Merlyn's Magic Read Free

the
insanity by telling people her daughter had received a concussion as a
child!
    Her poor mother had never recovered from the shock of
finding herself pregnant again at thirty-seven, after deciding at the
birth of her son eight years earlier that she wanted no more children,
and had taken the necessary steps to ensure that. The interruption to
the career she had entered only three years earlier, while she gave
birth to Merlyn, had been a brief one—Merlyn, and Richard to
a degree, cared for by a full-time nanny.
    Nanny Sylvia had been kind, but she hadn't been their own
mother, and the experience had left Merlyn with a desire to fill her
own house with children if she married, and it wouldn't be the sort of
house her parents had either, elegant but lacking warmth; she wanted a
real home. Not that she was any closer to finding the man she wanted to
share that with. After seeing Christopher for only a week, she knew he
wasn't that man; she had known that after only a few minutes in his
company. A wife and family would definitely not fit in with his
lifestyle.
    Still, he was fun to be with, and he really did want her
to play Suzie Forrester. All she had to do was convince Brandon
Carmichael into agreeing to it. All? Hah!
    'Hotel and country club' Anne had described The Forest,
and although there wasn't much sign of the country club at the moment
the hotel looked to be very comfortable. Anne and Suzie had come from a
wealthy family, and this had obviously once been the family home.
    The service could use a little improving, though, the
front door remaining firmly closed, no one outside to open her car door
for her or to take in the luggage either, as there would have been at a
London hotel. Well, she didn't mind opening her own door—she
had done it enough already today for one more time not to count!
—but someone would have to take in the large suitcase and
vanity case she had in the boot of the car; she refused to get soaked
again while she grappled with them.
    She pressed on the car horn, looking expectantly at the
huge oak doors at the side of her. The doors remained closed. Obviously
they weren't expecting any guests in this downpour, but even
so—! She hooted again, keeping her hand pressed down on it.
It was an act guaranteed to make her unpopular, but she was feeling too
cold and miserable to care.
    Her hand faltered slightly as one of the doors swung open.
She heard the crash as it hit the wall with force even with the doors
and windows to her car closed and the sound of the rain falling. She
had long since ceased pressing on the horn.
    Her eyes widened with apprehension as a giant of a man
filled the doorway, and she had the fleeting impression of immense
power—and anger—before he strode out into the rain
as if it were no more than a light drizzle falling. Merlyn caught only
a glimpse of overlong black hair, an equally unkempt black beard, and
the fiercest silver eyes she had ever seen, before he disappeared
behind her car. She turned anxiously in her seat to see where he had
gone, almost falling out on to the driveway as her door was suddenly
wrenched open.
    'Have you ever heard of just ringing the doorbell like
other people do?' the man exploded. 'I happened to be on the telephone
when you arrived. What do you—?'
    Merlyn barely registered what he was saying, let alone the
fact that he had broken off the tirade so suddenly. Their gazes were
locked, green merging into silver, and where once there had been a damp
chill to her body there was now a quivering heat that she had never
known before. She couldn't even see the man's face properly beneath the
beard and the overlong hair being whipped about his features by the
fierce wind. She had always preferred slender elegance in a man to the
muscles she could see beneath the thick black sweater and fitted cords
he wore, and yet as she gazed—drowned!—in those
silvery depths, she knew this man could have carried her into the house
and up to his bedroom without a