Diamond Cut Diamond

by Jane Donnelly

  Diamond Cut Diamond

  By

  Jane Donnelly

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND

  Why should Charlotte's father, who had always been so tolerant of her friendships, object so strongly to her relationship with Jeremy Wylde, when he knew she loved him and intended to marry him? And why did he so clearly approve of the obnoxious and overbearing Saul Laurenson? Then Charlotte found out—with a vengeance!

  Books you will enjoy by JANE DONNELLY

  THE FROZEN JUNGLE

  Considering what she had done to Duncan Keld not so long ago, Pattie did feel it was less than tactful to send her off to get an interview with him. She could only hope that his anger had subsided a bit by now, and perhaps he wouldn't remember her anyway. But it hadn't—and he did!

  FLASH POINT

  When Carly first met Mrs Corby, she had no idea that the old lady was in fact French, very rich, and lived in a chateau in Brittany. But when she invited Carly to spend a holiday there with her, Carly found herself at loggerheads with the formidable Liam Sherrard, who knew all about her—or thought he did—and was determined to stop what he saw as her gold-digging plot. How could Carly make him see the truth?

  SO LONG A WINTER

  When Angela was seventeen, and madly in love with Matt Hanlon, he had told her, 'You'll always be too young and I'll always be too old.' Five years later things had changed—outwardly, at any rate. Angela was now Matt's secretary, but each of them had a life of their own. Yet, deep down, was the situation any different—at least for Angela?

  WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES

  Disaster struck Robina when she lost her lovely home and her beloved uncle in one terrible night. There was little left now of her old life—except for her abiding detestation of Leo Morgan who was responsible for so much of her unhappiness. And yet her new life seemed to be inextricably involved with him…

  First published 1982

  This edition 1982

  © Jane Donnelly 1982

  ISBN 0 263 73817 5

  CHAPTER ONE

  The girl galloped very fast across the field, crouched low over the horse's neck as though she was racing or being pursued. It had been a dry summer and the ground was hard. The pounding of her horse's hooves matched the throbbing in her head and she wasn't going back to the stables until she had worked some of the frustration out of her system. There was nothing like a good gallop to blow away the blues, and right now her mood was indigo.

  Kelly, a magnificent four-year-old with gleaming chestnut flanks, was enjoying himself, going at full stretch, practically reinless, and Charlotte Dunscombe was a superb rider. They made a dashing pair, a handsome picture if there had been anyone watching. But the field was empty, and the first man to see them was not struck with admiration.

  Kelly jumped a low hedge—he was good at hedges, he had been bred as a hunter—and Charlotte was giving him his head and the lane was a private road, there should have been no traffic on it. But at that moment a car rounded the bend and she reined frantically, causing Kelly to rear and whinney, while the car's brakes screamed as it took bumping evasive action over the grassy verge opposite.

  Kelly was all right. He came down shuddering on four feet, but Charlotte's stomach dropped as sickeningly as though she had stepped down a lift shaft. She had had the fright of her life. She had had no idea that a car might be coming. The lane was only a track between two fields, both part of her father's small estate, and her mind had been on other things.

  The driver and his car seemed undamaged. The car had drawn up, and the window had been wound down, and an angry-looking man was leaning out, shouting, 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

  'What are you? This is a private road. Can't you read?'

  Normally she would have put that differently, but she had had a bad time in the past hour and if this trespasser wanted a row he had come to the right place. 'Roadhog!' she snarled. 'You must have been doing seventy round that bend!'

  'Don't talk rubbish,' he snapped back, 'I was doing under thirty or I'd have hit you. Is the horse all right?'

  Kelly was moving restlessly. He wanted to get galloping again. 'Seems to be,' she admitted. 'No thanks to you, though, you could have killed both of us!'

  'If you're irresponsible enough to take the poor beast over hedges without making sure the road's clear,' he retorted, 'you shouldn't be in charge of a horse, somebody should be in charge of you!' and before she could come up with an answer to that he had driven away.

  It was a private road, but it did connect one village with the next, and as they were about half way between the two there wouldn't be much point trying to catch him up and order him back. Besides, he didn't look the sort to take orders, so Charlotte trotted the horse along to the first gate and leaned over to open it.

  Then she let Kelly break into a gallop again and went on with her therapy, only now she had a double cause of discontent. An extra bit of aggro to blow away. This was definitely not her day. She wasn't used to meeting men who scowled at her and couldn't get away from her fast enough.

  Even angry men usually softened when they looked at Charlotte Dunscombe, because she was spectacularly beautiful, with long, long legs, smoky-blue eyes that tilted catlike, chestnut hair, perfect teeth and a translucent skin. She was twenty-one years old and could look about fourteen, and whatever she did men usually forgave her.

  Not that she had ever done anybody much harm, she was basically a kind girl, but she had had her quota of scraping car paintwork—although this was the first time she had nearly landed a horse on top of a car—treading on toes in crowds and, of course, breaking dates and breaking off affairs that threatened to get too intense. Nearly always the men looked into the glowing oval of her face and said, 'There, there, that's all right,' or something along those lines.

  The men who fell in love with her could be less understanding. None of them could claim that Charlotte had promised them anything, but they still left muttering about her not knowing what she did want, or being spoiled rotten, or having a father fixation.

  The first time a boy blamed her father because she didn't respond to his advances she was sixteen, on holiday in Bournemouth with her father, and the boy, staying at the same hotel with his parents, was a sophisticated nineteen. He had a high opinion of himself and Charlotte was the prettiest girl in the hotel, he hadn't seen a prettier one in town, even if she didn't accept his opinions as holy writ. She had an annoying tendency to argue, usually preceding it with, 'My father says—' but she was alluringly sexy and apparently unaware of it.

  They swam together and went to the seaside shows, and when he kissed her she was warm and sweet but amenable no further, and it was after a brief skirmish that took place when they were walking back in the moonlight to their hotel after a disco that he called her a 'daddy's girl'. 'God knows why,' he added spitefully, 'because your father's a pompous old fool.' He was a great believer in the generation gap, and that all fathers were fools, but he was taken completely by surprise by Charlotte's response.

  She knocked him sprawling on the soft turf, not a shove cither but a hard straight blow. Then she strode off, her lovely long legs covering the ground fast, and they never spoke to each other again.

  Her father had roared with laughter when she told him, and she was laughing herself by then, because pompous and old were ridiculous applied to Colin Dunscombe. He was a marvellously understanding father, doting on her but letting her choose her own friends.
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  Charlotte had grown up in beauty. 'What an exquisite child,' was something she heard while she was still in her pram, and she had once gone into the kitchen and asked the housekeeper, 'What's a quizzit?' Miss Snowe had hidden a smile when she worked that one out, pronouncing, 'Handsome is as handsome does,' but privately agreeing with the description.

  Charlotte had inherited her mother's looks. Her father was a handsome man, but her features and colouring were a replica of her mother's. The difference between them was that rheumatic fever had left the first Charlotte with a weak heart. When she was expecting her longed-for baby she was watched over tenderly by her husband, care and money were lavished on her, and the baby was born, a perfect little girl, and Colin Dunscombe thanked God that he had both his wife and his daughter.

  But before baby Charlotte's first birthday her mother went down with a flu virus that was plaguing the country but only striking in deadly fashion at the weak and the old. All her husband's money couldn't save her. Charlotte had no memories of her mother, only the stories that other people told her, but her home had always been filled with love.

  Inevitably she had measured the men who came along against her father, and at twenty-one she still had plenty of time for looking. Only now she was in love.

  Reaching the top of a hill, she jumped down from the horse and tethered his bridle to a tree. The hot sun shone on them and after a moment the horse began to crop in the shade while Charlotte flung herself down on the grass. A little breeze reached them up here and she pulled off the cap she was wearing and her thick waving chestnut hair cascaded over her shoulders. It was glorious hair. If there was a girl who had everything it was probably Charlotte Dunscombe, and she knew how lucky she was, especially since she had found Jeremy.

  She would be meeting him in an hour or so, and she felt quite faint with longing, a rush of heat to the head and heart. This had to be love, and it was a very exciting sensation. Thinking about Jeremy was the next best thing to being with him. It was making her feel better already.

  Their lunch together wouldn't be the celebration she'd hoped, but maybe it wasn't too bad. Nothing was final, nothing couldn't be changed. She wouldn't believe that she couldn't get her own way in the end.

  She rode back at a staider pace, trotting along the track between the hawthorn hedges. Birds were singing and the hum of bees filled the air. The cabbage white butterflies fluttered over a bank of wild thyme, and when she turned into the courtyard at the back of the house two golden retrievers came bounding to meet her.

  She fussed them for a moment, then rubbed Kelly down and slipped a blanket over him, and left him in his stable. She loved this house. She loved Tria and Wilbur the dogs, she loved Kelly. She dearly loved the immensely fat woman who was chopping chives in the kitchen, and who answered to 'Aunt Lucy', although Miss Snowe was no blood relation. She had been housekeeper here when the first Charlotte arrived as a bride. It was her hand that the dying girl had clutched to whisper, 'Look after my baby.'

  Nobody knew that, but Lucy Snowe, and God knows Mr Colin cared for his daughter more than he cared for himself, but to Lucy Snowe, spinster, Charlotte was her own dear child.

  Now she looked up from her task as Charlotte walked in and asked, 'Meeting your latest?'

  'You know I am.' Charlotte had told her yesterday that she was lunching with Jeremy today, and asked if she wanted any shopping done in town. Charlotte had always had boy-friends and Aunt Lucy must guess that this time was different, but she still insisted on acting as though all Jeremy was was another friend.

  That bothered Charlotte a little. She had been disappointed when she introduced him and Aunt Lucy went on bustling around, because he was so special that she had expected her to be impressed. Women drooled over Jeremy. They came up and asked for his autograph now and within a year or so he was going to be famous. When she apologised Jeremy said of course it didn't matter. He hadn't expected her to recognise him. The old duck looked a bit past active theatregoing and his TV appearances had been brief.

  But Charlotte would have liked to talk to her about Jeremy. It had been Aunt Lucy's wide lap she had climbed on to as a child, to hear stories and to tell secrets. Her father always tried to find time for her, but he was a busy man. Aunt Lucy was around all the time, and Charlotte told her almost everything. Secrets were safe with her. Charlotte might have confided that she had fallen in love, given a little encouragement, but Aunt Lucy's famous perception didn't seem to be working over Jeremy.

  'You'll be in for dinner, won't you?' said Aunt Lucy now. 'Your father's expecting you here.'

  'I know,' said Charlotte, biting her lip.

  'And what's wrong with that?' She hadn't missed the shadow on Charlotte's face, and Charlotte almost admitted, 'We've just had a fearful row. The first ever. It might be better if we kept out of each other's way for the rest of the day.' But that would horrify Aunt Lucy, and now that a little time had elapsed Charlotte could hardly believe it herself. By evening surely things would be all right again.

  'Nothing's wrong,' she said. 'I'll be home in time.'

  The two dogs had stayed dozing on the flagstones outside, and now Charlotte stuck her head round the door of the drawing room where a tiny pale-caramel-coloured Pekingese flicked its tail in welcome. 'It's all right, Georgy,' she said, 'it's me.'

  Georgy would have won a prize for prettiness, with his black velvet mask and long silky hair, but although he had a faultless pedigree and pekes are famed for courage— the lion-dogs of Imperial China—this peke was an arrant coward. It took very little to have Georgy scuttling for shelter, but in between panics he was comic and loving, and in Charlotte he saw his protector against a world that was out to get him.

  When Charlotte was around he walked with head up and sweeping tail held high, and now he followed her upstairs and lay on the rug at the foot of her bed while she changed her shoes for pink flat-heeled pumps that matched her pink cotton shirt. She was wearing jeans and she twisted a pink scarf bandeau-fashion to hold back her hair from her face. Single diamond earrings sparkled in her ears and the ice-blue of an oval aquamarine in a plain gold setting was very effective against the smooth tan of her hand.

  She opened a jewellery box that stood on the dressing table and stood for a moment thoughtfully considering the contents. Most women would have considered this a fantastic collection: rings, earrings, bracelets, a tangle of gold chains, and Charlotte had more valuable jewellery still in the house safe and the bank; but she didn't look as though the sight of it was giving her any pleasure. She sighed deeply, closing the lid, and turned to scoop up Georgy. He could manage getting up the stairs, but going down sometimes proved too much for him and he closed his eyes and lost his footing.

  The two retrievers looked up hopefully as she opened the garage doors, but when she said, 'No,' they went back to their drowsing. She often took them with her, but it would be too hot to leave the three of them in the car while she had lunch and it was no fun walking a pack, through the busy streets. She dropped Georgy on the passenger seat and drove her scarlet sports car through the gates of the small elegant Georgian house that looked out across the green to the church and churchyard.

  It took her a little under half an hour to reach town and she made for where she knew she would find a parking space, at the back of Dunscombe's impressive salons. This was the family firm, her father was the third generation and a respected name in the jewellery business. Inside the shop were dark blue velvet walls and a mirrored ceiling, and cases of precious gems in gold, silver and platinum. In the courtyard behind were the offices and workrooms where jewellery was designed and made.

  Charlotte parked her car alongside the row of staff cars, climbed out with Georgy under her arm and called a cheery, 'Hi,' to a young man and a girl who were chatting together at the top of a flight of steps leading to the office floor.

  They both answered her, but as she walked out of the yard the girl muttered, 'It's not fair, is it, all she's got? I bet she doesn't do much cl
ocking in at nine in the mornings!'

  The girl was a salesgirl from a gift shop, and she would have envied Charlotte even if Charlotte had been flat broke, because Charlotte looked like a top model and she didn't. 'And,' she added bitchily, 'it wouldn't surprise me if that hair's a wig!'

  Charlotte had a natural flair for jewellery design. She would have been happy working here, but it had always been impressed on her that she was needed as her father's hostess first and foremost. And she modelled their products. She enjoyed dressing up in striking fashions and wearing the complimentary accessories, but she looked just as eye-catching, in casual clothes, as she threaded her way along the crowded pavements of the old Cotswold town.

  The sun was shining and the pubs and restaurants seemed to be crowded, mostly with tourists. A crowd of young folk who looked like students were eating sandwiches and drinking Cokes, sitting on the steps of the crumbling Anglo-Saxon cross in the middle of the town square, and Charlotte wondered why they didn't go down to the river because it was hot up here and dusty.

  The idea of a picnic by the river was appealing. When she met Jeremy for lunch they usually ate at the Stage Door, which was the pub nearest the theatre, but on a sultry day like this the little garden at the back would be full, and she went into the bakers and came out with wrapped sandwiches and apple pies in a carrier bag, then into the shop next door for fruit and two cans of lager.

  The Little Theatre had stood in the middle of Chipping Queanton since Victorian times. Their main repertoire was Shakespeare and the classics, but each season they put on some experimental work by living playwrights.