by Penny Jordan
‘Never mind, Oliver,’ Vanessa said softly. ‘We aren’t all as unfriendly as Charlotte. You mustn’t mind her. She has a bit of a thing against men in general, I’m afraid. She’s our local feminist.’
Charlotte was bitterly, achingly furious, but there was nothing she could do. She met the speculative glance he gave her full on.
She could imagine all too well what he was thinking: that her supposed feminist views were because she was not physically attractive enough to appeal to the majority of men. A man like him, so arrogantly self-assured of his masculinity, could never comprehend that there were women whose lives were perfectly happy without being built around some man.
As he extended his hand towards her, he said shockingly, ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you.’
His words stunned her, holding her immobile. Wanting to meet her…? Why? Guiltily her mind sped back to the afternoon, to her sneaky acquisition of his parking spot.
‘I’m afraid Charlie doesn’t approve of you at all,’ Vanessa was saying bitchily. ‘She seems to think that just because you’re successful you must be guilty of sharp business practice.’
The blue eyes studied Charlotte rather too shrewdly for her comfort for a moment, and then he said smoothly, ‘Well, naturally I’d deny such an allegation, although speaking of sharp practice—’
He was going to mention this afternoon, to amuse himself at her expense by recounting what she had done. Suddenly preternaturally sensitive, she felt the stinging colour in her face deepen. He was laughing at her, she knew. More amused than angered by her supposed antipathy towards him, enjoying her embarrassment.
Quite what would have happened if Adam had not suddenly come up to tell Vanessa that the hired staff were ready to serve dinner, Charlotte didn’t know.
As Vanessa, ignoring both Charlotte and Adam, turned away, taking Oliver Tennant with her, Charlotte discovered that she was trembling inwardly with a mixture of anger and impotence. Her anger was caused as much by Oliver Tennant’s patronising amusement at her expense as by Vanessa’s malice, and her frustrated impotence was the result of her own inability to escape from the role Vanessa had deliberately cast her into.
Vanessa had taken good care to paint her in colours to Oliver Tennant which, while having a basis in truth, were greatly exaggerated. Charlotte made no apology for her own belief that Oliver Tennant was cashing in on the property boom without any thought of how it would eventually affect their small community, but, given free choice, she would not have voiced those opinions so volubly or tactlessly in his presence. It was also true that there were certain aspects of the male sex which she personally found unappealing, but she was by no means the almost vigilante-like anti-men campaigner Vanessa had portrayed.
Unwittingly worrying at her bottom lip, as Adam escorted her through to the dining-room, Charlotte fumed over Vanessa’s deliberately derogatory description of her as a feminist. Vanessa had used the word as a malicious insult. Charlotte resented being classified as a specific ‘type’ under any name; she was an individual, and, if her upbringing and physical attributes made it impossible for her to mimic Vanessa’s cloying, clinging, supposedly ‘feminine’ manner with men, she preferred to think that it was because she had too much pride…too much self-awareness…too much self-respect to sink to Vanessa’s level.
If the male sex couldn’t see that beneath that sugary sweetness Vanessa was as corrosive as any acid, then they deserved everything they got.
Adam was saying something to her, clumsily trying to apologise, she recognised, her mood softening. Poor Adam. He most definitely did not deserve his atrocious wife. Sensing that he was genuinely concerned that she might be upset, she started to reassure him, and admitted, ‘I did rather over-react. I didn’t realise that the new estate agent was one of your guests.’
‘Vanessa invited him. She met him when she approached him to ask him to value this place.’ His face went dark red and he muttered uncomfortably, ‘I don’t know why she wants to move. I like this house…’
‘It’s all right, Adam,’ Charlotte told him, wanting to comfort him. ‘I’ve already recognised that most of the larger properties locally will probably go to the new agency. There’s enough business here for both of us,’ she added lightly, ‘and by opening up I suspect that Oliver Tennant has saved me the necessity of taking on a partner.’
‘He’s got a very good reputation,’ Adam told her earnestly, seizing her olive-branch. ‘He started up originally in London and then expanded—’
‘To take advantage of the current fashion for living in the country—’ Charlotte finished for him a little grimly.
‘Adam, where are you? I want you to sit here next to Felicity.’ Vanessa’s sharp voice broke into their conversation, as she gave Charlotte a false sweet smile and said nastily, ‘Heavens, Charlie, you’re not still boring on about poor Oliver, are you?’
Holding on to her temper, Charlotte forced herself to smile. She was bitterly regretting having ever accepted Vanessa’s invitation.
Most of the other guests were people she knew, but not very well. They were incomers to the area in the main, like Vanessa and Adam, most of them pleasant professional couples in their mid-to-late thirties. All of them had bought their properties via her, and, although she believed that she had given them as professional and skilled service as they would get anywhere, she had no illusions. Were they to put their properties on the market tomorrow, it would be Oliver Tennant they instructed and not her.
Dinner was a long drawn-out affair of several minute courses. Toying with hers, Charlotte suddenly thought longingly of a bowl of home-made soup, the kind that Mrs Noakes from Little Dean Farm made, along with some of her home-made rolls, eaten across the well-scrubbed farm kitchen table, while a couple of early lambs bleated noisily in front of the Aga, and Holly, the Noakeses’ now retired sheepdog, lay across her feet.
She was not cut out for the sophisticated pleasures of life, Charlotte recognised broodingly. She had nothing in common with any of these people here, who all seemed to live frantically busy lives. The women’s conversations were interspersed with references to the hopelessness of au pairs and the traumas of the pony club, the men’s with mysterious references to ‘insider dealing’ and the horrors of London’s traffic.
Moodily, Charlotte sipped spartanly at her wine. It was very rich and no doubt very expensive, but she wasn’t enjoying it.
Smiling automatically at the man on her right at the circular table Vanessa favoured, as he described his battle with the local council to get planning permission for a conservatory large enough to house his new swimming-pool complex, for no reason she could analyse Charlotte was suddenly impelled to turn her head and look across the table.
To discover Oliver Tennant looking right back at her was so unnervingly disconcerting that she took a deep gulp of her wine and promptly choked on it, causing Vanessa to frown at her and her embarrassment to increase.
Why had he been looking at her like that? she wondered, when her embarrassment had eased. As though he had been studying her for quite some time; as though he knew every thought passing through her head; as though he almost felt sorry for her…sorry… Anger lashed at her, making her stiffen her spine and bare her teeth in a smile that made the man sitting next to her watch her nervously and wonder what on earth he had said. He was forty years old, and found modern women very confusing—this one more than most.
The meal seemed to drag on forever. Charlotte ached to be able to leave, but good manners forced her to stay, listening politely to the conversations going on around her, as they left the dining-room to finish the evening with coffee in the drawing-room.
Vanessa was discussing the summer fête, an annual late summer event of the village.
Deep in her own thoughts, Charlotte was stunned when Oliver Tennant got up and walked over to sit down beside her. The amused smile that briefly lightened his expression as he sat down puzzled her. She had no idea that it was the look of shock-cum-apprehensio
n on her own face that had caused it. Stiffly she made room for him beside her on the small pastel sofa.
‘Vanessa tells me that you’ve only recently taken over your late father’s agency,’ he began questioningly.
Grimly aware of how Vanessa had probably run her down to him, Charlotte corrected coldly, ‘Officially, yes, I took over on my father’s death, but in fact I have been running the agency for nearly six years.’ She turned her head so that she could look at him and added, ‘But I should have thought you would have known this. Surely, when you plan to open up in a new area, you check up on the opposition first?’
‘Yes, we do, but it was my partner who was responsible for this particular expansion. I’ve historically dealt with the London side of things, but earlier on this year we decided to split the partnership. He retained the country offices, while I retained the central London one…and this one.’
There was a look in his eyes that suggested to Charlotte that his split from his partner had not been overly amicable, and she wondered what had caused it.
‘I had been intending to come and see you,’ he was adding. ‘While we are going to be in direct competition with one another, I thought—’
‘What?’ Charlotte challenged him bitterly. ‘That we could form the sort of ring which antiques dealers are notorious for? I’m sorry, Mr Tennant,’ she stood up abruptly, ‘that isn’t the way I do business. I don’t believe in appealing to the more greedy side of people’s natures. I prefer to set a realistic price on properties and not to encourage my clients to put outrageous prices on their homes. Nor do I believe in encouraging them to take on huge mortgages,’ she added repressively. ‘I don’t believe that you and I could ever work harmoniously together.’
‘Well, if we can’t be friends…’ he began musingly.
‘We must be enemies. That suits me fine,’ Charlotte told him grimly, and not entirely truthfully. There was something about him that warned her that he would be a formidable foe, but she had her principles and she did not intend to deviate from them. If that eventually meant that she lost so much business that her agency had to close, then so be it. She had her training to fall back on. She could always get a job in London, unappealing though that thought now was. She had her health, a very respectable bank balance, her own home…
Giving him a thin smile, she said curtly, ‘I must be leaving. I’d better go and find Vanessa.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
She stared at him, and then flushed uncomfortably. For a moment she had thought he was suggesting that they leave together, when of course he had meant nothing of the sort. Angry with herself for the sudden and totally unexpected sensation churning her stomach, she turned away from him and looked for Vanessa.
Her hostess was plainly not particularly sorry to see her leave. Charlotte hated the insincere way Vanessa insisted on aiming a pouting kiss in the direction of her cheek.
Oliver Tennant was standing directly behind her, and when she stepped back to avoid Vanessa’s embrace it was a shock to her senses to suddenly come up against the hard male warmth of him. She hadn’t realised how close to her he was standing, and, when instinctively she tensed and turned to look over her shoulder, she was stunned to discover that only centimetres separated their faces. She could see the rough male texture of his skin, darkening already with the shadow of his beard. The eyes, which at a distance seemed uniformly dark blue, on closer inspection proved to have a lighter, almost metallic outer rim.
As she had stepped back, he had reached out automatically to steady her, and she was burningly conscious of the warm pressure of his hand on her arm, his fingers firm against her skin. She saw the way Vanessa focused on that point of contact between them, her mouth tightening, and wondered why on earth he hadn’t simply stepped back from her.
‘Oliver, surely you’re not leaving? I wanted to have a word with you about putting this place on the market,’ Vanessa pouted, darting a malicious glance at Charlotte.
‘Another time, Vanessa, if you don’t mind.’
He was still holding on to Charlotte’s arm, and, as Vanessa started to say eagerly that perhaps he would like to call round in the morning, his grip relaxed slightly, and to Charlotte’s shock his fingers moved almost absently against her skin, rather as though he were stroking the fur of a very ruffled cat, she recognised.
‘Not tomorrow, I’m afraid. I’m still staying at the Bull at the moment, and I need to concentrate on finding myself some more permanent lodgings. However, I’ll get my secretary to give you a ring.’
Charlotte could see that Vanessa was furious, but Oliver Tennant was either unaware of the other woman’s feelings or indifferent to them, because he gave Vanessa a cordial smile and, without allowing Charlotte to say a word, almost guided her to the front door. And he had still not released her.
She waited until they were outside before pulling away from him and saying frigidly, ‘Thank you, but I am capable of walking unaided.’
The smile he gave her made her heart somersault abruptly.
‘I’m sorry about that, but it seemed a good way of escaping from Vanessa. It’s always a problem, isn’t it, when one has to deal with a client who is potentially looking for more than a purely business relationship? I expect it’s something that’s even harder for a woman to deal with than a man.’
Charlotte stared at him. There had been occasions when she had had to tactfully let the odd male client know that their relationship could only be based on business but, given Vanessa’s cruel taunting of her lack of sexual appeal, she had hardly expected Oliver Tennant to assume that she would be the object of any man’s desire, no matter how fleeting or implausible.
Neither had she expected him to make such a casual reference to Vanessa’s rather obvious tactics to interest him in her sexually, and her mouth fell open a little as she contemplated this sudden and unexpected glimpse of a personality which seemed to be far more complex than she had initially assumed.
She had looked at him and dismissed him as a handsome, clever man more or less completely without principles or morals, used to trading on his sexual appeal when and where necessary, but he was making it plain to her that he did nothing of the sort.
Why? she wondered rawly. Was he doing it to get her off guard…to make her think that they were allies rather than enemies, and, if so, why? Did it amuse him perhaps to imagine that he could reduce her to the same competitive femininity he had so obviously aroused in Vanessa?
She remembered how Vanessa had described her as a man-hater, and wondered if he was one of those men to whom the challenge of sexual conquest mattered far more than any real emotional bonding with another human being. An inborn wariness warned her to tread carefully. He had released her now, and she moved away from him slowly. Every instinct she possessed warned her that it would be wise to keep this man at a distance. Already he had disturbed her far too much…made her aware of a certain illuminating lack in her life. Abruptly she turned round without answering him.
When she got in her car she was trembling inside. What was the matter with her? One look from an undeniably handsome and very male man and she was suddenly reduced to quivering awareness of her deepest feminine feelings. It was ridiculous. Even when she had been engaged, sexual desire had never strongly motivated her. In possible marriage to Gordon she had looked for companionship, children, shared interests and aims. She had never experienced that pulsing, urgent sensation of heat, coupled with an aching awareness of a deep inner emptiness that was afflicting her now.
It must be her age, she told herself briskly as she drove home. Nature’s way of reminding her that she had still not fulfilled that most feminine biological drive: the need to create new life.
Yes, that was it, she decided, relaxing a little. She had always wanted children; her body had no awareness of the fact that her single status made such a situation impossible and, growing impatient with her refusal to listen to its urgings, it was stepping up its determination to remind her of what s
he was denying herself.
It was only later, when she was safely in bed, that she allowed herself to admit that the sensation that had pierced her had had nothing at all in common with the soft warmth that invaded her whenever she held a friend’s baby, or played with a toddler. Determinedly she dismissed it. It had been a difficult day; her hormones were probably over-reacting in compensation. Tomorrow she would be able to laugh at herself for the way she was feeling right now.
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLOTTE was up early. She told herself that her restless night and inability to sleep had nothing whatsoever to do with the previous evening’s disturbing run in with Oliver Tennant, but somehow or other her vigorous arguments remained unconvincing.
Perhaps it was the sharp spring sunshine pouring into the kitchen and highlighting the dinginess of the paintwork and units that was making her peer unusually closely into her most personal feelings and emotions as she was doing at her home, and with equally dissatisfying results, she admitted wryly.
The trouble was that, over the years of her father’s illness, looking after him, running the business and trying to keep their often turbulent relationship on an even footing had left her with no time for soul-searching…or redecorating.
She had never particularly thought of herself as the home-building type, and certainly she had no desire for a house which emulated the glossy magazine perfection of Adam’s and Vanessa’s.
But somewhere between the unwelcoming starkness of this house and the over-luxurious fussiness of Vanessa’s there must be a happy medium.
Mrs Higham, who came in twice a week, kept the house reasonably clean, and every now and again when she could find the energy she herself spent the odd weekend thoroughly cleaning those rooms which were not in use. Mentally contrasting her large kitchen’s lack of visual appeal and warmth with the comfortable cosiness of Sophy’s tiny terraced-house kitchen, she acknowledged that something would have to be done.
Whether she stayed in the house or not, it was idiotic not to make any attempt to make it more welcoming. During her father’s illness she had never had the time to spare for studying her surroundings with a critical eye, but now that she had…Yellow would be a good colour for this room, she decided musingly—a soft, sunny yellow to welcome the bright spring sunshine.