring and necklace which, in her own simple way, she admired
so much... The residue of my estate I leave to my nephew, Adam Carmichael, under the
condition that he accepts legal responsibility for my stepdaughter, and in the belief that
he is the most suitable person so to do.’
Alexander paused, throwing a glance between the other occupants of the room; the girl’s
face was still hidden by the straggle of her hair, and he gained no assurance from the cool
implacability of Adam’s. Signs of shock or displeasure would somehow have been more
comforting.
His reluctance became even more heavily pronounced as he read on, ‘As a result of
injuries sustained in a motor accident, my stepdaughter is... mentally retarded and I
therefore have no objection to her being placed in an appropriate private institution.’ By
the end Mr Alexander’s embarrassment was almost palpable. He murmured
apologetically, ‘Most distressing, I’m afraid.’
The eyes of both men now rested expectantly on the girl, but she gave no indication that
she had understood or even heard the blunt phrasing that applied to her. Eventually,
sighing, the older man rose stiffly and summoned the housekeeper with the old-fashioned
bell pull beside the fireplace.
Will you escort Serena to her room, please, Mrs Baker,’ he instructed gravely. ‘I think
she’s tired.’
Gently touching the girl’s shoulder, the woman encouraged, ‘Come along, my lamb,’
and without lifting her head, the girl automatically shuffled out of the room.
Adam observed her retreating figure, formless in her ill-fitting clothes, with clinical
interest, and when the door closed behind them, said with soft sardonicism, ‘The delicate
matter?’
‘I must apologise, I didn’t realise that...’
‘Scarcely your fault,’ Adam reassured succinctly while mentally squaring the blame on
his mother’s shoulders. ‘As you have probably gathered, my knowledge of my aunt is
extremely limited. Presumably she is the child of the second husband?’
‘Yes, he died in the accident to which my late client referred. Tragic loss of a fine artist,’
Mr Alexander murmured dolefully, and at Adam’s frown of incomprehension, enlarged,
‘Graham Templeton—perhaps you have heard of him?’
‘GrahamTempleton?’ repeated Adam with mild incredulity, for he had one of the man’s
paintings in the study of his service flat—a portrait he had bought several years ago from
a small London gallery. Seeing it in the window, he had been struck by the serenity of the
woman’s face, a beauty that was not flamboyant but somehow compelling. In reply to the
solicitor’s oblique glance, he remarked, ‘I have one of his paintings. A much undervalued
man.’
‘Indeed yes. He preferred obscurity to recognition and did little to promote his work.’
The tone revealed more than a passing admiration. ‘I regret my acquaintanceship with Mr
Templeton was so short.’
‘When was the accident?’ Adam quizzed.
‘Let me see, it happened about two years after the marriage,’ he matched Adam’s matter-
of-fact tone, since the young man was certainly no grieving relative, ‘and that would have
been slightly over seven years ago.’
‘So the girl has been in that condition for five years,’ Adam calculated.
‘Not exactly,’ Mr Alexander said hesitantly. ‘The girl was undoubtedly ill when her
stepmother took her home from the hospital, but...’
‘But?’ Adam pressed.
‘Before the accident Serena was a bright, gifted child.’
The solicitor strove to overcome a dislike for speculation and partially succeeded,
continuing, ‘In the first half year after the accident,
I
did not perceive any signs of mental
impairment in the girl, although she was, of course, deeply affected by her loss. They
were very close, even for a father and daughter.’
Adam was not sure what he was meant to make, if anything, of this sombre speech.
‘What are you implying, Mr Alexander?’
The old solicitor removed his glasses and began to wipe them. It was a distracted action,
as he wavered on the verge of saying more before reverting to his usual cautious stance.
‘I did not wish to imply anything,’ he replied flatly, replacing his spectacles. ‘I was
merely stating an impression.’
Adam respected his reticence and asked a more pertinent question. ‘What is the medical
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