Dishonourable Proposal

by Jacqueline Baird

  The throaty laugh. 'You know, Jake, on reflection it is probably a good idea for you to marry Katy; my being your mother-in-law gives us the perfect cover for anything we want to indulge in.'

  Afterwards Katy did not know how she got out of the house. All she could think of was Jake and Monica, together. For four years Jake had visited her home, and she had thought it was to see her, and all the time he had been using her blind adoration for him to mask his affair with her own stepmother...

  She hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take her to the Savoy, where Anna and her parents were staying. Anna was stunned to see her but listened while she cried out all her horror and pain at what she had discovered. Anna's parents were most sympathetic, and renewed their offer to let her stay with them while she was at college. They were leaving for Paris the following evening, and Katy decided there and then to go with them.

  But first Mrs la Tour, with a few well-chosen words, persuaded her to go back to her father's house when she was originally supposed to be arriving home the following day.

  'Katy, there is no need to tell what you saw and heard. You are too young for marriage; you want some fun. An explanation along those lines will suffice, and save your pride.'

  Katy had done just that. Jake had appeared to be stunned when she had speedily informed him in front of Monica and her father what she intended doing. Jake had insisted on talking to her alone but she had resisted all his appeals to stay in London, and the arrival of Mr la Tour had cut short the argument.

  Thinking about it now, lying in bed in her lonely hotel room, Katy recognised that it was only because her emotions had been frozen in shock that she had managed to carry it off. It had taken her months to get over the pain, and tonight she had been forced to realise that she had not really succeeded.

  Jake had written to her in Paris, having got her address from her father. At first she'd forced herself to reply with a few lines extolling her life in France to reinforce her explanation for leaving him. But after a few weeks she'd deliberately composed a 'dear John' letter, telling him she had met a young student and Jake had been right all along—he was too old for her.

  To her amazement he had replied with an eloquent letter—he was deeply disappointed, but understood, and hoped they could remain friends. From then on flowers had arrived for her birthday and Christmas, plus a few postcards in between. She was hoist with her own petard. There had not been a thing she could do about it without confessing the real reason for leaving him. Two years later, not long after her first appearance on the cover of Vogue, Jake had appeared in Paris. She'd had no excuse not to meet him, but she'd chosen her ground carefully, arranging to see him at Anna's house along with Anna's husband and Claude.

  She had played the party girl and dashing young model for all she was worth. He had asked about the young man. 'Which one?' she had taunted, while clinging to Claude's arm. Jake had been furious.

  But still when4ie'd caught her on her own he had again asked her to marry him. She had laughed in his face, and told him Claude would not like it.

  'And you said I was too old—what the hell do you call him?' Jake had snarled. His rage had been terrible to witness and finally he had stormed off in disgust, calling her nothing better than a whore.

  She had never seen him again until tonight, and it was obvious Jake's perception of her had not changed. Perhaps it was just as well, she thought fatalistically. Jake still had the power to hurt her, but only if she let him.

  The last few years had given her confidence, and now she perceived herself as a successful, mature young woman, not a naive young girl. The men she had met in the modelling world had reinforced her firmly held belief that no man could be trusted. Wryly she admitted her father looked a saint compared to some of the men she had met. Yawning widely, she burrowed down under the covers, and finally as the light of dawn flickered across the sky she fell into a troubled sleep.

  'Katy, girl, it is good to see you back where you belong.' Her father sighed contentedly and settled back in the big winged armchair, a coffee-cup in his hand. 'Looking at you sitting there, I can't see any trace of Lena Lawrence, the celebrity. I never asked, but do you expect me to call you Lena?'

  'No, Dad, of course not.' She smiled and stretched her long jeans-clad legs out in front of her, allowing her head to fall back on the soft cushion of the sofa. It had been much easier than she had imagined, coming back to her father's house, though she had been shocked at the change in him. When she had left he had been a handsome middle-aged man with a slightly thickening waistline. Now he was very much overweight and looked every one of his sixty years.

  They had shared a splendid lunch of roast beef, and were now relaxing in the drawing-room with a pot of coffee. 'In fact, Dad, that's what I wanted to talk to you about—Lena Lawrence.'

  'I can't pretend I was pleased to see your picture plastered over the hoardings, or the gossip about you in the newspapers, but I suppose it all goes with the territory. I never thought my little girl would be such a great success. It took some getting used to, I can tell you.'

  'Well, it's all over now, Dad. Lena Lawrence has officially retired, as from yesterday. From this day forward I intend to be myself: Katy Meldenton.'

  'You've retired! At your age...!' he exclaimed. Katy laughed out loud at the look of astonishment on his face, but she quickly sobered when she realised her father was not amused. In fact as she studied his flushed face she got the distinct impression that he was avoiding looking at her.

  'You don't want to be too hasty, Katy. There must be a lot of money to be made in your profession. Why, it could lead to films, television—the sky is the limit.'

  'Yes, so I've been told, but I already have enough to buy an apartment and still keep some change in the bank. Your trusteeship has ended now, Dad, and, well, I intend taking up my seat on the board of Meldenton.' There was no mistaking the shock on her father's face at her words. 'But more importantly I want a job. I would like to be a designer, as Mum was when you first met her.'

  Her father tried to talk her out of the idea, but by the time she left to return to her hotel Katy had won. The following day she checked out of the hotel and took a taxi to her father's home.

  Tears sparkled in her large green eyes as she looked around her old bedroom. It was stupid, she knew; as a teenager she had not particularly cared for the large Georgian town house. But now she realised she had missed it. Her bedroom was unchanged—the same single bed, the pretty pink and white flowered colour-scheme she had picked herself. It was all so familiar. She brushed the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand. How often she had lain in this room dreaming of Jake...

  No. She was not going to think of him. That part of her life was over, and tomorrow she was going with her father to the factory, and the start of a new lifestyle.

  The Meldenton family business had started with the china clay works in Cornwall in the middle of the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth century one of her ancestors had decided, rather than just shipping the clay to the porcelain factories of London, he would start up his own factory on the banks of the Thames. It was to be the turn of the nineteenth century before the factory became a reality, and by 1850 Meldenton porcelain ranked alongside anything the Imperial Potteries of Lambeth could produce.

  Katy could remember her grandfather taking her to the British Museum, and showing her a flask marked 'Stephen Green, Imperial Potteries, Lambeth' and bearing the cipher of Queen Victoria. It was then he had explained the history of Meldenton. His own father had trained with Green before working in Meldenton.

  Katy thought about the past in an attempt to banish her nervousness at the prospect of starting her new job. The next day her father drove the car through the London traffic with the skill of long practice, and when he finally parked she looked around her in amazement. The factory she had remembered as huge now appeared as a dingy place trapped between two large high-rise apartment blocks.

  She turned to her f
ather. 'What happened?' she asked.

  'Nothing for you to worry about, Katy. About four years ago I diversified into the construction industry; these are part of the company.'

  Katy might have asked more, but her father stopped the car and with almost indecent haste jumped out. Two months later she was to wish she had...

  The early-morning sun glittered on the Thames, turning the slowly flowing water to a stream of shimmering gold. Katy drained her cup of coffee and replaced it on the window-sill. It was a perfect late-October morning and the leaves on the young trees planted at the front of the apartments were already blanketing the ground in a carpet of orange and red. She had moved into the apartment two weeks ago, having bought it from the family firm. It was in an ideal position—she could walk to work in two minutes.

  Work. A contented sigh escaped her. In a brief eight weeks she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. The men on the factory floor had passed the odd comment, and at the same time speedily removed one of her advertising posters from the canteen wall. But their curiosity had soon fizzled out when they realised she was serious about her work.

  She had persuaded her father to let her try her hand at designing, and he had agreed but insisted she try the other departments as well. The first week, instead of going straight into the office, she had started with one of the decorators in the factory.

  The glazed china was decorated by using transfers of ceramic enamel covered with a plastic coating stuck on to backing sheets. The decorator's job was to soak them in water and lift them carefully from the backing, and then skilfully slick them into position on the china, rubbing them down to remove any bubbles.

  Katy had made a mess of quite a few before achieving a perfect result. She had been fascinated to see the china after it had been fired again, the coating melted away and the enamel fused into the glaze.

  She had spent her second week with a liner, the woman who applied the enamel colour, often as not gold, on the rims and handles of the pieces by spinning them on a turntable and using a shaped brush before the pieces were fired for the last time.

  To Katy it had been fascinating, and the hands-on experience had given her a much clearer insight into how her original decorative designs would work. Plus it had earned her the respect of most of the work-force.

  She glanced at her wrist-watch and frowned: she was cutting it fine. She picked up the cup and saucer and walked through to the small kitchen. Turning on the tap, she rinsed the china in the sink and stood it on the drainer. She picked up her black leather briefcase and headed towards the front door. Katy hesitated; today was her first board meeting, a new challenge, and, turning, she surveyed her reflection in the hall mirror.

  The image that stared back at her was reassuring. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a neat chignon; she had kept her make-up to a minimum—a subtle pink lip gloss outlined her full lips, the barest touch of mascara darkened her long lashes. The grey wool tailored jacket fitted neatly over her shoulders and traced her slender waist. She ran her hands over her hips, smoothing the soft grey fabric of the slim-fitting skirt.

  The perfect business image, she thought happily, and with a last adjustment to the floppy white bow at the neck of her blouse she turned and let herself out of the apartment.

  Her black moderately heeled shoes clicked jauntily on the pavement as she walked the few hundred yards to the Meldenton offices. She did not see the appreciative male stares as her mind concentrated on the meeting ahead. She would have been horrified to know that the Lena Lawrence image she had always considered an act, a game, was very much a reality.

  The lithe way she moved, her beautiful face and curvaceous body, stopped men in their tracks whether she was wearing a grey business suit or a bikini.

  'Good morning, Mary.' Katy stopped at the head secretary's desk. 'Have my father and Mr Jeffries gone up yet?' And with a tilt of her blonde head she indicated the floor above that housed the boardroom. 'And what about John?' John had been the firm's accountant for donkey's years; he was due to retire at Christmas, but he also owned five per cent of Meldenton.

  'Still as enthusiastic as ever,' Mary said, shaking her head. 'You could give me time to answer, Katy! Yes, they are all upstairs, drinking coffee and waiting for you.'

  'Oh, damn, I didn't want to be last!' she exclaimed and, swinging on her heel, walked out of the office and along the short hall to the stairs.

  Thank God Jake Granton wasn't going to be here! She could imagine the smug satisfaction he would have derived from seeing her appear late. But last night over dinner with her father her fear of meeting Jake again had overcome her resistance to mentioning his name, and she had asked her father if Jake was attending the meeting.

  Her father had laughed. 'Good God, no. Jake is much too busy to bother with a small company like ours. Why, the dividend he gets from our shares wouldn't keep him in handkerchiefs. Surely you remember, Katy? His father died a while back and now he is the owner of Granton's. In the past few years the bank has gone from strength to strength; he has branched out as a financier, and there are branches of Granton Holdings all over the world. Plus Jake still heads the Italian company. Spends a lot of time in Italy, does Jake.'

  'I see,' she had mumbled, wishing she had never asked.

  'No, I don't see much of Jake these days, and he hasn't attended one of our meetings in four years. I vote his proxy. We keep in touch by telephone, which reminds me, I'd better give him a ring.'

  At the top of the stairs Katy crossed to the large oak doors, her slender hand curled round the polished brass handle, and for a second she hesitated as a question popped into her mind. Why did her father have to ring Jake? He had never said, and she had been so relieved to know she was not going to have to face the man that she had forgotten to ask.

  Turning the handle, she pushed open the massive door and, straightening her shoulders, she said a silent prayer that the correspondence course in business management she had followed for the last two years would prove enough to see her through the next hour, and walked into the room.

  The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, her eyes met her father's and he looked away: something was wrong. Slowly she looked around the room; the solicitor Mr Jeffries greeted her, she responded, then John did, then her wary gaze was riveted on the fourth man, who stood silhouetted against the window. With the sun behind him she was not able to see his face clearly, but it made no difference. It was Jake Granton... Her heart missed a beat, she blinked, and stared.

  'Good morning, Katy, I'm glad to see you have finally arrived. Shall we sit down and begin?'

  'Y—yes. G—good morning,' she stuttered. Her legs threatened to cave in beneath her, and without waiting for a second invitation she collapsed in the nearest chair, and, placing her briefcase on the large oval table in front of her, she clasped her hands tightly together in her lap to stop their trembling.

  Katy stared as Jake casually walked forward and took the seat at the head of the table. His dark hair was longer than on their last meeting, but the tanned, ruggedly attractive face still wore that mask of cold contempt she remembered so well.

  He had not forgiven or forgotten their last evening together. His black eyes returned her look with a glittering remorseless intensity that sent a shiver of fear down her spine.

  What was he doing here? And why was he seated at the top of the table?

  Her father held thirty-five per cent of Meldenton, she held thirty and Jake another thirty. John the accountant owned the odd five per cent. Surely the place at the head of the table should be her father's... ? A dozen questions swirled in her brain, but she had not the courage to voice them; her earlier confidence had evaporated with one rapier-like glance from Jake.

  The preliminaries on the agenda were over before Katy actually began to take in what was being said.

  'Well, gentlemen, I think we can dispense-----'

  'Just a minute!' Katy snapped, shooting an angry glance at Jake. She was not going to allow him to ignore her p
resence—she had as much right to be here as he had. More, she thought positively, slowly regaining some control over her trembling nerves.

  'Forgive me, gentlemen and lady, or perhaps Lena.' His wolfish smile and poor attempt at a joke were met by laughter from the other three men, but Katy saw the amusement did not reach his eyes.

  'Katy will do fine after all, we are all friends,' she responded coolly.

  'Yes, of course. Now may I proceed?' he asked silkily.

  The derisive tone was a deliberate insult meant for her. She nodded her head in reply, not trusting herself to speak civilly to him. He reminded her of a sleek black jaguar, a predator waiting to leap on its unsuspecting prey. His sober navy business suit and conservative white shirt could not conceal the powerful muscled body or a certain aura of danger about him. The other men in the room faded into insignificance beside him.

  'As I was saying, I think we can dispense with the official agenda. The only question we need to discuss is the financial state of the company and, in my opinion, not i/we call the receivers in, but when.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Katy turned shocked eyes to her father, fully expecting him to tell Jake he was crazy, but as Jake's deep voice droned on it slowly sunk in to her stunned brain that no one was going to stop him. She looked across the table at Mr Jeffries and John, but they avoided her eyes. Were they all mad? She felt like Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Hatter's tea-party, or maybe they had cast her in the role of the dormouse, she thought suddenly. Well, no way. She was going to have her say. Snapping open her briefcase, she withdrew a bundle of papers, and, waving them in her hand, she jumped to her feet.

  'Now wait just a damn minute, Mr Granton. I can read a financial statement as well as the rest of you. Meldenton China makes a very reasonable profit. The order book is more than half full, and two days ago I personally lunched with Sheikh Hassan, the Sultan of Marin in the United Arab Emirates. He liked the design I presented for a new state dinner service and the sales department got confirmation of his order yesterday. There is no reason for the company to fold.' She smiled triumphantly at Jake, her green eyes flashing fire. 'I can only suggest you are suffering from a brainstorm,' she ended sarcastically.