A Suitable Husband

Click. In that one sentence Jermaine, who knew her sister so well, had it all worked out. The wealthy elder brother, bachelor brother, had returned home unexpectedly and Edwina—never one to miss a chance and already established at Highfield—had no intention of removing herself from his orbit. Due to leave Highfield the next day, Edwina must have had her greedy little brain working furiously in her endeavour to find some way of lingering on at Highfield. Jermaine saw it all. Lukas Tavinor would be a much better catch than his brother. Poor Ash; like the proverbial hot coal, he would be dropped.

‘You’re a better rider than Ash?’

‘He’d barely settled in his saddle when I took off,’ Edwina boasted.

‘He wants me to come down and “look after” you.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Edwina shrieked.

‘Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to,’ Jermaine retorted, and hung up.

Well, she had no need to feel guilty any more, Jermaine fumed. All too plainly there was nothing wrong with Edwina’s back. Her ‘accident’ had merely been a means to an end. By the sound of it, the globe-trotting Lukas Tavinor was back in England for a short while—Edwina wanted to be ‘on the spot’ while he was still around, and before he went away again. And what Edwina wanted, she invariably got.

Jermaine was familiar with her sister’s tactics, yet even so it still shook her that there had not been a scrap of remorse from Edwina, or apology, for ‘holidaying’ with her younger sister’s boyfriend. Edwina had cared not a bit, nor felt any need to pretend when they’d been on the phone just now. She had not hurt her back, but took Jermaine’s loyalty for granted, assuming without question that she would not tell anyone what a humbug Edwina really was.

And the devil of it was, Jermaine fumed, Edwina was right. Edwina had done nothing to earn her loyalty, but she had it. She knew Jermaine wouldn’t be telling Ash what a fraud she was. But he had enough to learn. Jermaine went to bed wondering if he knew yet that he and Edwina were history.

By morning Jermaine was coming to terms with her ex-boyfriend’s duplicity and was starting to feel a little incredulous that she had ever given more than a passing thought to the sort of commitment Ash had wanted. Good grief, he was as fickle as the rest of them! She had been so sure about him too. So sure that he wasn’t remotely interested in Edwina.

Well, it was doubly certain now that the next man who dated Jermaine Hargreaves had better not try the ‘commitment’ angle. She positively was not interested. Come to that, she wasn’t interested in dating again either. She had a good job; she’d concentrate on that.

Thinking of which, Jermaine left her flat and drove to her place of work, aware as ever that something seemed to cut off in her when her boyfriends strayed in her sister’s direction—Jermaine was no longer attracted to them and Edwina was welcome to the spoils. One or two had come back, pleading for a second chance, but Jermaine just hadn’t wanted to know.

It was the same with Ash—she had lost interest in him. She had enjoyed his company but should he ever again ask her to go out with him then she would tell him, quite truthfully, thanks, but no thanks.

And, having moved on, Ash Tavinor would become someone she once knew, and would be no more than that—Jermaine got on with her work.

‘Coming for a swift half?’ Stuart Evans invited when they were clearing their desks for the day.

She had nothing else pressing, and Stuart was more a friend than anything else. No way could his invitation be construed as a date. ‘Since you ask,’ she accepted, and the ‘swift half’ turned out to be a bar meal. Jermaine arrived home around nine to hear her phone ringing.

‘It’s Ash,’ he said as soon as she answered.

Ash who? or Hi? Since she knew full well that there was nothing whatsoever the matter with Edwina, Jermaine simply couldn’t bring herself to enquire how she was. ‘How’s Ash?’ she enquired instead.

‘Look, Jermaine, couldn’t you come and look after Edwina? Not that there’s a lot to do,’ he added quickly. ‘The poor darling’s talking of going back to her place—she doesn’t want to be a nuisance. But I can’t let her do that and…’

‘In case you didn’t hear me last night—I have a job to go to.’ Jermaine cut him off, with no intention at all of going down to Highfield to hold her sister’s hand.

‘I never knew you were so hard!’ Ash complained.

Hard! ‘Let me put it this way. Edwina’s your holiday companion—take an extended vacation.’ There was a brief silence, but if Ash was drumming up some kind of an argument, Jermaine didn’t want to know. ‘Goodbye, Ash,’ she bade him, and had barely put the phone down before it rang again.

‘Have you no concern at all about your sister?’ enquired a harsh voice she had never heard before—though her mind was working overtime as to whom her caller might be.

Jermaine only just managed to bite back a snappy retort. She swallowed hard. ‘Good evening,’ she managed pleasantly.

‘Your place is here, looking after your sister, not staying out half the night.’

It was only a little after nine o’clock! Which monastery had he sprung from? Jermaine strove hard for control. ‘Have we been introduced?’ she tossed in shortly.

‘Lukas Tavinor!’ he barked—as she’d surmised, Ash’s brother. ‘Ash has an important meeting he can’t miss tomorrow. You’d better come now and…’

At which point Jermaine lost the small control she had over her annoyance with the whole lot of them. ‘ I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow!’ snapped she who hadn’t, not caring at all for his tone, much less his orders. ‘Edwina’s your guest—you look after her.’

A tense silence was her immediate answer. Followed by a clipped, ‘Ash was wrong to suggest I should try ringing you. You are as hard as he said you were.’

Jermaine’s breath caught. She didn’t even know this man, yet here he was ready to brand her—when all she’d done was to go out with his brother. This, and his brother’s duplicity, was what she received for her trouble!

‘That’s right,’ she agreed.

‘You won’t…?’

‘I won’t.’

‘My…’ He seemed to find her insensitivity beyond words.

‘Oh—go and play with your train set!’ she erupted, and abruptly terminated his call.

Suddenly she was the bad lot in all of this! Jermaine felt like throwing something. She didn’t even know the man. He didn’t know her. Yet, even so, he was ready to believe her to be heartless!

Well, on reflection she supposed it did look bad. But it wouldn’t look half so bad if Lukas Tavinor knew the truth—that all time she’d believed his brother was her boyfriend he had been dallying with her sister. Not that Jermaine was likely to tell him. And it certainly didn’t sound as if Ash had. But she could sit back with a feeling of relief; at least her parting remark had ended any odd chance that Lukas Tavinor Esquire might telephone her again.

Strangely, when the day before Jermaine had thought frequently of how when she had been cosily imagining Ash slaving away in Scotland he had been cosily having a fine old holiday with her sister, it seemed the following day to be his brother that occupied quite a few spare moments.

She’d got the impression that Lukas Tavinor had rather a nice voice, though there had been little to hear of it in the harsh way he had spoken to her. Who did he think he was anyway? He didn’t know her. In fact, he knew nothing about her. Other, of course, than what Ash and Edwina had told him.

While Jermaine wouldn’t put it past her sister to put a little poison down if it would elect some sympathy from Lukas Tavinor, Jermaine couldn’t think that the three months she had gone out with Ash counted for nothing. She had always thought him to have honesty and integrity. Which, if that was true, must mean he was pretty besotted by Edwina to have been carrying on a liaison with her while still going out with her sister.

All of which meant that Ash was going to be the one to be hurt when all of this was over. For, as sure as night followed day, Edwina was going to dump him when it suited her.

It was at that moment that Jermaine, finally over her shock at Ash’s behaviour, all at once realised that she would never have made that commitment to him which he had at one time wanted. She had been fond of him, but her emotions, she now knew, had not been any deeper than that.

Jermaine went home from her office having come to terms with Ash’s duplicity and realising that she still felt a little fond of him. Fond enough anyway to know that she didn’t want him to feel very badly hurt when Edwina gave him the big heave-ho.

Jermaine made herself something to eat, wondering again about his brother. Lukas sounded a particularly nasty piece of work. She smiled. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Edwina pulled it off? From the little she knew of Lukas—and, thank you very much, she didn’t want any more communication with him—they seemed exactly right for each other.

She was still having rosy dreams of one Edwina Hargreaves and one Lukas Tavinor giving each other hell when there was a ring at her doorbell. Thinking it might be one of her neighbours, Jermaine went to the door. But, on opening it, she saw not a neighbour but a tall, dark-haired, firm-jawed, mid-thirties man standing there.

The fact that he was immaculately suited told her he hadn’t come to read the electricity meter. Add to that the grim look about him, and Jermaine’s own anticipatory welcoming smile went into hiding.

He said nothing, this man, until those steady grey eyes had fully taken in her platinum-blonde hair—loose about her shoulders—her large violet eyes, and her slender yet curvaceous body.

‘And you are?’ She hadn’t intended to say a word.

‘Tavinor!’ he clipped.

Her insides gave a funny little squiggle. Grief—and she’d not long since decided she didn’t want anything further to do with him! ‘Which one?’ she snapped right back, knowing full well he had to be Lukas—surely there couldn’t be three of them!

‘You’re already acquainted with my brother, Ash, I believe.’

Like we’d had something going from strength to strength before I introduced my sister—oh, does she have a nice surprise waiting for you, Lukas Tavinor! How fast can you run? ‘We have met,’ Jermaine concurred.

‘Are we going to have this discussion on your doorstep?’ he demanded.

It wouldn’t have taken much for her to have said no and shut the door; end of discussion. But manners were manners, and, regrettably, she had a few. ‘Come in,’ she invited, and led the way to her small but, thanks to her mother’s insistence, very pleasantly carpeted and furnished sitting room.

Jermaine knew why he’d come. She opened her mouth to tell him ‘Not a chance’ but he got in first. ‘I thought perhaps I should call to personally appeal to you to come to Highfield to do your duty to your sister,’ he said without preamble.

You don’t appeal to me personally or any other way, Jermaine fumed, not taking kindly to that ‘duty’ dig. ‘I trust you haven’t come very far out of your way, for nothing,’ she hinted.

‘Aren’t you interested in your sister’s well-being?’ he demanded, her hint not lost on him.

For a moment she was stumped for a reply, but, since loyalty forbade her from telling him what a fraud her sister was being, Jermaine settled for, ‘I’m sure Edwina must be feeling better by now.’

‘Is that all you can say?’ he enquired harshly.

Jermaine had suddenly had enough of the whole of it. Ash, Edwina, and now him. ‘Look,’ she said snappily, ‘if you’re that concerned somebody should look after her, hire a nurse!’ He’d got pots of money—he could afford it.

‘I’ve offered to get a nurse in. Your sister wouldn’t hear of robbing some other patient of a nurses’ expert services.’

I’ll bet she wouldn’t hear of it. It wouldn’t take a nurse very long to realise that there was very little the matter with Edwina’s back. ‘Then Edwina will have to put up with it without a nurse!’ Jermaine stood her ground to tell Lukas Tavinor.

He didn’t like it; he didn’t like her tone. Jermaine could tell that from the slightest narrowing of his eyes. She had an idea that few opposed this man and got away with it. Oh, my word, that jaw looked tough.

‘And that’s your last word?’ he questioned grimly.

‘“Goodbye” seems a better one,’ she said sweetly, and didn’t miss the glint that came to his suddenly steely grey eyes the moment before she moved round him and went and opened the door wide.

Without a word he strode straight past her, and Jermaine closed the door after him and went back to her sitting room—and found that her hands were shaking.

For heaven’s sake, what was the matter with her? She’d repeated to Tavinor what she’d told him on the phone last night, that she was not going to go anywhere near Highfield, his home, to look after her sister. And that was the end of it—so why did she think that, somehow, she hadn’t heard the last of it?

CHAPTER TWO

MEMORY of a pair of grey eyes glinting steel made Jermaine leave her bed the next morning well before her alarm went off. Ridiculous, she fumed, as she showered and went over yet again Lukas Tavinor’s visit last night. She was giving the man far too much space in her head. For goodness’ sake, she hardly knew him—and no way on this earth could he make her go down to Highfield to ‘look after’ her sister.

Jermaine tossed him out of her head. Overbearing pig—who did he think he was? She went to work, however, with the feeling starting to creep in that she wasn’t too happy that anyone should think her the unfeeling kind of monster that Tavinor, and his younger brother, obviously believed her to be. But, since she couldn’t very well tell either of them what an utter sham her sister was, Jermaine knew that she was stuck with the ‘unfeeling monster’ label.

‘Come out with me tonight and make all my dreams come true?’ Tony Casbolt, ace flirt, waltzed into her office with his usual Thursday offer.

‘I’m shampooing the dog,’ she answered without looking up.

Tony knew as well as everyone else that she didn’t have a dog; he never gave up. ‘One of these days you’ll say yes, and I’ll be shampooing my cat,’ he threatened.

She laughed. She liked him. But she wasn’t laughing a half an hour later when she took a call from her mother. Her mother rarely phoned her at her office.

‘Are you all right?’ Jermaine asked quickly; her mother sounded rather strained.

‘I think so—but your father’s getting himself into a state.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jermaine questioned, ready to drop everything and dash to her parents’ home.

‘We’ve just had a visit from Ash Tavinor’s brother.’

‘Lukas!’ Jermaine exclaimed in absolute astonishment.

‘Oh, you know him?’ her mother asked, but didn’t wait for a reply as she went on, ‘I know you went out with Ash several times; you brought him here once. But he’s apparently been going out with Edwina since you stopped seeing him. Anyhow, she’s been staying at the Tavinor home, and has injured her back slightly. Since Lukas was passing this way, he called in to personally tell us not to be alarmed, but that she might feel better if one of us went to see her.’

He’d been to see her parents! Jermaine couldn’t believe it. The utterly unspeakable swine. Since Tavinor was passing, my aunt Mabel! The devious toad had made a special journey or she was a Dutchman.

‘I’ve spoken to her on the phone, and she’s fine.’ Jermaine immediately put her mother’s mind at rest.

‘You have? But you’ve not seen her?’

‘No,’ Jermaine admitted carefully.

‘I shall have to go and look after her. Your father won’t rest until one of us does, and you know how hopeless he is in a sickroom.

‘Mum, there’s no…’ ‘Need’ she would have said, but her mother interrupted.

‘I’ll have to. You know your father.’

Indeed she did. And at that point Jermaine knew, galling though it was to accept, that Tavinor, L. had won. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, as she knew she must. Her father would go on and on until one of them had seen and reported on Edwina. He would be beside himself if anything happened to her—it would be pointless telling him that his eldest daughter hadn’t hurt herself at all.

‘Will you love? I’ll go if…’

Jermaine wouldn’t hear of it. The bout of flu her mother had suffered had been particularly exhausting and she was only now getting back to her former strength. No way was Jermaine going to have her fetching and carrying for Edwina—as she knew full well Edwina would let her.

‘I’ll go and see her tonight after work. How’s that?’

‘And you’ll ring as soon as you can?’

Jermaine promised she would, and ended the call with steam very nearly coming out of her ears. How could he? How could he? Okay, so her parents weren’t in their dotage, but Tavinor hadn’t known that when he’d gone to see them.

Barely knowing what she was doing, she was so incensed, Jermaine grabbed the phone and dialled the number she had occasionally dialled when she’d needed to delay meeting Ash when work had taken precedence.

‘International Systems,’ answered a voice she remembered.

‘It’s not Ash I want this time—’ Jermaine put a smile in her voice ‘—but Lukas Tavinor. Is he in?’ Too late Jermaine realised what, in her fury, she had overlooked. If her parents had only just had a visit from Lukas Tavinor, then he couldn’t yet be back at his office.

‘I’m afraid he’s not answering, and his PA is off sick. Is it personal, or can anyone else…?’

‘May I leave a message for him to ring me? Jermaine Hargreaves.’ She gave her name, and also where she might be reached.

She was still angry when she went out for some air at lunchtime. Seeing the brightly lit shops all festive with Christmas decorations did nothing to calm her sense of outrage. In fact the more she thought of what Tavinor had done, the more furious she became. Suddenly a date with Tony Casbolt that night seemed a better idea than what she was committed to do.

She was still kicking against what she had to do when Stuart left the office, saying he’d be away about fifteen minutes. Only seconds later her loathing of what she had to do peaked, and she quickly dialled her sister’s mobile phone.

Unbelievably, Edwina wasn’t answering. Jermaine let go an exasperated sigh. So much for her notion to get Edwina to phone their parents to tell them she was fine. Not that there was any guarantee that Edwina would phone, even if she said she would.

Hating that Lukas Tavinor should dominate not only her thoughts but her actions as well—no way did she want to make that journey tonight—Jermaine rang his home. Ash answered. She put the phone down without speaking. What was the point?

It was just after four when the phone on her desk rang. Jermaine was glad that she again had the office to herself—her caller was Lukas Tavinor.

She did not thank him for returning her call, but in less than a second went from standing still into furious orbit. ‘How dare you descend on my parents?’ she blazed. ‘How dare…’

‘You have my address?’ Obviously a very busy man, he chopped her off mid-rant, and Jermaine hated him with a vengeance. This arrogant pig of a man, this overbearing, odious rat, was totally confident she would be going to his home that night. She was too choked with rage to speak. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer me to call for you on my way home,’ he suggested smoothly.

Jermaine took a deep and semi-controlling breath. ‘I’ll make my own way!’ she snapped. ‘Where do you live?’

She hated him afresh, because there was a smile in his voice as he gave her directions. And she wasn’t sure, had he been near, that she wouldn’t have hit him, when, silkily, he added, ‘Don’t forget your nightie and a toothbrush.’

Jermaine slammed the phone down. What a skunk! She wasn’t staying that long. A quick look at Edwina so she could truthfully tell her parents that Edwina had ‘fully recovered’, then she would be back in her car and on her way. She would be sleeping in her own bed that night.

Events, however, transpired against her. She was ten minutes away from leaving her desk to go home to grab a quick bite to eat—no way was she going to dine at that man’s table—when Chris Kepple, one of her favourite executives, phoned in asking her if she could get a quote and some brochures out that night.

‘I’m sorry to drop it on you this late, but I’ve been with my client all day and I wouldn’t like him to feel our efficiency is any less brilliant than he’s sure it is. You can scold me the next time you see me,’ he promised.

Jermaine laughed. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she answered, and took down the details of his day’s business and got on with it. She eventually finished her day’s work at seven-thirty, and was halfway to her flat before she unwound sufficiently from that last couple of hectic hours to consider she might have done better to have driven straight to Hertfordshire. It was a foul night—wind, rain, storm and tempest—and she could have been part way there by now.

Rain lashed the windows as she stood in her kitchen eating a hasty sandwich and drinking a quick cup of coffee. She still had not the smallest intention of staying overnight at Highfield but, just in case she hadn’t found the place by midnight and had to put up at some hotel, she tossed a few things in an overnight bag and went out to her car.

The rain had lessened as Jermaine headed her car in the direction of Hertfordshire. She drove along reflecting that, for the sake of her parents’ peace of mind, she was going to have to fulfil this wild goose chase—and realising that no matter how late she got there she would have to telephone them; they were waiting for her call.

Rain began again before she was anywhere near to Highfield. Deluging down thick and fast, too fast for it to drain quickly away from the country roads on which she was travelling. The result being that she had to check her speed and cautiously make her way.

She mutinied against her sister, she mutinied against Ash Tavinor, but most of all she mutinied against Lukas Tavinor, who that day had had the unmitigated effrontery to go and see her parents.

By the time Jermaine eventually came to Highfield she was not very taken with any of its inhabitants. This was ridiculous, totally ridiculous. There was nothing in the world the matter with Edwina. Nothing at all. It was only because of wretched sisterly loyalty, Jermaine fumed, that she had been unable to tell anybody about it. That Edwina did not feel the same loyalty to her, or she would never have made a play for Ash, didn’t seem to alter anything. Jermaine sighed. Stupid though she knew it was, she couldn’t help remaining loyal to Edwina.

Highfield, as its name suggested, was built on highish ground, and as Jermaine steered her way she was glad to find there were no more stretches of water to negotiate around; all water was running downhill.

Her feeling of mutiny against the house’s occupants dipped slightly when she noticed that someone had left the porch lights on, as if to guide her. She studied the stone façade of the elegant old building; she found it truly quite lovely.

But this would never do. Giving herself a mental shake, Jermaine left her car and sprinted for cover from the torrential downpour. Under the cover of the stone-pillared porch, she rang the doorbell. She was not kept waiting very long.

Lukas Tavinor himself pulled back the stout front door and for several seconds just stood looking at her. But Jermaine had had enough of this. He might be tall, he might be dark, he might be good-looking, but rain was pelting in at her and she did not want to be here anyway.

‘You want a discussion on your doorstep?’ she questioned disagreeably, and disliked him some more when she actually thought she saw his lips twitch. If he was laughing at her she’d…

‘Where’s your case?’ he asked.

Jermaine, confused that he might be laughing at her, angry at him and this whole wretched business, and having fallen instantly in love with his house, found she was telling him, ‘It’s in my car.’