Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

`Quarter to ten,' Lucy obliged.

  `ugh—my mouth feels like the bottom of a bird cage. Have we any aspirin?'

  Lucy fetched him the aspirin and sat down at the kitchen table with him. 'Have a nice time last night?'

  `So-so. Lord, Archie Proctor can drink, took me all my time to keep up with him.'

  Knowing any discussion about Archie Proctor would end up as had happened before, with them having cross words, Lucy decided now was the time to tell Rupert her own news.

  `I went out myself,' she told him, and received the unenthusiastic brotherly response of :

  `Hope your head feels better than mine this morning.'

  `You know I don't drink-well, not at the rate you do, anyway.' A few sips of champagne and one of brandy was all the alcohol she had had yesterday, and the occasional sherry or gin and tonic could hardly be called drinking when matched beside the way her brother and Archie Proctor went at it. 'Actually, I went up to Rockford Hall.'

  Her brother's hand stilled as he went to reach his coffee cup for the last swallow. His head jerked round to her as though startled, and conscious that she now had his full attention, Lucy launched into details of what had happened since she had told him she had seen her ring adorning Carol Stanfield's finger.

  Perhaps she should have waited until he had fully come round before she told him, Lucy thought. She suddenly noticed he was looking very pale-his poor head must be throbbing away madly, but having got so far and knowing as soon as his head cleared he would go out and she might not see him again that day, she carried on, ending with, `... so if I want to have Mother's ring back, I've got to pretend to be engaged to this Jud Hemming for three months.'

  Rupert had heard her out without saying anything, and as she looked at him and waited for what he had to say on the subject, she was pleased to see some colour was returning to his cheeks—his head must be clearing.

  `Well?' she prompted. He was certainly slow this morning. She hadn't quite expected him to say he would go straightaway up to the Hall and demand his sister's property back without conditions, but some sort of expression of anger against the man who was so uncaring of anyone's feelings but his own was certainly in order. 'What do you think, Rupe?' she tried again. 'Do you think we ought to go to the police anyway?'

  `No.' Rupert's reply came back sharply as though her last sentence had suddenly brought him wide awake. 'No—I don't think so, Lucy,' he added more slowly. 'As you said yourself, this Jud Hemming will contest any claim we make —I mean, it isn't as if Mother wore that ring very often, and apart from Aunt Dorothy who you know as well as I hasn't seen the ring for donkey's years, there's only the two of us who can say with any conviction that it belongs in our family—and I'm none too sure I would know it alongside a similar one—besides which, when word gets out that we

  haven't two ha'pennies to rub together it will be thought we've latched on to this idea to get some quick money.'

  `Nobody will believe that of us,' Lucy protested indignantly.

  `Won't they?' Rupert shrugged cynically. 'I hate to shatter your illusions, love, but people are always ready to believe the worst—wasn't that your sole reason for going to the Hall in the first place, because you knew how gossip would stick round here if you went to the police first? In any case this Hemming chap is loaded-he owns Hemming Aluminium.' Lucy hadn't known that. Rupert must have gleaned that information last night, because he hadn't mentioned it when she'd told him about the new owner of the Hall yesterday. But she didn't have to think very hard to recall that Hemming Aluminium had factories all over the place, or need Rupert's, 'Who would believe us against him?' to know no one would.

  Rupert's eyes left her face to stare into the cold remains of his coffee, and more for something to do than anything else Lucy got up and tipped the dregs away before refilling his cup, pouring coffee for herself at the same time and returning to sit at the table with him once more.

  `So you think I should carry this-this thing through?' she asked after some moments' silence, feeling slightly let down that her brother hadn't come up with anything to get her off the hook.

  `I don't see why you shouldn't,' Rupert said thoughtfully. 'It's only for three months after all, and after that time you'll be able to keep your ring—you said yourself it's only a mock engagement, so you've got nothing to worry about there ...' He stopped, and for the first time showed the brotherly aggression she had been looking for all along. `He hasn't tried any—er-funny business, has he?'

  It was a relief to know that Rupert wasn't so unconcerned as she had been beginning to think he was. By `funny business' she knew he meant had Jud Hemming

  made a pass at her. 'Oh no—nor is he likely to, he made that very plain.' The way he had made it plain still stung sufficiently for her not to want to recount to her brother that her mock-fiancé was too choosey to want to court her charms. 'He's too cold anyway to need the warmth of a more than superficial involvement,' she told him.

  `Then you've got nothing to worry about, have you?' Rupert drained his second cup and looked ready to move.

  Lucy realised there was no more to be said on the subject of Judson Hemming, though she would have been prepared to talk about it all day if she thought there was a way to be found of getting her out of this entanglement. Putting all thoughts of her mock-fiancé behind her, she judged Rupert was now fit enough to be given his post that had arrived that morning.

  `I think there's one there from the bank,' she said tentatively, as she handed him a couple of bills and the long white envelope.

  Rupert scarcely glanced at the bills and he seemed to know what the white envelope contained, for he folded it in two and pushed it into his trouser pocket without reading it. `I'd better go along to the bank and see what old Arbuthnot wants,' he said, getting to his feet. 'Probably wants to tell me "This can't go on, Rupert my boy",' he mimicked Charles Arbuthnot's tones. 'Though the account should look better since I paid in ...' he broke off, and Lucy realised he had been half talking to himself

  `You've paid some money in?' She seized on the hope that Rupert had found some cash from somewhere.

  Rupert looked at her worried eyes, and his voice took on pompous tones as he put his thumbs into an imaginary waistcoat. 'Little girls shouldn't concern themselves with such things,' he said grandly, and went out.

  It was so good to see Rupert acting the goat again that Lucy laughed, and it was not until his car had disappeared

  out of sight that she realised he hadn't answered her question.

  She fell to wondering how bad things were at the bank, wondering not for the first time if she shouldn't try and find some form of paid employment. The housework kept her busy enough, but Rupert's allowance, while sufficient for his own use, had never been intended to keep the house going, nor, she mentally added, to keep her. She had loads of clothes in her wardrobe upstairs, clothes bought when her parents had been alive when money had seemed plentiful, so she wouldn't need to buy anything new for years, but the last thing she wanted was to be a drain on her brother-yet he was adamant that she shouldn't go out to work. Rupert was full of stiffnecked pride when it came to their standing in the community, and it was pride alone she knew that was his reason for being against the idea of her finding a job. Once it became known that Rupert Carey's sister had taken a paying job it wouldn't be long before speculations began circulating about their financial position. All the same, if he came back with a glum face after seeing Mr Arbuthnot, then like it or not she was going to broach the subject again-the trouble was she wasn't trained to do anything very much.

  Lucy was in the garden hanging out some washing of Rupert's she had rinsed through when Jud Hemming came to the rear of the house later that morning to find her. Her hands were damp from pegging out the washing and she wiped them down the sides of her jeans and went to meet him. She hadn't heard his car coming up the drive, but reasoned if he had come in the Bentley she wouldn't have heard its almost silent engine anyway. What he thought about the sight of the fiancée o
f the head of Hemming Aluminium doing the domesticated chore of putting shirts and underwear out to dry, she didn't know, but told herself she didn't care very much either-but she would far rather have been immaculately turned out in one of her

  smart day dresses when next she saw him. As it was, her confidence needed a definite boost as she neared him and noted that he looked different today dressed as he was in dark slacks and lightweight sweater. Her heart began to beat uncomfortably as she realised he had most likely come to hand over the ring. She should have been ready for his visit, she realised too late; it had been on the cards that she would see him again soon.

  She saw him give her figure a cursory examination. If he liked what he saw—and she knew her figure to be pretty trim—it didn't show in his face.

  `Good morning,' she greeted him when she was almost level with him. Her formal mode of greeting kept their association on the strictly formal basis she felt would help to get her through the next three months. He acknowledged her greeting with the merest inclination of his head. `I'll just take this into the kitchen,' she said, indicating the wicker laundry basket she had picked up automatically and brought with her as she came down the garden path.

  Still unspeaking, he followed her inside the house, and when she thought he would have waited in the hall for her to deposit the basket before conducting him into the sitting room, she turned to find he had followed her into the kitchen.

  `We'll talk in the sitting room, shall we?' Dislike him she certainly did, but good manners were part and parcel of her upbringing, and while-he was a guest in her home she would force herself to be polite to him.

  `This room is as good as any,' he opined, and came further into the room, his very action saying he was again taking the lead.

  Lucy tried to let nothing of how his arrogant attitude affected her show in her face. She liked the big old-fashioned kitchen herself, but would have preferred the more fitting surrounds of the sitting room in which to take her ring from him. The kitchen would give the whole pro-

  cedure a -more friendly atmosphere than she would have liked, and since there was neither warmth nor friendship between them ...

  `Can I get you a coffee?' she enquired after tense seconds, when he had said nothing. Well, she couldn't ask him outright for her ring and then ask him to go, she excused herself.

  `No, thanks.'

  His cool refusal left her wondering what she did now. The small act of making him a drink would have given her something to do while he got round to the reason for his visit.

  `Er—you haven't changed your mind about—er—what we discussed yesterday?' She could have kicked herself as soon as the words left her lips. Why did she have to hesitate, for goodness' sake? It was purely a business transaction-why couldn't she see it in that light instead of stammering like a fourteen-year-old and getting embarrassed about the whole thing.

  Jud Hemming, it was obvious, felt no embarrassment whatsoever, and had no difficulty at all in calling their arrangement by its proper name. 'Our engagement, you mean?' She'd been right about his eyes, she thought as she flicked him a hasty glance and away again. They were cold, icy cold. 'No, I haven't changed my mind. Are you saying that you have—that you've thought it over and have now decided your mother's ring doesn't have the value for you that you thought it had?' Not only was there ice in his eyes, it was there in his voice too, and she had a definite conviction that no one had ever gone back on a deal with him ever. 'If those sort of thoughts have been flitting through your mind, you can forget them,' he confirmed her suspicion that, the bargain struck, he had no intention of allowing her to back out. 'You agreed to be engaged to me for three months—you'll go through with it right up to the very last day.'

  Had he said those words in anger, she might have been able to dismiss the ominous ring to them as something said in the heat of the moment, but with each word stated so coldly, so absolutely without heat, Lucy felt fear strike within her that she was now committed, and that whatever happened during the next three months, there would be no getting out of it.

  * * *

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  `WELL,' Jud Hemming demanded when Lucy felt too tense to bring herself to answer him, 'is it your intention to try and wriggle out of it?' His tone was contemptuous now as if he thought that any promise made by a member of her sex was worthless. ·

  `As you've just stated,' Lucy replied bravely, the hostility in the room almost tangible, 'there would be very little point in my trying to "wriggle out of it". I meant what I said yesterday—I want my ring back, and if the only way that can be achieved is by temporarily wearing it as your fiancée, then I'll do it.' Her voice was almost as cold as his as she flung the words at him. 'I've never gone back on my word in my life.'

  `See that you don't,' he said sharply, and putting his hand in his pocket, he withdrew the well remembered small square box and placed it on the kitchen table in front of her. 'That seals our bargain, I think,' he told her, and turned to go.

  But even wanting him out of her sight as quickly as possible, Lucy wasn't avaricious, so wanting to take up the ring box, to open it, to gaze once more upon her mother's most cherished possession, she found herself asking :

  `How is Carol?' and Could have bitten her tongue out when Jud Hemming turned round and fixed her with a cool stare. 'I ... I mean—was she very upset?' Her voice trailed off to a whisper as the look on his face showed her he thought her question in very poor taste.

  `Why should you care? You've got what you wanted, haven't you?'

  Lucy bit her lip. Yes, she'd got what she wanted, but un-

  * * *

  like him, she was human enough to feel regret that by her doing so someone else must be terribly upset, even though in her view Carol had had a lucky escape. She tried to imagine anyone actually being married to this cold emotionless man, and only just managed to suppress a shudder at the thought.

  `Yes, I've got what I wanted,' she was forced to agree, and lifted her head to tell him. But I can't say that being the cause of causing someone else pain fills me with any great pleasure.'

  `It upsets you to think of Carol weeping her heart out?'

  Poor Carol, Lucy thought, squirming inwardly at the picture that came to mind of the girl who had been so friendly to her actually breaking down in front of this man who Would in all probability have been unmoved by her tears. She turned away from him so he shouldn't see the remorse in her face—he'd said it was too late to back out now, but ...

  `If it's any comfort to you, Carol has known from the outset that there was never any likelihood of our ending up as marriage partners.'

  But she was still upset when you asked for the return of the ring.'

  Not at all,' he assured her, his tones none the warmer for all he was making her feel a little bit better for her part in all of this. 'It was never my intention to give the ring to her—she knew that, and only wore it because she liked it.'

  While Lucy believed what he was saying—he was much too sure of himself to ever need lie about anything-she couldn't help wondering at his leaving a ring he had paid three thousand pounds for lying around for Carol to calmly pick up and place on her finger. Then again, the hought entered her mind, three thousand pounds meant nothing to him.

  `Does anyone else have to know-about us, I mean?' She had been chewing this over on and off before his visit,

  and while he might not be the most forthcoming man in the world at least he had unbent sufficiently to tell her that Carol had known she would never be walking down the aisle with him

  `You want to keep our engagement a secret?'

  Lucy winced at the word engagement. 'Well, apart from Carol, there'll be no need for anyone else to know, will there? I mean, it doesn't affect anyone else but the three of us, does it?' -

  Lucy liked people who looked at you when they were talking to you, but could have wished he wouldn't fix her with that hard steady stare so often. It made her feel uncomfortable, made her feel as th
ough he was looking into the very heart of her as if he was intrigued to know what went on inside of her, what made her tick.

  `No, it doesn't affect anyone but us,' he said quietly, and on that enigmatic note, without fully answering her question, he turned and left her.

  He really was the strangest of men, she reflected as she waited some minutes to be sure he had gone before she picked up the ring box. A law unto himself, she considered, he did exactly what he wanted to do regardless of how other people might feel, answered only those questions he thought in need of an answer, and had now left her not knowing whether or not she had his word that he would keep their engagement a secret, or if he had plans to announce it to anyone who might be interested.

  On thinking about it, Lucy decided he wouldn't tell anyone else. Why should he? All he was concerned with was getting rid of Carol-no, he wouldn't be telling anyone because in three months' time he would only have to make it known that the engagement was off. Lucy took the ring box up from the table and opened it, then took the ring from its velvet couch, handling it lovingly. A wave of emotion gripped her as she gazed at the exquisite setting of the knot of emeralds and diamonds, and Jud Hemming

  was forgotten as bittersweet memories of her mother took all other thoughts from her mind.

  Sometime during the afternoon Lucy answered the phone to hear her brother telling her he would not be home that night. To ask him where he was going and with whom would get her nowhere, she was beginning to learn, and she longed for the days before her parents had died when Rupert's life had been an open book.

  `I'm going to the races with Archie,' Rupert volunteered when Lucy had shown only mild interest in his comings and goings. Her heart dipped-Archie Proctor again ! `Archie has a nag running—if it wins, and Archie. is sure it's going to, we'll be - celebrating afterwards, so we've booked rooms at one of the hotels just in case.'