Ruthless in All

by Jessica Steele

  'You didn't!' How she wished she'd been there to see her aunt, who never let fly, give her sister-in-law a set down.

  'And,' said Louise, 'I was so angry that not only did I tell her that Owen had already asked if he could marry me, but I told her that he was jolly well going to!'

  'So there,' said Arden, never more pleased as she gave her aunt another hug.

  'It was "So there" too,' said Louise. 'I was sure then—she was really nasty, Arden—that she was going to order me from the house. Only you'll never believe it, but just then there was a ring at the front door, and there, like some knight in shining armour, stood Owen.'

  'What happened then?' asked Arden, unable to wait. 'Had he called on the offchance that you wanted to go for a drive or something?'

  Louise shook her head. 'Later he told me that a week of Heulwen's children was as much as he could take and that he was on his way back to Northampton. But the crafty old thing,' she said fondly, 'had purchased a scarf on the way between Chesterfield and Matlock and had called to say he'd found it in the car, and was it mine or Heulwen's.'

  Delighted by the old campaigner's ardent tactics, Arden couldn't wait to hear what had happened when Pauline had seen Colonel Meredith standing at the door.

  'I nearly went into heart failure,' Louise confessed, 'when I heard Pauline's loud penetrating voice calling viperishly, "Here's the man you've just said is going to marry you". I nearly died on the spot,' she went on. 'And Pauline must have seen I would rather have sunk through the floorboards when I went to join them at the door, for she then asked Owen straight out "Is this true?" I swear, Arden, I was all colours of the rainbow!'

  'What did Owe… the Colonel say?'

  A tender look crossed Louise's face as she remembered. 'He was marvellous,' she answered. 'I was so proud of him. He could see, of course, that I was ready to go under, and he took hold of my arm, and then he told her, with such refined dignity as you've never seen, "I hope to have that honour, madam", and then he ignored her completely as he looked at me and said, "I'll take you back to Chalmers Hollow, shall I, my dear"?'

  'So you packed with lightning speed and came home long before your month was up.'

  'Just as you knew I would,' said Louise.

  'I thought you might not be able to stick it out for that long,' murmured Arden.

  'I guessed you did when I came home and saw your note and found you'd drawn nearly a thousand pounds out of the bank.'

  Bank! Note! Memory flooding in of how, what now seemed an age away, she had left most of the thousand pounds Blane had given her in the hidey-hole brought Arden abruptly away from her delight for her aunt.

  But now was not the time to tell her that it had been a very long day since the bank account had seen that much in credit. In fact Arden was unable to say anything at all, for while she was making a mental note that somehow she had to get that money back to Blane, Louise was effectively rendering her speechless.

  'I twigged what was in your mind the moment I saw all that money,' she said, happy with her powers of deduction. 'You'd remembered what I'd said about us redecorating every room when we got back.'

  Still not able to find her voice as the smell of paint, paint pots and paint brushes, suddenly all came to mean something to her, and Arden stared dumbstruck when Louise went gaily on:

  'We've had a lovely time, Owen and I. He's an excellent paper-hanger, you know. But my word, isn't good wallpaper a price!' And bubbling on as Arden's consternation grew, 'Owen's upstairs now finishing off the pink room—only it isn't pink any longer.'

  'You—you've used the money to buy—wallpaper?' Arden asked faintly.

  'That's what you left it for, wasn't it, dear?' asked Louise, her look of happiness starting to depart. 'Isn't that why you've come back early, to start on the decorating in case we have some early bookings?'

  In the face of the smile fading from her aunt's face, Arden just couldn't do anything other than agree. 'Of course,' she said. 'I just thought that—that there might be sufficient change—from buying the wallpaper and— er—the paint, to—pay any outstanding bills, that was all.'

  Happy again to think she had got it right, Louise was beaming once more as she confirmed that there had been one or two bills waiting, but that since Owen had been going into town yesterday for some plaster, he had gone to settle them for her.

  'We wanted everything straight for you, ready for the hand-over,' she carried on somewhat obscurely, causing Arden to have to drag her mind away from Blane and the impossibility of returning money she had not earned to him.

  'Hand over?' she enquired, while wondering what part of the conversation she had missed.

  'It would come to you one day anyway,' said Louise, and let some light in by following up, 'But Owen said that if you didn't want to take over the sole running of Hills View, it would sell better for you if it had a freshen up.'

  'Sell better,' repeated Arden, and as it clicked, 'For me!' she exclaimed.

  'Didn't I say?' queried Louise absently, her eyes going past her to the door as they heard footsteps approaching. 'I want you to have Hills View.' And a smile of special love crossed her face, and she had nothing else to add as Colonel Owen Meredith came into the kitchen, gave her a warm smile, smiled then at Arden, and having come in at the tail end of the conversation, added, just before she could hug him: 'We won't be needing it, Arden. I've more than enough to keep Louise in the style to which she should be accustomed.'

  That her aunt's news had succeeded in giving her a respite from constant thoughts of Blane had not lasted for long. For when Arden took her case to her room, thoughts of him, thoughts of the money she owed him, returned full force to plague her.

  That if she did not owe him all that thousand pounds, she saw indisputably the fact that she did owe him a good half of it. For apart from a refund due for meals and accommodation at Hills View which he had paid for in advance but had not received, she had left Brynmoel with still two weeks to run of that month that the thousand pounds was to cover.

  Yet with her aunt happy and excited now that she had agreed to marry Owen Meredith, she saw that Louise would need to treat herself to some new clothes, not least a wedding outfit. And since Louise always liked things done nicely, and being of the old school would not dream of allowing Owen to pay for any of her clothes until she was his wife, Arden could see there would be no change from Blane's money.

  'You've gone far away, Arden.'

  Having put a brave face on at dinner that night, it was the Colonel's teasing voice that brought Arden back from thoughts that however much she owed Blane, she would not be asking her aunt if there was any change from that money.

  'I'm sorry,' she apologised, giving him a smile. 'I missed what you were saying?'

  'I was just endorsing Louise's remark,' he said, making her conscious that she had missed her aunt speaking too, 'that we would be pleased to have you live with us if you decide you don't want to carry on as a guest house proprietress.'

  How nice he is, she thought, sure in her own mind that her aunt would fare well with him. 'I think I'd like to have a shot at it—staying here, I mean,' she told them, having not given the idea a moment's thought, but running a guest house was all she knew. And her eyes shining, 'Thank you all the same, Col…'

  'Owen,' he interrupted her. Then, observing from her shining eyes that she had been touched by his offer, and that tears weren't far away, swiftly he changed the subject. 'What did you think of Brynmoel? A bit quiet for you, eh?'

  The tears Arden had held back when replying to the Colonel could not be held back when at last she was able to go to her room. 'Oh, Blane!' she groaned. She hoped he would remember to leave the key where she had told the Colonel she had left it, Blane making a liar out of her as she'd trotted out that she had left the key there because she had not known he would not be going straight there from his daughter's home.

  Gradually, over the next few weeks, the inside of Hills View began to take on a new appearance. And if Arden,
needing hard work, set to with an energy that had her aunt remarking to her fiancé that, 'My niece is putting us to shame,' then Arden was to find that no matter how hard she worked, she could not move Blane Hunter from her mind or her heart.

  The painting book he had given her rested in the drawer of her dressing table, and no matter how much she determined to throw it and that constant reminder of him away, she found that even though it had landed in her paper basket one time, she could not do it, and had hurriedly retrieved it to hug it to her.

  Three weeks after her departure from Brynmoel, Owen, as she now easily called him, suggested that they 'do' the green room next.

  'Could we—leave that one until last?' she asked quickly. And had to wonder then—would it ever get better?

  'Of course, my dear,' he replied. 'There are still one or two others to have a go at.'

  If he looked at her a little thoughtfully when she had no excuse to offer for leaving the green room until last, then Arden found she couldn't mention that the inanimate room was something special to her. Just as she could not tell her aunt, when they had never had any secrets, anything of her not being alone at Brynmoel.

  It was on the Friday evening of the fourth week since she had left Blane to get back to London the best way he could that Arden had evidence that he had indeed made it back to London.

  Tactfully deciding to leave her aunt and Owen some time to themselves, though knowing she was going to be awake for hours, Arden declared she was going to bed. 'May I borrow your paper?' she asked Owen, who by the near-new look of his paper had not done more than scan the front page.

  'You can have it,' he said obligingly, and with a wicked grin at Louise, 'I don't seem to have time to read these days!'

  Arden left them to themselves, a good feeling inside her about the two of them. From what she had seen, Owen still looked to be a man who could not believe Louise had agreed to marry him. Every waking hour when not working he spent close to her side.

  But Blane was soon to take charge of Arden's thoughts again. By the time she had washed, changed into her night things and had climbed into bed, there was no room in her head for the happy couple downstairs, or for anyone else but him.

  The newspaper she had taken with her lay unread on the coverlet for over half an hour as she dwelt, not for the first time, on those words Blane had said to her on parting. 'Marry me,' he had said, and she had kept on walking.

  Sighing, knowing that with Blane still in love with Delcine's memory she could not have done anything else, she at last picked up the paper in the not very hopeful idea that she might see something there to ease Blane's possession of her mind.

  The first page was of no interest. But when she turned the page over, it was to stare with riveted attention at an old photograph of Blane that had stuck in her memory from before, and which had been reproduced again. 'Industrialist's ex-wife was driving car that crashed,' said the headline! Her heart threatening to rise up and choke her, Arden read rapidly on.

  Twice more she read the lengthy article on the inquest on Delcine Hunter. And tears were raining down her cheeks when at last she let the paper fall from her hands, knowing now that experts who had examined the wreckage, mangled though it had been, were emphatic that the driving seat must have been adjusted prior to the crash to suit a person with much shorter legs than Blane. Without a question of doubt, the report had said, there was no way a man of his length could have been at the wheel at the time of impact.

  He could have told me, she thought, coming a little way out from her numbed sense of shock. When she had told him of those rumours that he was a murderer, he could have told her that he had not been driving that car. Though she had not believed him a murderer, even when he had told her 'One more murder on my conscience wouldn't make much difference,' she had not believed that of him.

  She went on to think, why would he tell her? He had no need. He was a man who liked his privacy and, arrogantly, he had seen no need to tell her anything.

  Which, in the light of him being such a private person, made it in her opinion all that much more unbelievable that, when questioned about the events leading up to Delcine's death, Blane had held back on nothing!

  According to the report, he had not held back from telling the Coroner that he'd had a foul day, and had been in a foul mood when Delcine had called at his office. Delcine had been hysterical when he had bluntly refused to settle any more of her debts, but she had left his office, only to be found, when he had gone to his car later, to be sitting in the driving seat of his car. That he had thought, 'To hell with it,' sounded like Blane, when not in the mood for another burst of hysterics, he had gone on to think that he would let Delcine drive him home, after which, depending how he felt, he would probably give her a cheque and send her on her way.

  Arden's tears were all for him and the way he would feel to have all this come out in court. That it had not come out that he loved Delcine was too much a private compartment, she saw.

  She cried again at what Blane must have suffered that since he would have ended up settling Delcine's debts anyway, he was remorseful that he had not given that cheque in the first place.

  No wonder he had left hospital against advice! No wonder he had wanted to hide somewhere to lick his wounds. Delcine had driven too fast for weather conditions—he had ignored her. Ignored her when he should have told her to slow down.

  Tears were still creeping out between Arden's closed lashes when at last she put out the light and lay down. Her very first action the next morning was to go and put Owen's newspaper in the dustbin.

  So far as her aunt knew, Blane was J. Stephens. Arden did not want to hear, or be part of, any discussion that arose from Louise seeing that newspaper article when wrapping potato peelings or some such for disposal. In truth, Arden was not at all sure she would not break down if she so much as heard Blane's name on anyone's lips.

  But the softness in her, that weakness in her where he was concerned, was to be taken over by a feeling of being not just a little bit let down after the postman had paid a visit to Hills View that morning. For apart from the usual batch of circulars which she took to the reception desk to sort through, there was a letter addressed personally to her in a hand that struck a chord of remembrance.

  It was this letter which she opened first, and colour flooded her face, her heart started to hammer, as first she glanced at the signature. The handwriting was the same as that which had penned 'J. Stephens' in the guest house register!

  So great was her shock, Arden clutched at the desk for support. Her eyes then going to his address, she saw from the date that his letter had been written on the day of the inquest. Arden began to read.

  Not believing the message his note contained, she read it again—and the message was still the same! Blane Hunter, a man who by anyone's standards was wealthy, was clearly writing asking to have his money back!

  Stunned, gripping hard on to the desk, she stared at the missive in her hand. He wasn't a mean man, she knew he wasn't. That report in the paper yesterday about him refusing to pay Delcine's debts meant nothing, because he would have given her a cheque anyway. And she needn't, she thought, go further back than the way he had insisted on paying for those provisions she had shopped for to know he always paid his share.

  But she was staggered that he was insisting that she pay up, for although the word 'money' was not mentioned, it was his money he wanted, with his businesslike 'May I refer you to a matter outstanding'. Arden had received too many such reminders for payment not to be familiar with that sort of language. As, too, was she familiar with similar closing sentences such as his, 'An affirmative reply that you will meet my request is much looked forward to' even if he had missed out the two words 'for payment' after the word 'request'.

  She felt let down, even if the honesty in her soul had told her to write to him about that money— before further honesty had seen her rejecting the idea. She had not been sure then that honesty had not been getting mixed up with her ne
ed to keep in touch with him.

  But that he should not balk from sending her such a letter had her taking shock on the chin, and the warmth of indignant anger stirring to life.

  Oh, how right she had been to start walking and to keep on walking after that reluctant 'Marry me' had left him! Blane Hunter did not care a straw for her—that much was obvious.

  There was not a sign of a tear about her when, her mouth set, she took out pen and paper. Then, proud of the 'affirmative' reply she had written, Arden lost no time in taking it to the post box.

  By Monday he would have his answer, she thought, on her way back. And, angry still, she was not at all ashamed of the sarcastic, 'but before you take legal proceedings,' she had penned after her declaration that she was 'temporarily out of funds'. Though she had to admit that the sting had rather been taken from her sarcasm in that she'd had to ask at the end, '… would you consider giving me time to pay?'

  In all fairness, she knew that the money was owed to him. But that did not stop hurt from pricking her that when, foolishly, she had grown to believe that the time in Brynmoel had been more than a business transaction, he should so far forget how passionately they had kissed, and from the tone of his letter, designate the whole time spent together under a 'business' heading.

  Monday crawled into being without her regretting the touch of sarcasm in her letter. Though by then she hardly thought he would so much as blink at her sarcasm. As things stood, it was her opinion that five minutes after reading her letter, he would be lifting up the phone and putting the whole 'matter outstanding' into other hands, so that they could take the necessary 'legal' action.