‘But we do have a choice,’ Lysander Metaxis pronounced at the precise moment that he put his foot through a rotten floorboard. With a sibilant Greek curse, he pulled free of the splintering wood and stepped back.

‘I did warn you. I do wish you’d be more careful!’ Ophelia groaned. ‘There are loads of holes on the floor above but until now I’ve been able to keep this floor pretty much intact.’

Recognising criticism rather than concern and apology in those comments, Lysander was torn between anger and astonishment. ‘I could’ve been hurt.’

‘I doubt that you’re that fragile, but below this room is an irreplaceable ceiling that is almost five hundred years old,’ Ophelia told him waspishly.

She showed him a selection of panelled bedrooms and the shabby main reception rooms on the ground floor. Lysander disliked everything he saw: the disrepair and dinginess, the ponderous Victorian furniture and the faded tatters of long-departed grandeur. When she suggested taking him outdoors to show him the grounds, he demurred and directed her back into the drawing room instead.

‘We have to discuss the will.’ Lysander had one goal: to win her immediate agreement to meet the terms and get back to London without any further expenditure of his valuable time and energy. ‘I want this house and, although it is not my way to surrender to virtual blackmail, I’m prepared to marry you to get it.’

Ophelia was stunned by that admission and stared back at him with wide eyes. It had not once occurred to her that a male as wealthy and influential as Lysander Metaxis would be prepared to marry a stranger to get his hands on a property. After all, a simple wait of five years would allow him to acquire it by purchase. ‘You can’t possibly want Madrigal Court that much…you can’t be serious!’

‘Of course I am serious,’ Lysander responded drily.

Ophelia shook her head in bewilderment. The movement was too much for her loose topknot and as her hair began to fall down round her in earnest she yanked out the clip and finger-combed it impatiently back from her smooth brow. ‘But that doesn’t make sense at all.’