by Sara Craven
She’d gone to the bank with a business plan, but got nowhere. Too young, she was told, and with no collateral.
So, eventually, and reluctantly, she took her plan to Andrew, who had sat quietly and listened while she outlined her requirements and her proposed system of repayments.
‘So,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘You really want to become the new Miss Finn?’
‘Well, yes,’ she agreed, although that was not how she’d thought of it. ‘It’s a marvellous business, and since they built those two new housing estates over at Lang’s Field we’re nearly rushed off our feet.’
He held out his hand. ‘Give me your paperwork, my dear, and I’ll look it over in detail and let you have my decision.’
But he was away a good deal over the three weeks that followed, and Ginny began to grow anxious, although the last thing she wanted to do was apply any pressure when he was at home.
Miss Emma, however, wanted an answer, and Ginny was just nerving herself to approach Andrew again when he himself broached the subject in the hall one night, just as she was going up to bed.
She heard him call her name and turned to find him standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at her, with his usual gentle smile. He said, ‘Don’t worry, my dear. I haven’t forgotten about the new Miss Finn.’
But he did, thought Ginny, painfully. Because two days later he was dead, without, it seemed, leaving any instructions that would have secured her future. So, she was still—just a waitress, and on Monday she would have to tell Miss Emma that she was out of the running.
As the credits rolled on her mother’s TV series, Mrs Charlton asked plaintively if there was to be any dinner that evening, or if Mrs Pelham was on strike.
‘I told her we could manage for ourselves.’ Ginny paused. ‘There are plenty of cold cuts.’
Her mother pursed her lips. ‘Funeral food. Is a warm meal too much to ask? Even an omelette would do.’
Grating cheese and whisking eggs in a basin, Ginny reflected ruefully how completely her mother had adapted to being a rich man’s wife, and how hard she would find it to cope once more with her own cooking and cleaning.
She was just dividing the golden-brown fluffy omelette in two when she heard a door bang in the distance. And as she slid the two halves on to warmed plates and added grilled tomatoes, Cilla walked in.
‘Is that supper? Thank God. I’m starving.’ She grabbed both plates and a handful of cutlery and marched off, leaving Ginny gasping.
She buttered two thick slices from a crusty loaf, filled them generously with cold ham, and took her sandwich back to the drawing room where it was clear a tale of woe was in progress.
‘I simply couldn’t believe it,’ Cilla was saying plaintively. ‘I told them what had happened and how dreadful everything was, and they said nothing. Just looked at each other. Not a word of sympathy or concern.’
‘Do you think they already knew?’ Rosina asked, but Cilla shook her head.
‘No, they were obviously surprised. Then Sir Malcolm said he supposed that Mr Duchard was staying at the Rose and Crown, and she said, “Of course, you’ll call on him, my dear, and ask him to come to dinner.”’ She shook her head. ‘When I heard that I was stunned. I waited for Jon to say something, to point out how upsetting that would be for us, but he never spoke. Just stared at the carpet.’
Ginny said quietly, ‘You’ll find, Cilla, that Jonathan generally agrees with his mother.’
Her sister turned to stare at her, sudden malice glinting in her blue eyes. ‘Not always. If he did, you’d be engaged to him instead of me. I’m sure the Welburns had you down as the daughter-in-law of choice, so it was hard luck for all of you when I came back and Jonathan decided he preferred me.’
‘Darling,’ Mrs Charlton said reproachfully. ‘That’s not very kind.’
‘Nor is it true,’ Ginny said quietly. ‘Jonathan and I had a few casual dates, nothing more.’
Cilla tossed her head. ‘That’s certainly not what Hilary Godwin says. She’s been telling people you were crazy about him.’
Ginny shrugged. ‘Hilary dated him too for a while. Maybe she has her own agenda. But that’s unimportant. So let’s get down to brass tacks.’ She drew a breath. ‘I think we, not the Welburns, should be the ones inviting Andre Duchard to dinner.’
Her mother gasped. ‘You must be quite mad. Do you want us to become the laughing stock of the neighbourhood?’
‘On the contrary,’ Ginny returned with energy. ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid. If we’re to maintain any sort of credit locally, we have to accept what’s happened with as good a grace as we can manage. Accept Andrew’s chosen heir.’
She listened to the shocked silence, then nodded. ‘So tomorrow, I’ll leave a note for him at the Rose and Crown. Nothing formal, but not kitchen sups either. And we’ll invite the Welburns too. Make it an extended family occasion, and hopefully score a few points.’
She turned to her mother. ‘And we can’t play ostrich about the future, so I’ll also call at Mr Hargreaves’s office and get the key to the cottage. Have a preliminary look round and make a list of anything that needs to be done.’
‘You’re taking a lot upon yourself,’ Rosina said sharply.
‘Someone has to,’ said Ginny. ‘And now, if you’ll both excuse me, I’ll take my sandwich up to my room. It’s been a hell of a day, and I have a letter to write.’
As she closed the door behind her, she heard Cilla say furiously, ‘Well, really...’
She went first to Andrew’s study to get a sheet of notepaper from his desk. The envelopes were at the back of the drawer, but as she reached for them, her fingers grasped something bulkier.
My God, she thought in self-derision, as she pulled it towards her. Is this the moment I find a new will and all our problems are solved?
But what she’d discovered, in fact, was a map of France’s Burgundy region. And no need to wonder why it was here, hidden away.
She stared down at it for a long moment, fighting her curiosity with resentment. Telling herself it was of no interest to her where Andre Duchard came from, even as she opened the map and spread it on the desk.
And found Terauze, heavily circled in black, jumping out at her. Saw too that the map itself was beginning to tear at the creases, evidence of heavy use. All those trips abroad, she thought, dismissed airily by her mother as ‘more boring business’. As some of them must have been, because the company order books were always full.
She’d once asked Rosina, ‘Hasn’t Andrew ever asked you to go with him?’
Her mother had shrugged evasively. ‘My dear child, it’s just one meeting after another. He’s far better on his own.’
And so, of course, was Rosina with her golf lessons, her bridge friends, and her ladies luncheon club in nearby Lanchester, Ginny had mused drily.
But, under the circumstances, Andrew probably preferred to keep his secret, and encouraged his wife to stay at home.
But surely he must have realised the devastating effect the eventual revelation would have? Ginny argued. Or didn’t he care?
No, she thought, I don’t believe that for a minute. Because he was a kind, dear man, and taking on a widow and her two daughters must have been quite an enterprise. So what changed?
With a sigh, she looked back at the map. Burgundy, she mused.
Producing wine and Dijon mustard, and also, apparently, Andre Duchard. But if he was indeed Linnet Farrell’s son, as Mrs Pel thought, how had she fetched up there?
So many questions for which she would probably never find answers. And she would be better employed in trying to establish better relations.
And on that resolve, she put the map back in the drawer, took her paper and envelope and went up to her room.
There was no problem obtaining the key
for Keeper’s Cottage the following morning. Mr Hargreaves did not work on Saturday mornings, but Ginny telephoned him at home after breakfast and he promised, sounding positively relieved, that he would arrange for it to be waiting for her at his office.
And for once, she was allowed without protest the use of her mother’s smart little Peugeot.
Keeper’s Cottage was on the very edge of the Barrowdean estate, and approached by a narrow lane. Built in mellow red brick, it was the kind of dwelling a child might draw, with a central front door flanked by two square windows, three more windows on the upper floor and chimneys at each end of the slate roof.
She pushed open the wooden gate and went up the flagged path between the empty winter flower beds. It was a bleak, iron-grey day with the promise of snow in the air, and Ginny huddled her fleece around her in the biting wind.
The front door creaked as she unlocked it and went in. She stood for a moment in the narrow hall, looking up the straight flight of stairs ahead of her, and taking a deep exploratory breath but she could pick up no telltale hint of damp, under the mustiness of disuse.
The downstairs rooms weren’t large, but they’d be pleasant enough when redecorated. And surely it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask for the windows to be double-glazed.
The kitchen, reached from the dining room, had an electric cooker, and wall cupboards with space under the counter top for a washing machine and refrigerator.
Upstairs, she found two bedrooms facing each other across the passage, and a bathroom, where a pale blue suite made the room seem even chillier. The only other upstairs room was so small that it could never aspire to be a bedroom. Even a baby’s cot would swamp it.
Ginny closed the door on it, her heart sinking. For someone with enthusiasm and energy to match, Keeper’s Cottage had real potential, she thought. Rosina, however, would regard it as a sentence of banishment, and maybe she had a point.
Once again, she found herself pondering the state of a marriage she had always assumed was perfectly content. After all, people didn’t have to live in each other’s pockets to be happy—did they?
But what do I know about marriage—or love, for that matter, she asked herself derisively, remembering Cilla’s jibes earlier.
She’d liked Jonathan. She could admit she’d known a frisson of excitement when he called her, but that was as far as it had gone. Cilla’s golden, glowing return had made sure of that. And any inward pangs she’d suffered from his defection were probably injured pride.
If I’d cared, I’d have fought for him, she told herself. Anyway, it’s all in the past now, and, come June, he’ll be my brother-in-law.
But where and what I’ll be, heaven only knows.
She turned back towards the stairs then froze, as from the ground floor came the unmistakable creak of the front door opening and closing.
Her first thought was that it couldn’t be a burglar because there was nothing to steal but the cooker.
All the same, she reached into her bag for her mobile phone, only to remember it was on charge on her bedside table.
She crept to the top of the stairs and looked cautiously down into the hall.
And there leaning against the newel post, completely at his ease as he looked up at her, was Andre Duchard. He said softly, ‘Virginie.’
Once again, the sound of it made her feel as ridiculously self-conscious as if he had run a finger over her skin. She said huskily, ‘I don’t remember giving you permission to use my name. And what are you doing here?’
His gaze was unwavering. ‘Examining my inheritance,’ he said and smiled. ‘All my new possessions.’
‘Is that what you were doing last night—hanging round on the common?’
He shrugged. ‘I needed to clear my head a little.’
Ginny bit her lip. ‘Does Mr Hargreaves know that you’re here?’
‘But of course.’ The dark brows lifted. ‘I explained to him that I had never visited a hovel and wished to see for myself what such a place was like. He understood perfectly and gave me a key, which, naturellement, I have not needed to use. Because you were here first.’
She stared down at him. ‘Didn’t he tell you that I might be?’
‘No, why should that matter?’
She couldn’t think of a reason apart from how empty the cottage was—and how isolated. And that she had never expected to find herself alone with him—anywhere.
It occurred to her that in some odd way he made the hall seem even more cramped. And that with his untidy hair and the stubble outlining his chin, he was even less prepossessing in broad daylight than he had been the previous evening. He was wearing a dark roll-neck sweater under a thick jacket reaching to mid-thigh, and his long legs were encased in denim and knee-length boots.
And the silence lengthening between them was beginning to feel inexplicably dangerous.
She said hurriedly, ‘I—I’m sorry about the hovel remark. I’m afraid my mother was too distraught to think what she was saying yesterday.’
‘But today all that has arranged itself, and she is reconciled to her new situation?’ His tone bit. ‘I wish I could believe it was true.’
He glanced around him. ‘And how will she like her new home?’
The obvious reply was ‘She won’t.’ But Ginny decided to temporise.
‘Well, it’s rather small, and it does need refurbishing. But I think, in time, it could be—charming.’
‘Tout de même, she did not accompany you here to see for herself.’
‘I don’t think you understand what a shock this has been—for all of us.’ She bit her lip. ‘We didn’t even know that my—that your father was ill.’
‘Nor I,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a matter he chose to keep to himself.’
‘Like so many others,’ Ginny said before she could stop herself.
The dark face was cynical. ‘Perhaps he realised that news of my existence would be unwelcome.’
She said defensively, ‘My mother could hardly blame him for something that happened long before she met him. If she’d been warned what to expect, she might not have this—sense of betrayal.’
‘She feels betrayed?’ The firm mouth curled. ‘How interesting that she should think so.’
She moved restively. ‘Well, I didn’t come here to argue the rights and wrongs of the situation. I’ll go and leave you to your inspection.’ She began to descend the stairs, then paused. ‘I almost forgot. I have an invitation for you.’
‘An invitation,’ he repeated, as if the word was new to him.
‘Yes—to have dinner with us. Tomorrow evening.’ She saw the look of incredulity on his face, and wished she’d never thought of the idea, let alone mentioned it. But it was too late now, so she hurried on, ‘I was going to leave it at the hotel, but as you’re here...’
She continued her descent, fumbling in her bag for the envelope, missed her footing on the uncarpeted stairs and stumbled forward, to be caught and lifted to safety in arms like steel bands.
Momentarily, her face was pressed against his chest, her nose and mouth filled with the scent of clean wool, soap and the more alien aroma of warm male skin, before she was set, ruffled and breathless, on her feet.
‘You should have more care, mademoiselle,’ he told her coolly. ‘You do not need another tragedy in your family.’
Ginny flushed. ‘I—I’m not usually so clumsy.’ She handed him the envelope. ‘You don’t have to decide immediately, of course.’ She added quickly, ‘And we won’t be offended if you’re too busy.’
‘But naturally I shall accept,’ he said silkily. ‘I am most intrigued that your mother should offer this olive branch.’ He paused. ‘It does, of course, come from her?’
She said quickly, ‘Oh, yes.’ But the brief hesitation preceding it had been fatal.
Strong fingers captured her chin, forcing her face up to meet his gaze.
‘To be a good liar requires practice, ma mie,’ he said softly. ‘Let us hope you are not obliged to be untruthful too often, as I doubt you will ever excel. But clearly your powers of persuasion with Maman are formidable.’
Ginny wrenched herself free and stepped back. ‘If it’s frankness you want, monsieur, may I ask if you ever shave?’
‘Bien sûr—on occasion. Especially if I am going to be in bed with a woman. But I doubt I shall be so fortunate,’ he added pensively. ‘Your beautiful sister already has a lover, hélas.’
She felt jolted as if her heart had skipped not one beat but several.
She said quietly, ‘My sister is engaged to be married, monsieur. She has a fiancé.’
‘And a rich one, according to the talk in the bar last night.’ He shrugged. ‘What no one can decide is if the affair will end in marriage, or simply end when he decides he has paid enough for his pleasures.’
Ginny gasped, and her arm swung back, but before she could wipe the cynical mockery from his face, his hand had grasped her wrist.
‘So,’ he said. ‘The polite little girl has spirit. And what else, I wonder?’
He jerked her forward, his other arm going round her, pulling her against him, and as her lips parted in furious protest, his mouth came down hard on hers.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE COULDN’T STRUGGLE, or cry out. She could scarcely breathe. He was holding her too closely, her hands trapped between their bodies. Nor could she resist the practised movement of his lips on hers, or the slow sensual exploration of his tongue as he invaded the innocence of her mouth, tasting her sweetness. Drinking from her. Draining her, as she swayed in his arms, her mind reeling from the shock of it. And yet in some incalculable way—not wanting it to stop...
Only to find herself just as suddenly released.
‘Oh, God,’ she choked when she could speak, caught between anger and something dangerously like disappointment. ‘How dare you?’ And, her voice rising, ‘How bloody dare you?’