by Helen Brooks
Eventually people began to take their leave. She knew the second Victoria and Rafe Steed began to walk towards her. Somehow she had been vitally aware of him the whole afternoon. She hadn’t wanted to be—in fact, it had irritated and annoyed her—but somehow he had forced himself on to her psyche in a way which would have been humiliating should anyone have been able to read her mind.
‘We’re going, Annie.’ Victoria enfolded her in a hug which was genuinely sympathetic. ‘Call me as soon as you get back to the city and we’ll do lunch. I don’t know why we haven’t thought of it before with both of us based in London.’
‘Goodbye, Victoria.’ Marianne hugged her back and then extracted herself to offer a polite hand to Rafe Steed. ‘Goodbye, Mr Steed,’ she said with deliberate formality. ‘I hope you have a safe journey home and please give my best wishes to your father.’
He took her hand. ‘I have some business to attend to before I return so I shan’t be leaving for a few days, but I’ll speak to my father before then and pass on your regards, Miss Carr.’
His flesh was warm and firm and, in spite of herself, Marianne became aware of the faint scent of his aftershave. There was the shadow of black stubble on the hard square chin and the expensive suit he wore sat with casual nonchalance on the big frame. He was a man who was comfortable with himself and his sexuality. He would be dynamite in bed.
The thought, coming from nowhere as it did, shocked Marianne into snatching her hand away in a manner that was less than tactful. For a moment they stared at each other, Rafe’s features etched in granite and Marianne’s eyes wide with confusion. Victoria, who had moved slightly to their left to say goodbye to her father, was thankfully unaware of what had transpired.
‘Goodbye, Miss Carr.’ It was expressionless, cold.
For a crazy, wild moment she wanted to ask him what she had done to make him dislike her the way he did. They had never met before this day; he knew nothing about her. She had thought at first he was probably the same with everyone, but he had been altogether different when he had been talking to Victoria and her family. Instead, she said, ‘Goodbye,’ and left it at that. She just wanted him to go now. She wanted everyone to go. But first there was the formality of the will. Once that was done—she took a silent gulp of air as she turned away from Rafe Steed—she could get on with sorting out her life and the changes she would have to make to avoid selling Seacrest.
Only it wasn’t as simple as that.
An hour later, sitting across the coffee table in the drawing room from Tom, Marianne and Crystal stared in horror at the solicitor. ‘I thought you knew.’ Tom had said this twice in the last ten minutes since he had dropped his bombshell and his voice was wretched. ‘I didn’t imagine…I mean—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Your father said he was going to tell you, Annie.’
‘I suppose he was,’ she said numbly. ‘He’d asked me to come down to Seacrest the weekend before the crash but I’d got something on. I was coming down the next…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘How, Uncle Tom? How could he lose everything?’
‘The business has been struggling for years but he hung on to the belief that the tide would turn. He thought borrowing against the house would be a short-term measure at first.’ Tom waved his hands expressively. ‘It wasn’t. There’s basically your father’s boatyard and one other left in the area and that’s one too many. They were both competing for a lucrative deal and they knew it would be the death knell for the one that didn’t get it. The other boatyard won. It’s as simple as that.’
None of this was simple. How could there be nothing left? How could her father have risked losing Seacrest? Why hadn’t he cut his losses with the boatyard and got an ordinary job somewhere? At least then Seacrest would have been saved.
As though Tom knew what she was thinking, he said quietly, ‘The boatyard and Seacrest went together in your father’s head, Annie. They were built at the same time by your great-great-grandfather—’
‘No.’ Her voice cracked. ‘No, the house is different, Uncle Tom, and he should have seen that. Seacrest is…’ She couldn’t find the words to describe what Seacrest meant.
‘There’s no way at all we can keep it?’ Crystal entered the conversation, her face white. ‘I’ve got some savings, nearly twenty thousand in the bank. Would they come to some sort of an arrangement…?’
Her voice trailed away as Tom shook his head.
Marianne reached out her hand and grasped Crystal’s. She would remember Crystal’s offer all her life. ‘What happens now?’
‘The bank will claim what it sees as belonging to it, in essence. Then Seacrest will go on the open market. In the position it occupies and being such a fine old house, you’ll be looking at a great deal of money. Even if you used Crystal’s twenty thousand as a deposit, you wouldn’t be able to make the mortgage repayments.’
‘What if we did bed and breakfast, even evening meals, too? Turned Seacrest into a hotel?’
‘Have you any idea of the cost of such a project? You’d need to do so much work before you could start taking guests. All sorts of safety procedures, not to mention converting the bedrooms into en suites and so on.’
‘Three are already en suites.’
‘Annie, we’re talking tens of thousands to get the place round if you’re going to get approval from the tourist boards and so on. Where’s your collateral?’
‘There has to be a way.’ She stared at him, wild-eyed. ‘I’m not going to give in. They can’t take Seacrest.’
‘Annie, to all extents and purposes it’s theirs already.’
‘Dad would have wanted me to fight this.’
Tom said nothing, looking at her with sad eyes as he laid out a host of papers on the table in front of her. ‘Look at these overnight. This has been a shock, I see that, and if I had thought Gerald hadn’t told you I would have said something before rather than dropping it on you like this. Take time to let it sink in.’
She didn’t want it to sink in. She wanted Seacrest.
Somehow Marianne managed to pull herself together sufficiently to see Tom out and then comfort Crystal, who was beside herself. After Crystal’s husband and two young sons of four and five had been drowned in a freak storm when he’d taken the boys out in his fishing boat, Gerald and Diane Carr had taken the broken woman in until she recovered sufficiently to decide what she wanted to do. Crystal’s home had been rented and there had been no life assurance or anything of that nature. Shortly afterwards, the Carrs’ housekeeper had suddenly upped and got married, and somehow Crystal had just taken over the role. That had been over thirty years ago and the arrangement had been a blessing for everyone concerned. Now, though, it was as though Crystal’s world had ended for the second time in her life.
By the time Marianne had persuaded Crystal to go to bed and taken the older woman a mug of hot, sweet milk and a couple of aspirin, she felt exhausted. Her head was spinning, she felt physically sick and stress was causing her temples to throb. Nevertheless, she sat down at the coffee table and began to work through the papers Tom had left for her.
There was no escaping the truth.
Tears streaming down her face, she opened the french windows and stepped into the garden, which was bathed in the mauve shadows of twilight. Immediately the scent from the hedge of China roses close to the house wafted in the warm breeze and, as she walked on in the violet dusk, pinks, sweet peas and honeysuckle competed for her attention, their fragrance filling the air. A blackbird was singing its heart out somewhere close, the pure notes hanging on the breeze, and far below the house she could hear the whisper of the sea on the rocks below the cliff.
This was her home. She had always known she would come back here one day. Boyfriends had come and gone and she had nearly had her heart broken once or twice, but deep inside she had always imagined coming back to the area she had grown up in, meeting someone local who would be able to love Seacrest like she did and settling down somewhere close. And then one day, when she was much older and he
r parents had had the joy of watching grandchildren grow up, she would inherit the house she loved with all her heart. And hold it in trust for her children…
Sinking down onto a sun-warmed bench which had retained the day’s heat, she shut her eyes against the pain. If she lost Seacrest, then she would really lose her parents; that was how she felt. She couldn’t explain it because of course they were gone, but here, in the house and garden which had nurtured so many generations of her family, she still felt close to them.
She sat on in the quiet of the night until it was quite dark, the leaves on the trees surrounding the grounds of Seacrest trembling slightly in the summer breeze. The moon had risen with silvery hauteur in the velvet-black sky, the stars twinkling in deference to their sovereign. It was a beautiful night. It was always a beautiful night at Seacrest, even in the midst of winter when harsh angry winds whistled over the vast cliffs, melancholy and haunting as they rattled the old windows and moaned down the chimneys.
Be it in the spring, when the swallows began to build their nests under the eaves; summer, when wild rabbits brought their babies onto the smooth lawns to eat grass that was sweeter than on the cliffs beyond Seacrest’s boundary; autumn, when the trees were a blaze of colour and squirrels darted here and there anxiously burying nuts; or winter, when the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks filtered through shut windows and flavoured dreams, Seacrest was possessed of her own magic. The house was more than a house; it always had been.
She had to do something, but what? Marianne held her aching head in her hands, bewildered at how quickly her calm, happy life had been turned upside down. She didn’t know which way to turn.
At midnight she walked back to the house, turning off the lights downstairs before retiring to her room. As she opened the door and looked at the room which had been hers as long as she could remember, desolation claimed her anew.
‘Sleep.’ She said the word out loud into the stillness. She needed to sleep and then she would be fresher to think of a way round this. This was the twenty-first century, an age of miracles when things were happening which would have been considered unthinkable a century before. It couldn’t be beyond the wit of man—or woman in this case—to think of a way to keep Seacrest. She’d work twenty-four hours a day if necessary.
Stripping off her charcoal-grey dress, she threw it into a corner of the room. She would never wear it again. Nor the black shoes and jacket she had bought specially for the funeral.
Without bothering to brush her teeth or shower, she crawled into bed in her slip, an exhaustion that rendered her limbs like lead taking over. In contrast to the last few nights after Crystal’s shocking telephone call, she was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
CHAPTER TWO
OVER the next couple of days Marianne and Crystal followed one fruitless idea after another, but by the end of that time Marianne was forced to concede the situation looked hopeless. If either of them had shedloads of cash they could afford to pour into the old house it might be different, but if they had then they wouldn’t be in the position they were anyway. Her father had gambled on the business reviving and he had lost. End of story, end of Seacrest. The debt was huge, colossal.
Marianne telephoned Tom Blackthorn on the third morning after the funeral. She and Crystal were sitting close together on one of the sofas in the drawing room, so they could both hear the conversation, their faces tight and strained. In a way it was even worse for Crystal than for her, Marianne silently reflected as she dialled Tom’s number. At least she had her flat in London and her job to take her mind off things. Crystal had built her life around Seacrest and the family.
When Tom’s secretary put her through, Marianne came straight to the point. ‘I need to speak to you, Uncle Tom. It’s no use burying my head in the sand and Crystal and I realise nothing can be done. How do things progress now? Am I allowed to keep any family belongings? Paintings and so on?’
There was a brief pause and then Tom said, ‘I was going to phone you this morning, Annie. There’s been a development we couldn’t have foreseen.’
‘What?’ She glanced at Crystal, who stared back at her, eyes wide.
‘I think it’s better if I come and explain it in person.’
‘Tell me.’ There was no way she could calmly sit and wait for him to call. ‘Please, Uncle Tom.’
‘Someone’s offered to pay the debts, lock, stock and barrel, so Seacrest doesn’t go on the open market. Your idea of turning the house into a hotel would be part of the deal and this person would effectively expect to be a sleeping partner and receive fifty per cent of any profit once the hotel was up and running.’
Marianne blinked and kept her eyes on Crystal, who was looking as confused as she was. ‘This person would buy Seacrest, then?’ she asked numbly. ‘It would belong to them?’
Again, there was a pause. ‘Well, normally, yes, that’s how it would be, but he’s saying he wants only a fifty per cent ownership.’
‘He’d own half and let me own half?’ Marianne found herself floundering. ‘I don’t understand, Uncle Tom. Why would anyone do that? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘It’s not unheard of for one partner to put up the capital for a venture and the other to take responsibility for all the hard work and the running of it, Annie. And it would all be legal and above board of course. I’d see to that.’
Her heart was beating so fast it was threatening to jump into her throat. She could tell Crystal was feeling the same. ‘Who is it?’
‘I was instructed to put the proposition to you and see if you agreed before I make the client known.’
‘Uncle Tom, it’s me, Annie. Surely you can tell me?’
‘I gave my word.’
Marianne sank back on the settee. Crystal looked as though she didn’t know what day it was and hadn’t said a word. Reaching out her hand, Marianne grasped the older woman’s. ‘What do you think?’
‘Oh, Annie.’ Crystal couldn’t say any more—she was crying too hard—but she nodded vigorously through her tears.
Marianne tried to compose herself before she said, ‘We’re for it, Crystal and I. It would be daft to look a gift horse in the mouth.’
‘I think so. This is the sort of break that comes only once in a lifetime.’
‘And this person realises Crystal would be part of any venture?’ Marianne asked. That was of vital importance.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Then we’ll do it. Who’s the mysterious benefactor?’ She’d been racking her brain for the last minute or two. She knew her father had had lots of good friends but most of them would find it difficult to raise the capital for a new car, let alone pay off a mountain of debt. It had to be a businessman in the town, one who’d known her father and who Tom trusted enough to listen to. That thought prompted Marianne to say, ‘Did you approach this person or did they come to you?’
‘It wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.’ There was a pause and then Tom said, ‘You remember Andrew Steed’s son?’
Marianne’s heart missed a beat. Not him. Anyone but him. He hadn’t even tried to hide his dislike of her.
‘He came to dinner last night and he was asking about you and so on. I’m afraid Gillian spoke out of turn and told him about the current situation.’
Oh, dear. Marianne could imagine how that had gone down with the solicitor. Her father’s friend was one of the old school and he played everything absolutely by the book. A client’s confidentiality was of paramount importance. She could imagine Gillian had received a lecture once they were alone.
‘Anyway, it appears that Andrew owns a string of hotels in America which Rafe now manages. Over the last few years since Andrew’s wife died and he became ill, he’s been looking to return to the old country to end his days. Rafe’s been in this area several times over the last twelve months apparently, looking for the right sort of place for his father. It’s leukaemia,’ he added.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marianne said mechanically.
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‘Anyway, apparently he has good patches and not so good, and it’s not so good at the moment. Rafe feels his father’s better when he is motivated. He always was something of an entrepreneur, was Andrew. He went to America with nothing and now it would seem he’s an extremely wealthy man indeed. But I digress.’
Tom cleared his throat and Marianne waited.
‘Rafe was concerned with this desire to return home to die. That was his terminology, I might add. Not mine. He did not feel it was altogether healthy and furthermore that it was out of character. Seacrest might be just the sort of tonic his father needs. He can take as large or as small a part in the proceedings as he feels able to, but Rafe would want you to make Andrew a part of it. Humour him, if necessary.’
‘I see.’ She glanced at Crystal, who nodded. ‘I suppose that’s fair.’ They clearly didn’t have any choice in the matter.
‘Rafe was over here looking for a place for his father when he heard about the car crash from one of the locals. He told his father about it, who immediately wanted him to make himself known to you.’
‘I see,’ she said again, although she wasn’t altogether sure she did. ‘And has Rafe found somewhere for his father?’ If this Andrew expected to stay at Seacrest she could see the project was going to be made more difficult with a very sick man to consider.
‘Yes. A day before he heard about your parents’ accident he put in an offer for the Haywards’ place at the edge of the village. Made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, apparently.’
Marianne knew the house, a great thatched whitewashed cottage with a dream of a garden. ‘I didn’t know the Haywards were thinking of moving.’