Melting Ice (Roundwell Farm Trilogy) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Also by Rosalie Ash

  MELTING ICE

  by

  Rosalie Ash

  Book One

  of the

  Roundwell Farm Trilogy

  Victoria’s Story

  Copyright

  Originally published 1989 by Mills & Boon Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  Copyright © 1989 and 2012 by Rosalie Ash

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All character and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 0 263 76364 1

  Published by Rosalie Ash 2012

  Front cover illustration by Gareth Courage

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Note from the Author

  Also by Rosalie Ash

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  Rosalie Ash is a member of the Society of Authors and the Romantic Novelists Association. Between 1989 and 1999 she wrote 21 successful romance novels, published by Harlequin Mills & Boon.

  She lives with her husband in a three storey townhouse in Warwickshire. With six children and a grandchild, she occasionally finds time for her hobbies, which include yoga, planning holidays and going on holidays. To find out more about Rosalie Ash, visit her blog at http://rosalieash.wordpress.com, and follow her on Twitter: @RosalieAsh

  Note from the Author

  Melting Ice was my very first Mills and Boon novel. Published as a ‘Presents’ romance in paperback and hardback in 1989, it has been translated into most European languages and sold all over the world.

  But as the world has changed so much in the twenty-three years since it was written, I thought rather than re-publish it as an original Rosalie Ash ‘Classic’, it would be good to completely re-write the story, bringing it up to date but keeping faith with the characters and the theme.

  The result is Melting Ice, Book One of the Roundwell Farm Trilogy. It is now a longer story, (70,000 words), with more plot twists, and some new characters. The original characters have dug deeper into their feelings and emotions, (and thankfully completely updated their wardrobes). The hero, and the heroine’s older sister, have even insisted on changing their names!

  I really hope that you enjoy reading this updated version of Melting Ice as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Book Two, continuing the story of the three sisters of Roundwell Farm, will be out as an e-book in 2013.

  Rosie Ash

  Acknowledgments

  With thanks to my wonderful husband Clive for his love, patience, cooking delicious meals, and making me laugh, and to my brilliant BFF Chris for her insights, inspiration, editing, proof-reading, and general all-round support.

  ‘Men with those half-hooded eyes always look as if they’re inviting you to bed with them,’ Jessica gave an enjoyably exaggerated shiver, ‘But Matt is so deliciously detached. All steely reserve and suppressed passion. I think he’s gorgeous!’

  Victoria hunched her shoulders in a casual shrug. ‘I’d hardly describe him as gorgeous.’

  ‘Decided that while you were gazing at him longingly on the terrace, did you?’

  When Victoria meets Matt she is instantly infatuated with him. But he makes it clear that she’s not his type, and in any case she is far too young for him. But everything changes one night, forcing them both on a journey of self-discovery that transforms their lives forever.

  Chapter One

  “Eighteen, nineteen…twenty!” Victoria gasped, finally relaxing the tension in her arms and lowering her legs back down to the ground. She sank back on her heels on the spongy cushion of pine needles and assessed the distance she had covered. Ten feet this time. Not bad at all, considering it was a year since she’d walked on her hands. She had usually won the competitions on the school playing-field, and it was satisfying to know the intervening twelve months at university hadn’t dimmed her expertise.

  With long, grubby fingers she thrust the unruly red curls back from her forehead and glanced round her. It had just occurred to her how infantile she might look to anyone watching, but she shrugged that thought away. This was Great Heath Copse, one of the least frequented corners of her family’s eight-hundred-acre farm, and the chances of anyone seeing her, even the farmhands operating the combine harvesters on the barley in Lower Cowdown, were slight.

  Anyway, who cared? Walking on her hands was admittedly a rather silly, childish pastime, but it fitted her mood today. Just because she had completed a year of a degree course, she didn’t have to turn studious and sedate, did she? Stretching slender, expressive arms up towards the glorious September sun, she felt a surge of pure joy to be alive, and happy to be home.

  This secluded copse was a childhood haunt. There was an old wooden seat she had made herself, years ago, from a plank and two wooden blocks, which caught the afternoon sun through the trees. She used to come here with Jessica and Megan, until her older sisters got bored with such simple pleasures, sometimes with a friend from school, but mainly alone, with her homework and a picnic hastily grabbed from the hubbub of the farmhouse kitchen.

  Screwing up her eyes now at the sun, she tried to assess the time by its position. She’d forgotten to put on her watch this morning,
in the breakfast-time scramble with Jessica and baby William, and she’d also forgotten her mobile phone, which was sitting on her bedside table, on charge. But it was probably getting on for six o’clock. She ought to get back. She had strolled over here almost two hours ago, bringing a steak pie for her father as a good excuse to spend a nostalgic afternoon, but Jessica would probably appreciate some help with William while she prepared dinner.

  Still, she just had time for one more go on her hands. See if she could get up to twenty-five. Tucking her loose T-shirt into her shorts, she skilfully inverted herself again, and began counting, reaching fifteen before she heard the deep murmur of male voices approaching. Before she had time to lower herself gracefully down, a pair of elegant black leather shoes, now coated with the dark brown dusty soil peculiar to this part of central England, were planted squarely in her path. With commendable balance, she tipped her chin towards her chest and peered up through her arms. Above the black shoes stretched a long, muscular body, in an expensive-looking charcoal-grey suit, a blur of pale grey shirt and tie, a tanned face and short-cropped, ash-blond hair. Victoria wobbled precariously.

  “Will you get out of my way, please?” she said with difficulty, “You’re right in my way. That’s the way I come down.”

  The shoes stepped out of vision, but now to her horror she felt her T-shirt come out of the waistband of her denim cut-offs and fall over her face. Oh no, she was inverted, bra-less, flashing her breasts in front of a complete stranger in a suit and shiny black shoes. Oh God! Hot all over, by now she knew it was too late to make a controlled descent. She was falling over backwards. Intending to lower herself into a forward somersault, she completely lost control and instead crash-landed on her back in a clumsy sprawl on the peaty ground.

  As she dragged her T-shirt back in place and began to struggle to her feet he surprised her by coming to squat on his haunches beside her, and taking her arm in a cool, firm grip helped her up, demonstrating impressively strong thigh muscles in the easy, athletic movement.

  “You’re not hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, no, I don’t think so. Only my pride. Thanks to these pine needles, they make a soft landing!” She laughed shortly, shrugging her arm away quickly from his grasp as soon as she was safely upright. His touch had sent a shivery sensation along her nerve ends.

  The man’s pale eyes were amused as they flicked over her. She blushed and folded her arms over her breasts. She could feel her nipples tingling, and went even hotter. If there were ever an ideal moment to wish the ground could swallow her up, this was it.

  Her father, sandy-grey hair untidy and grinning broadly in his usual ancient brown overalls and mud-plastered green wellingtons, had appeared a few paces behind the stranger.

  “I thought I’d find you here. So this is what you call quiet studying?”

  Her father winked at his companion, who was standing motionless at his side. “As you’ve probably gathered, Matt, this is my younger daughter, Victoria.” Her father touched her shoulder lightly as he spoke, adding, “And this is Matt Larson, Victoria. He’s been pricing some of your mother’s bits and pieces.”

  “Oh, yes.” She focused large brown eyes on the tall blond man. So this was Matt Larson, the top London antiques and art expert Andrew had put Dad in touch with. Her brother-in-law had spoken of him with the slightly awed respect he reserved for people who rose from nowhere to self-made success. But maybe he was the kind of man who inspired respect in any case, for more personal reasons, thought Victoria, shivering again involuntarily under that laser-sharp stare.

  Matt Larson made her feel vulnerable. And it wasn’t just because he’d just caught a glimpse of her half naked. She wasn’t used to feeling vulnerable with men.

  “How do you do, Mr Larson?” she said, holding out a grimy hand at last with commendable poise, “Did you discover some priceless piece of Ming being used as the cat’s bowl or something?”

  With a flicker of amusement in his mask-like face, he slowly shook his head. “No. Besides, everything has a price, Miss Francis.” His voice was deep and clipped. The accent slightly flat, not London exactly but not Oxford either.

  His hand was lean and brown, and his grip firm. Victoria felt a ripple of apprehension as he clasped her hand.

  “Matt thinks one or two pieces might fetch a decent price,” her father was saying blandly. “But you’ll have to come over again with Jessica, check there’s nothing your mother wanted you to keep. I don’t want to upset my three girls by flogging all the best Urquhart heirlooms.”

  “Right, of course.” Victoria felt awkward. She wanted to say it was a pity her father had to ‘flog’ any of Mother’s treasures, that it was a shame he couldn’t just get on with running the farm and pay off his turf accountant once and for all. But even with her habit of blunt speaking, she quaked at going quite that far. Instead, she gave her father a quick, impulsive hug, and kissed him on the cheek, feeling him stiffen as he usually did when he was embarrassed by her fierce displays of affection.

  “Sorry, Dad. Were you looking for me specially?” she said, feeling a stab of guilt.

  “Well, I was - but I’ve been showing Matt over the farm as well” her father said gruffly, his rather bloodshot blue eyes amused in his craggy, weatherbeaten face. “Jessica rang to see where you’d got to. I dare say she wants to know what time to get dinner.”

  “Oh God! I’d better get back. Listen, are you sure you don’t mind me staying with Jessica and Andrew?” She searched his face anxiously, for any sign that he needed her, just for some company, or a shoulder to cry on. But he was shaking his head, his eyes unreadable again.

  “You’re more use to Jessica,” he told her, not unkindly, adding, “There’s a bit of life there as well, you don’t want to rattle around in that great draughty mausoleum with just me for company.”

  “Oh, Dad! You know I’d love to come home more than…”

  “No. I’m better on my own these days.” Her father seemed aware that he had snapped rather abruptly, and his face softened a fraction but not enough to show he’d changed his mind, “If I feel like getting maudlin, or just plain drunk, I don’t want you fussing around me like a little red hen,” he said, ruffling her red-gold curls with a rare glimpse of affection. “Get back to Jessica, and give some of those lovelorn young men a ring! There’s a young man called Sebastian been jamming the line since you got back from your jaunt around Europe, Jessica tells me.”

  Not considering this worth a reply, she bent to retrieve her bag of books from the makeshift bench, hiding her hurt feelings with a bright smile as she straightened up.

  “OK, I’ll wander back - and don’t forget to heat up that steak pie I brought from Jessica - she said to tell you if you leave it sitting round the kitchen for a week like the last one, she won’t cook you any more!”

  “’Course she will, that girl loves cooking more than breathing, I reckon. But I’ll have it tonight,” her father promised solemnly, humouring her, “And you don’t need to walk back, Mr Larson here will give you a lift. He’s seen enough worthless bits of junk today, haven’t you?”

  “I’d like to come back tomorrow morning and have a closer look at some of the pieces,” Matt said politely, as the three of them strolled back out of the pine copse, alongside waist-high golden corn three-quarters cut now, and then through a lumpy grass meadow where a herd of fat black and white Friesians eyed them placidly as they passed.

  Victoria let the men walk ahead, and thoughtfully observed the lean width of Matt Larson’s shoulders, through the immaculate cut of his suit jacket, and the easy, rangy way he moved. Like a big cat, he had a loose-limbed, prowling sort of walk. Even four paces behind him, she could feel a fine, indistinct thread of tension unravelling in the air. She wondered if she was imagining things. There was a fairy-tale sort of stillness about the mellow autumn afternoon, and the open countryside around them. Maybe she was daydreaming this strange, unsettling vibration between herself and Mat
t Larson.