Mistress On Loan

Don’t be silly, Adie, she reproved herself, using the childish version of her name she’d coined when she was small. Just go to the bank and get it sorted.

It was a simple enough system that she and Piers had devised. He’d opened an account at a local bank, with a chequebook in her name, and each month she sent him an itemised account of her spending and he deposited sufficient funds to cover it.

‘You’re too trusting,’ she’d told him.

‘I love you,’ he’d returned. ‘Love can’t trust too much.’

For the past four months the system had worked like a charm. But this time, when some of the heaviest bills had to be paid, a hiccup had developed.

I suppose it had to happen eventually, Adrien thought, as she set her Jeep in motion. Nothing’s perfect, especially when it’s automated. But why did it have to be this month?

The bank was busy, but as Adrien waited at the enquiry desk she had the curious feeling that people were watching her. That a couple of the cashiers had exchanged glances as she walked in.

They probably realise they’ve screwed up in a big way and are wondering how to apologise, she decided, with an inward shrug.

The enquiry clerk looked nonplussed when she saw her. ‘Oh—Miss Lander. The manager has been trying to contact you at home, but we only got your answer-machine.’

‘That’s right.’ Adrien’s brows lifted in slight hauteur. My God, she thought, she sounds almost accusing. ‘I’m staying at the Grange so that I can oversee the final stages.’ If it’s any business of yours.

‘Oh—that explains it. Will you take a seat for a few moments? Mr Davidson needs to talk to you urgently.’

Adrien was glad to sit down, because her legs were trembling suddenly and her stomach was quaking.

Because those were not phrases that indicated grovelling on the bank’s part. On the contrary…

She wished that she’d taken the trouble to change, to put on a skirt and blouse, or even a dress, some heels, and some make-up. Because she had the oddest feeling she was going to need all the help she could get. She was also aware that in her present gear she looked about sixteen.

‘Miss Lander?’ Mr Davidson was standing beside her. ‘Come into the interview room, won’t you?’ His smile was pallid and his gaze slid away. A very different reaction from his enthusiasm when the account was being set up.

She wished, not for the first time, that Piers had used her own bank, where she was a known and valued customer.

While he closed the door, Adrien took the chair he indicated. ‘Mr Davidson, I understand you’ve returned some of my cheques.’

‘I’ve had no choice, Miss Lander. There are no funds to meet them.’

Her throat tightened, and her heart began to pound. She heard herself say with unbelievable calmness, ‘Then payment must have been delayed for some reason. Perhaps you could give me a little leeway here, while I contact my fiancé.’

‘I’m afraid not, Miss Lander. You see, we’ve been notified that no further deposits will be made. Did Mr Mendoza not warn you of his intentions?’

‘No more deposits?’ Her lips felt numb. ‘But that’s impossible.’

‘I fear not.’ He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. ‘I have some other bad news which I must pass on to you. I have just learned that Mr Mendoza is no longer the owner of Wildhurst Grange. That he has sold it to a property development company.’

There was a strange buzzing in Adrien’s ears. The room seemed to be swimming round her.

She said hoarsely, ‘No—it’s not true. It can’t be. He—he wouldn’t do that. Not without telling me—discussing it…’

‘I’m afraid it is perfectly true. I have the head of the company in my office now, and…Miss Lander—where are you going?’

The metal handle slipped in her damp grip, but she wrenched the door open and ran out.

The door to the manager’s office had been left slightly ajar. She pushed it wide and went in, knowing what she was going to see. Fearing it…

A man was standing by the window. He was tall, and dressed in beautifully cut black Italian trousers and a matching rollneck sweater in fine wool. The long overcoat had been discarded, and was lying across a chair. His dark blond hair, expertly layered, reached the collar of his sweater. His face was lean, with a beak of a nose and strongly marked mouth and chin. The eyes that met hers across the room were as grey as a northern sea, and about as warm.

And at the edge of one cheekbone there was a small triangular scar.

Adrien recognised that scar, because she’d put it there. She’d been just nine years old, and she had been cold, hungry, and hysterical. Because he’d deliberately left her on a flimsy platform in a tall tree for hours. To punish her. To make her think that she’d be left there for ever. That she’d die there.

So she’d picked up a stone, and flung it at him. He’d gasped and thrown back his head, but it had hit him, and she had seen a small trickle of blood on his face and been glad, because she’d hated him. She’d wanted to hurt him.

He’d looked at her then with those cold grey eyes just as he was looking at her now. With contempt and a kind of icy arrogance. And without pity.

She’d been frightened then, and she was frightened now. Too scared to speak or to run. Although she was no longer a child. Or an eighteen-year-old whose birthday had been ruined by theft and betrayal.

All these years she’d blotted him out of her memory, even though the legacy of those traumatic days was still with her. Haunting her each time she had to climb a ladder or stand on a chair, and found herself assailed by nausea and giddiness. Piercing her when she opened her jewellery drawer and saw the empty velvet box which had once held the garnet pendant.

But she’d managed to convince herself that she would never see him again. That she could bury the past.

And that he would have done the same.

But she was wrong, because here he was.

And once again she was stranded and terrified, with no means of escape.

CHAPTER TWO

‘IT’S been a long time, Adrien.’ His voice had deepened, but she would have recognised that husky timbre anywhere.

She would not—not—allow herself to go to pieces in front of him. Not again. Not for a third time.

Instead she lifted her chin defiantly. ‘My God.’ She kept her tone just this side of insolence. ‘It’s the Haddon boy.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not any longer. I’ve become the Haddon man. A distinction I advise you to observe.’

‘A threat,’ she said. ‘But then you were always good at them.’

‘And an accusation,’ he said. ‘For which you had a positive genius. Even when you were in pigtails. And later.’ The grey eyes made a leisurely and nerve-jangling inspection of her. ‘You haven’t changed a great deal—over the intervening years.’

Her throat tightened. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say the same for you. I would never have known you.’

He laughed softly. ‘Are you quite sure about that, Adie? Wasn’t there just a glimmer of recognition this morning when you were staring down at me from your ivory tower?’

His use of her childhood name grated. As did the confirmation of her earlier suspicion that he’d known she was there.

She said shortly, ‘You were the last person in the world I ever expected to see again. And you didn’t hang around to introduce yourself.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I had business elsewhere. And besides, I knew we’d be meeting again very soon. I didn’t want to anticipate such a pleasurable moment. The first, I hope, of so many more to come,’ he added silkily.

She bit her lip. ‘So—what are you doing here? Why have you come back? I don’t understand…’

‘You’re not required to.’ His smile chafed her nerve-endings. ‘Perhaps I just wanted to surprise you.’

He looked past her as Mr Davidson peered anxiously into the room.

‘Is everything all right, Mr Haddon?’

‘Everything’s fine, thanks.’ The sudden switch to power and charm made Adrien reel inwardly. ‘Could you give us five minutes? Miss Lander and I would like to renew our old acquaintance.’

‘Yes—yes—of course.’ Mr Davidson began to back out of the room.

She wanted to cry out, Don’t go. Don’t leave me with him. But she couldn’t allow herself to betray such weakness.

Instead, she stood in silence and watched the door close. Shutting her in with him. Her enemy.

‘How very deferential of him,’ she threw into the sudden silence. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t call you sir.’

‘He probably will—given time. I’m about to become a very important customer at this bank.’

‘Does he know you were the housekeeper’s son?’ She cringed inwardly at the crudity of the query. Despised herself for voicing it too. Because she’d liked Mrs Haddon, who’d always been warm and kind to her on Adrien’s visits to the Grange with her father.

She had a sudden memory of the well-scrubbed kitchen table, being allowed to scrape the remains of the cake mixture from the bowl. And being given fresh-baked cookies, with her initial picked out in chocolate chips.

‘I’ve no idea.’ His voice was calm. ‘But it would make no difference. Because money talks—and it has a louder voice than your outdated notions of snobbery.’

Faint colour rose in her face, but she stood her ground. ‘Then you’ve come up in the world. How odd.’

His brows lifted. ‘I’ve worked hard. I’ve found it pays off. And I intend to go on working so I can have what I want in life.’

‘Wildhurst Grange, for instance?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

‘Well, I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Piers would never sell his inheritance—and especially not to you.’

‘Piers would sell his own grandmother to get out of the kind of mess he’s in.’

She said thickly, ‘How dare you say that? After the way you’ve behaved. You always hated him—you were always jealous…’

‘I had no reason to like him.’ The grey eyes glittered at her. ‘But I wasn’t jealous. He had nothing that I wanted—not then.’

‘And now you want the Grange. So you’ve stolen it from him—somehow.’ She lifted her chin contemptuously. ‘Well—once a thief, always a thief.’

‘What a depressingly commonplace mind you’ve developed, Adie,’ he drawled. ‘It must be through associating with Mr Mendoza. But I’m sure you’ll recover.’

‘I don’t have to,’ she said. ‘Or did you think I’d dump Piers because he doesn’t have the Grange any more?’ She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘If so, you’re wrong. Because that was never the attraction. Piers and I are going to be together, no matter what’s gone wrong. As soon as I get home I’m going to call him and…’

‘Well, make sure you get the time zones right.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s probably the middle of the night in Brazil. And you wouldn’t want to disturb him on his honeymoon.’

The sudden silence in the room was almost tangible. Adrien could feel it beating against her eardrums, constricting her heart.

She looked at him numbly. He seemed to have retreated to a great distance, his dark figure swimming in front of her. Swimming…

‘Sit down.’ His voice was suddenly incisive, authoritative. ‘Put your head between your knees and breathe deeply.’

She obeyed for no better reason than her legs no longer seemed capable of supporting her.

When the dizziness had passed, and she could speak again, she said, ‘You’re lying.’

He said slowly, ‘No, it’s true. He’d been seeing this girl out in Portugal, and made her pregnant. Her father is Brazilian, and powerful, and insisted on marriage. And Brazil was a safer option for him than London or Lisbon.’

He paused. ‘Will you believe, Adrien, that it gives me no pleasure to tell you?’

‘No.’ She raised her head to glare at him. ‘I don’t believe it. You’ve waited a long time for your revenge, Chay Haddon. Waited to punish me for having you sent away all those years ago. I just wish with all my heart that you’d gone to jail instead.’

‘Only to jail?’ he came back at her mockingly. ‘I was certain hell would be the preferred destination.’

‘Hell’s too good for you.’ She pushed back a strand of hair that had escaped its confinement and got to her feet, swaying slightly as she fought off the last remnants of dizziness.

‘Be careful.’ He went to take her arm, and she recoiled.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Don’t ever dare to touch me.’

‘A threat, an accusation, and now a challenge.’ He was actually smiling. ‘What a pity I have neither the time nor the inclination to take you up on it. At present,’ he added silkily. ‘I gather you’re terminating our reunion. May I ask where you’re going?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m going to find Piers and talk to him. Show you up for the liar and cheat that you are.’

‘I wouldn’t have so much to say about cheating.’ There was a note of grimness in his voice. ‘Not when you owe money all over the area. And don’t even think of going to Brazil, Adie, always supposing you could find the fare. I’m sure your creditors wouldn’t like it, quite apart from Piers’s wife.’

He opened the door and held it for her. ‘I’ll see you around.’

To answer, Not if I see you first, would have been simply childish rudeness. Instead Adrien did not even glance at him as she walked out of the office.

She heard Mr Davidson saying, ‘Miss Lander—Miss Lander, I need to talk to you,’ but she ignored him too, breaking into a run as she headed for the door of the bank.

She could only think of Piers, and the necessity to contact him. To disprove the monstrous things that Chay Haddon had been saying. Nothing else mattered, or could be allowed to matter.

The next hour was a nightmare. She tried faxing Piers in Portugal, but found his outlet had been closed down and that the same thing applied to his e-mail address. The telephone line she’d always used seemed to be disconnected.

Panic was closing her throat and making her fingers clumsy as she pressed the buttons on her receiver, trying every number he’d ever given her.

Eventually someone answered—a man speaking Portuguese. She asked haltingly for Piers, and heard him say something in a muffled voice, as if he’d covered the phone with his hand, which was followed by a burst of laughter, as if other people in the room were responding to his remark. To a joke that her query had triggered.

Adrien found she had bitten her lip so hard she could taste blood.

When he spoke to her directly, he made her understand in fractured English that Piers had gone to Brazil and would not be coming back. Nor could he tell her where she could contact him.

Amid another shout of laughter, he added, ‘Good luck.’

She put the receiver back on its stand and stared into space, aware that her heart was thudding erratically against her ribcage.

However unacceptable she might find it, it seemed that Chay Haddon had been speaking the truth after all. That Piers had indeed sold him the Grange, and vanished.

She could feel pain ready to explode inside her, but she dammed it back. She could not deal with her personal anguish and betrayal now, because there were other overriding considerations.

Thanks to Piers, she was now in debt for thousands of pounds, over and above her mortgage and bank loan. All over the area there were people who would soon be demanding their money, and she had no means of paying them.

She looked around her at the pleasant sitting room, with its familiar furniture and ornaments. They’d always been part of her life, but soon all of them could be lost for ever, along with the cottage, and the business.

She was without illusions about what she could be facing. Bankruptcy was staring her in the face, and it would touch everyone around her too. Zelda and Smudge could end up homeless. And there were the women in the workroom as well, who thought they were in secure employment and had taken on extra obligations as a result.

And all because she’d fallen in love.

A sob rose in her throat.

She’d trusted Piers and he’d defaulted, crudely and cruelly. Her name was on the empty account and the chequebook, and she was responsible. She had no contract or written guarantees. Nothing that could support her in law, even if Piers could be found.

He’d arranged it that way, quite deliberately, and because she loved him she’d agreed. And her naivety could cost her everything.

And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Zelda had been openly unhappy about taking on such a big project that would absorb all Adrien’s time and energy.

‘People aren’t going to wait while you sort out the Grange,’ she’d argued. ‘They’ll go elsewhere. Tell people we’re never available. And word soon gets round. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket like this.’

But she’d wanted to be totally involved in the Grange’s restoration, she thought achingly, because it was going to be her home, and she didn’t want anyone else imposing their ideas. Intruding on the idyll she was creating.

Moving like an automaton, she went through to the kitchen, filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil. She needed some strong black coffee to clear her head while she made a list. She needed to know the entire extent of her obligations and also what work A to Z had in the pipeline.

She would also have to go back and face Mr Davidson, as well as her own bank manager. Try and arrange an overdraft facility or a further loan. And then work her way out of trouble.

She swallowed, aware that she had a hard furrow to plough.

But she had to start somewhere. See if she could pull some of the irons out of the fire before Zelda and the others got to hear the rumours that would already be flying…

They depend on me, and I can’t let them down, she thought, catching her breath convulsively. I can’t…

She fetched a notepad and a pencil and began to write.

In spite of her brave front, backed up by business suit and briefcase, all her worst fears had been confirmed by mid-afternoon.

Her own bank manager, while sympathetic, had told her that her borrowing limit was already fully extended, and he couldn’t agree another loan. And Mr Davidson had sighed heavily, looking down his nose, and had asked how she proposed to pay off her present unauthorised overdraft.

Even more dauntingly, both of them had recommended her to consult an insolvency expert ‘without delay’.

She had also been reminded that, as the Grange now belonged to Haddon Developments, she was in effect squatting, and should remove her personal effects immediately and hand over her keys to Mr Haddon’s lawyers, Frencham and Co, in the High Street.

So there was no reprieve, Adrien thought as she climbed wearily back into her Jeep. And the execution would take place as scheduled. She was shaking inwardly, and her facial muscles ached from the effort of hanging on to her self-control.

In a few short hours she had been transformed from a girl happily in charge of her own life, with a successful business and a future with the man she loved, into some kind of grotesque puppet, capable of movement only when someone else jerked the strings.

And the worst part of it all—the realisation that flayed her skin and made her stomach quiver with nausea—was that Chay Haddon was the one holding the strings.

And each time she’d encountered him he’d brought trauma with him, she thought shivering.

What in the world could have brought him back? That was what she couldn’t understand. Because his own memories of the Grange could hardly be happy ones. The housekeeper’s son, she thought, who’d been sent off to boarding school for marooning her in a tree, then banished from the house for ever for stealing her garnet pendant.

Was he seeking some kind of posthumous revenge on Angus Stretton, who’d been responsible for exiling him from the house and had also, in the aftermath, sacked his mother, who’d given such quiet and faithful service for so many years.

If so, there was a real sickness there, she thought, wrapping her arms protectively around her body.

But it was a comprehensive and sweeping retribution that he was exacting. Piers had lost his inheritance, and she—she was facing financial ruin.

As he was already well aware, she realised, recalling his jibe about her creditors. He knew exactly what he was doing. The thief had returned as a robber baron, and this time he’d stolen her whole life.

She wanted to run and hide. Seek some dark corner where no one would ever find her. But she couldn’t do that. She had to be strong—to stand her ground and fight back with whatever weapons she could get.

But first she had to say farewell to the Grange. She still couldn’t deal with the more personal loss, although she’d have to do so soon. She’d have to admit that Piers had deserted her and married someone else. Endure the inevitable gossip and speculation. Local people were kind, but only human, and her downfall would be sensational stuff. Plus, there would be resentment from those who’d worked on the Grange, and were owed money as a result.

When businesses went bust there was often a knock-on effect, and the local economy couldn’t afford it, she thought worriedly.

Gordon and his sub-contractors would be the main victims.

I’ll pay them back somehow, she vowed silently. Even it takes the rest of my life.

A life that stretched before her as bleak and empty as a desert—and, she realised, with a pang, just as dangerous.

The Grange looked beautiful in the late-afternoon sun, the mellow brickwork glowing.

Adrien swallowed past the sudden constriction in her throat and drove round to the side of the house.

To her limitless relief, there were no other vehicles around.

Don’t look too closely at anything, she adjured herself, as she left the Jeep. You can’t afford to be emotional. Not yet. Just grab your things and get out while the going’s good.

Usually when she walked across the wide entrance hall, and up the sweep of oak staircase, she felt all the pride of ownership glowing inside her. Today she couldn’t even afford a glimmer of satisfaction in a job well done.

Because Chay Haddon wasn’t just getting a house. He was getting all the heart and soul that she’d poured into it. All the love.

And she was only sorry she couldn’t tear it down, brick by brick, with her bare hands, and leave him with a pile of rubble.

Instead she was the one with the handful of dust—and the nightmares.

She walked slowly to the side door and stood for a moment, trying to control her flurried breathing. She had the key in her hand, so what was she waiting for?

She needed to go in—to get the whole thing over and done with—then be on her way. For the last time.

Gagging suddenly, she turned and ran, stumbling in her haste. She by-passed the lawn, where Chay Haddon had stood that morning, opting for the gravelled path which led to what had once been the enclosed kitchen garden but which now resembled a jungle on a bad day.

She closed her mind to the plans she’d made to transform this riot of weeds into a thriving vegetable plot again and kept running, until she reached the gate at the far end, and the area of woodland beyond it.

It was so long since she’d been here. She’d deliberately shunned this part of the grounds for sixteen years. But now, in the face of the greatest crisis of her life, she needed to confront that old childhood fear and defeat it.

She was looking for the only oak tree—an ancient, massive specimen, with room in its spreading branches for a whole terrace of treehouses.

‘So where does he go all day?’ Down the years, Piers’s voice returned to haunt her. ‘The housekeeper’s son. Where does he hide himself? Do you know?’

And she, eager to please this glamorous dark-haired boy, paying his first visit to his uncle, had said, ‘Yes—I’ll show you.’ At the same time knowing, guiltily, that she shouldn’t. That it was not her secret to share.

Now, for a moment, staring up into the branches, she thought she’d picked the wrong tree. She’d been convinced that time would roll back, and she’d find herself, just nine years old, in shorts and tee shirt, her hair in the plaits she’d hated, looking up longingly at the wooden platform that had been Chay’s hidden place.