Читать книгу The Trouble with Trent! - Jessica Steele - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

BY MORNING Alethea had decided that she would ring Trent de Havilland and tell him that she was not going to go to dinner with him. She would tell him that she had been so surprised by his call, she hadn’t had a chance to recall a prior engagement. Into her mind loomed the thought of another evening of Polly deciding she did not want to go to sleep and, what was more, she was never going to steep—and if she wasn’t ever going to go to sleep, the whole world was going to hear about it.

Hating herself for thinking that it would be quite nice to have a tantrum-free evening, Alethea took her mother a cup of tea and went to her office, where she found time during the day only to discover that Trenton de Havilland’s home phone number wasn’t listed. With Mr Chapman dashing to various meetings, she had no chance to ask him if he had Trent’s number. Or, failing that, if Mr Chapman knew where Trenton de Havilland worked.

‘Bye, Alethea,’ Carol said when they parted in the car park twenty minutes after five.

‘Bye,’ Alethea smiled, and drove home with her tummy all of a flutter. She had been out on dates before, but only with men she had known for some while—and never with any man like Trent!

‘Dinner will be late,’ her mother greeted her. ‘We’ve had such a day of it.’

‘Polly playing up?’ Alethea guessed.

‘She’s been as good as gold.’ Her mother purred as if the high voltage tot had never ever known a temper tantrum. ‘We went to the house—it hasn’t been sold yet—and he was there.’

‘Keith?’

‘Who else? He’s been suspended.’

‘SEC have found out about the missing money?’ Her mother nodded. ‘They’re investigating. I couldn’t resist telling him a few home truths. He called me an interfering old bat! Can you imagine?’

There was more in the same vein. Eleanor Pemberton only broke off momentarily when Maxine came into the room, looking as if she’d been crying. Alethea guessed that her sister had heard more than enough of what her mother had to say on the subject of her husband, and broke in quickly, ‘Actually, I’m going out to dinner this evening, so I won’t be needing—’

‘With Carol?’ her mother asked sharply, her thoughts swiftly taken away from the man her other daughter had married.

‘No—er—a—an acquaintance.’

‘A male acquaintance?’ her mother fired at her before she could add more. ‘You never did get round to saying who phoned last night—is it him?’

‘Yes, actually.’

‘Hrmph,’ her mother grunted. ‘Do I know him?’ was the next question. Alethea had been through the third degree on several occasions before.

‘I’ll introduce you; he’s calling for me at seven,’ she replied, and quickly made her escape to go and shower and change, and to wonder why if, as she told herself, she did not want to go out with Mr Trenton de Havilland, she should feel so churned up; somehow she was very wary, yet at the same time she was experiencing a prickle of excitement at the prospect.

Alethea found it a rush to be ready on time. Sadie and Georgia came in to help—which added another five minutes.

A high-pitched squabble broke out between the two little girls when they both wanted to use her face powder at the same time. However, having separated them and placated them with a spray of perfume behind their ears, Alethea and her two ‘helpers’ finally left her room with one minute to go before seven.

She knew that, good manners aside, there was no way in which she was going to be able to avoid introducing her escort to her family, but she was hopeful of making that introduction as brief as possible.

It was not that she was ashamed of her family in any way. It was just that Trenton de Havilland was a very sophisticated man. She wanted him out of there before her mother attempted to give him the grilling which had been the fate of her other escorts.

‘Aunt Alethea gave us a squirt with her perfume...’ The girls rushed ahead of her into the sitting room—and stopped dead.

A prickle of apprehension had already started along Alethea’s spine as she followed them. She, too, stopped dead. Trent de Havilland had already arrived! The strained atmosphere spoke volumes.

How long he had been closeted with her mother and her sister and, for once, an angelic-looking Polly, Alethea had no idea. She hadn’t heard his car, though perhaps with Sadie and Georgia squawking in her bedroom that wasn’t so surprising.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to introduce you.’ She smiled as she went into the room, trying to ignore the fact that her mother looked as if she’d been on a diet of vinegar for a week. Maxine was looking much the same—what on earth had been going on?

‘I was several minutes early.’ Trent had risen to his feet as, in a mustard-shade dress, she’d entered the room. He paused to say hello to Sadie and Georgia, and started to come over to her. ‘I introduced myself,’ he commented easily. But, for all his relaxed manner, he seemed not inclined to delay their departure. ‘Shall we go?’

They said their goodbyes, and Alethea led the way out into the hall, followed by her mother’s sharp warning, ‘Don’t forget you have to be up early for work in the morning, Alethea!’

Oh, grief! She skirted the chest of drawers and heard a thudding sound as Trent didn’t, and just knew that the evening was going to be a disaster before it began.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she apologised tensely, already guessing that her mother had asked him some pretty pertinent questions and he was probably ready to call the evening off right then and there.

‘Sorry?’ he queried, opening the passenger door of a black, extremely expensive car that suggested that whatever job he did, he was well paid for it.

Loyalty to her family, plus a sudden realisation that, whatever had passed between him, her mother and sister—Maxine had been looking on the sour side too—she did not want to know about it, made her say, ‘At a guess, I’d say you cracked your shin on that chest in the hall.’

‘Is it there as some sort of test you give to all your men friends—to see how brave they are?’

‘You didn’t cry,’ she replied—and suddenly the tension was eased, and they were both laughing.

Miraculously, though she rather knew Trent had a lot to do with it, the evening which she thought had started off badly progressed to a fine start.

He took her to a restaurant which served excellent food. But she had little recollection of what she ate, for he was an excellent dinner companion: witty, serious, knowledgable.

‘Yes, but, Trent—er—Trenton...’ She went on to put forward her point of view, but the subject went straight from her mind. It was the confusion he seemed to have a knack of arousing in her. She started to grow hot at the thought that this astute man who had introduced himself to her as Trent de Havilland might think she had been checking up on him, and had found out his name was Trenton. ‘It’s on file—your name.’ She dug a bigger hole for herself. Oh, Heavens, this was dreadful. ‘I wasn’t checking up on you!’ she blurted out.

‘That’s not very flattering of you,’ he teased.

She started to feel a bit better. Enough, anyway, to be able to explain, ‘I was checking Mr Chapman’s silver wedding celebrations file, ready to finalise everything before putting it to bed. Your name was on the guest list.’

Trent smiled and, as if realising from the gentle tide of pink that had washed her skin that she had been feeling a trifle awkward, he smoothly turned the conversation to enquire, ‘You enjoy working for Hector?’

‘Very much,’ she answered, but felt honour bound to add, ‘Though I’m not his PA. She’s Carol Robinson and I assist her.’ Alethea’s voice started to fade as it suddenly dawned on her that he probably knew that anyway. ‘Didn’t Mr Chapman want to know what you wanted my address and phone number for?’ she asked, and had to admit that she liked the way Trent de Havilland’s mouth quirked at the corners whenever she managed to amuse him.

‘You’re too sharp to be a mere assistant,’ he responded charmingly.

She enjoyed his charm, though she had sense enough to see that it wouldn’t take a genius to guess from where he had obtained the information he needed. Though Hector Chapman giving that information spoke volumes. She knew, indisputably, that Mr Chapman would never have imparted anything about her unless the enquirer was not only very well known to him, but also a man whom he knew to be trustworthy.

Given that she had been brought up to be distrustful of all men, Alethea was feeling more relaxed with Trent than with any man she’d ever known. To suddenly realise, too, that she already had all the evidence she needed, because Trent must be well known to her boss to have been invited to his anniversary celebration, only went to make her feel even more relaxed.

Relaxed, and able to ask him what she considered to be a most natural question, ‘What sort of work do you do?’

‘I’m in science engineering,’ he answered.

‘Well, that leaves me dead in the water,’ Alethea laughed, ‘Science was my worst subject at school.’

‘I’m sure you were brilliant at others,’ he commented. ‘So tell me more about you.’

For no reason, she started to feel tense again. ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she replied.

He wasn’t having that. ‘You live at home with your mother and sister—plus your sister’s children,’ he documented. How much had he guessed? Alethea started to feel wary of him. ‘Are there no men in your household?’ he asked, and Alethea, knowing she was being prickly, but somehow unable to help it, resented his questioning.

‘Are there any women in yours?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I live alone,’ he answered quite openly, adding drily, ‘though it’s true that I have a dear soul who comes in and sets the place to order three times a week.’

There were traces of a smile about his expression, but suddenly the evening was going badly for Alethea and she could not respond. ‘Have you ever been married?’ she asked abruptly.

Trent he Havilland studied her unsmiling face for some seconds, as if trying to gauge what, if anything, lay behind her question. ‘No, never,’ he stated at last. But his eyes were alert, his expression all at once unsmiling. ‘Have you?’

‘Good Heavens, no!’ Alethea exclaimed.

‘You sound as if you find the idea appalling?’ he suggested, his dark eyes steady on her violet ones.

Suddenly her tension vanished, and her sense of humour quite unexpectedly bubbled to the surface. ‘So long as you weren’t asking,’ she replied and, when his eyes remained unflinching on hers, she continued, ‘I should hate to hurt your feelings.’

‘Like hell you would,’ he rejoined.

‘I’d never hurt anyone on purpose,’ she informed him coolly.

Her coolness didn’t so much as touch him. ‘Turn them down gently—is that your motto?’ he surmised, as if he truly thought she must have received several marriage proposals by now. She wasn’t interested in marriage, for goodness’ sake! Nor did she care much for the subject under discussion, she decided. Though, before she could open her mouth to change it, she discovered that Trent had had enough of it too, and was heading in another direction himself to ask, ‘May I enquire after your father?’

Alethea was not sure that she cared for this new subject any better. ‘My father?’ she prevaricated.

‘He doesn’t live at home?’ Trent pursued, not a man to give up easily, even if her look did have a chilly edge to it.

Had her mother told him that? She did not want to think so. But, much as she loved her parent, she was not blind to the fact that her mother could be manipulative when it suited her. She remembered the sour expressions on both her mother’s and her sister’s faces when she had gone into the sitting room. And, even though she had earlier been convinced that she didn’t want to know what had gone on in that room before she had come downstairs, she found she was asking in a rush, ‘What did my mother say to you?’

‘Nothing to cause such distress in those beautiful violet eyes,’ he answered. Quite gently, she thought, but it was a non-answer just the same.

‘So tell me,’ she insisted.

He shrugged, but he was watchful as he revealed, ‘Apparently you’re more interested in your career than you are in men.’

She could cope with that. ‘Anything wrong in that?’ she asked.

‘Not a thing,’ he replied pleasantly. Only, remembering her mother’s expression, Alethea couldn’t leave it there.

‘And?’ she further insisted.

‘You’re a devil for punishment,’ he murmured lightly.

‘So?’

‘At the risk of sounding ungallant, I don’t believe it.’

‘This is like drawing teeth!’ she exclaimed frustratedly. ‘Don’t believe what?’

‘You have beautiful teeth too,’ he said, delaying a moment more. But, having flattered her, he went on to reveal the appalling truth. ‘According to your mother-though I must say she couched it in much better terms... basically what she meant to convey was that you are only going out with me in the interests of career advancement.’

Alethea, innocent of all charges, went scarlet. ‘I... You...’ she tried, but was rendered temporarily speechless. It was left to Trent, his eyes on her unhappy colour, to try to make her feel better.

‘I’m too conceited to believe that, of course.’ He attempted to coax a smile out of her.

Alethea could not have smiled had her life depended upon it. How could her mother have said such a thing? She would have liked to have believed otherwise, of course, but she knew her mother. ‘You have your own company, don’t you?’ she guessed.

‘I do,’ he owned.

‘You told my mother, and...’

‘I didn’t so much as tell her—just gave her my name.’ Her mother never ceased to amaze her. Some days she never went outside the house and yet, when Alethea arrived home from work, her mother was up to date on all the gossip. But now, local gossip aside, it seemed her mother had mental index cards on the London business world!

‘Shall we go?’ she offered bluntly. The coffee they had ordered to finish their meal had only just arrived, but her sensitivity was such that she was wondering why Trent hadn’t left her home there and then, without waiting for her to present herself downstairs. That was what her mother had wanted, of course.

‘You’re not going to let what I’ve told you spoil what has been a very pleasurable evening for me—and I hope for you too—are you?’

‘Trent—I...’ Alethea halted, and realised that, in addition to her mother not wanting her evening with Trent to start, her parent would be quite pleased, if, since start it had, it should end badly. Alethea knew her mother hadn’t wanted Maxine to leave home and thereby break her mother’s sphere of influence. Mother had done everything in her power to prevent Maxine’s marriage. But, from what Alethea could see now, her mother wasn’t waiting for her to go so far as to become involved with anyone. At the first sign that Alethea was going out with any man who might be strong-minded, her mother was out to nip in the bud any remote possibility that might lead to her other daughter leaving home. Alethea took a shaky breath, and stared across into a pair of dark eyes that were silently, steadily watching her. ‘To answer your question,’ she said, ‘my father left home when I was ten.’

Trent’s look was warm and encouraging. ‘For another woman,’ he stated, seeming to know it for a fact, though Alethea hardly thought that her mother had imparted that piece of knowledge.

Normally Alethea would have clammed up on the subject, but just then she was feeling cross enough with her mother not to care. Alethea knew full well that, should she challenge her mother tomorrow over what she had told Trent, Mrs Pemberton would tell her she was making a fuss over nothing.

‘Yes, for another woman,’ she confirmed, whether Trent needed confirmation or not.

‘And your mother thereafter set about trying to see to it that no man came near you or your sister.’ He paused a moment, then commented lightly, ‘Um—she seems to have failed miserably with your sister—I counted three children.’

‘She has only three,’ Alethea stated, Trent’s manner and his humour causing her to feel better.

‘But their father, or fathers, aren’t allowed inside the house?’ he suggested.

Alethea shook her head. ‘Maxine married. Only her marriage recently broke up.’

‘That’s a pity,’ he commented, and Alethea was unsure if he meant for the children’s sake, Maxine’s sake, or marriage’s sake. ‘It can’t be easy for her,’ he added.

‘Apparently it wasn’t the first time her husband’s eye had wandered,’ Alethea said, not wanting Trent to think that her dear sister was in any way to blame for the marriage split.

‘But this time she decided to return home?’

‘Bringing her furniture with her,’ Alethea commented, not wanting to tell him the other, more dishonest facts of it, and wondering if Trent would be nursing a bruise on his shin tomorrow.

‘So that accounts for the chest in the hall,’ he grinned.

‘We are a touch overcrowded,’ she laughed, and was suddenly feeling good again. She heard herself tack on, ‘I’ve been toying with the idea of moving out and finding a place of my own—though I don’t suppose I will.’

‘Your mother wouldn’t let you?’

Honestly! Instantly she was up in arms. ‘I’m twenty-two!’ she informed Trent crossly. ‘The decision is mine.’ She stared with hostility at him, sparks of annoyance flaring in her eyes. But, as she looked at his dark, unwavering gaze, so she glimpsed a dancing light. He, she realised, had aggravated her deliberately! ‘Provoking devil!’ she mumbled, but had to smile. ‘I think it’s time I went home,’ she stated.

Trent settled the bill and, without comment, escorted her outside. Though just when she was starting to think, in a slightly miffed way, that he’d had enough and couldn’t wait to drop her off at her door, he sent that notion clear out of her head by offering, ‘With your house so overcrowded, shall we go back to mine for coffee?’

‘I’ve just had coffee,’ she reminded him, feeling better that he seemed to want to prolong the evening. But he was the sophisticated type and she was not green; coffee could well be another word for what he was actually offering!

‘I thought we might talk, get to know each other,’ he answered, as he saw her into his car.

I’ll bet! Alethea waited until he joined her in the car. ‘We’ve been talking all night,’ she thought to mention.

‘All I’ve learned about you, apart from my observations on your sensitivity and sincerity, is that you live in an overcrowded household of women, that you may or may not be intending to find somewhere less overcrowded, and might I suggest—if the high-pitched squealing that was going on when I arrived is anything to go by—you need somewhere a little more peaceful to live. I’ve also discovered that you work as an assistant PA.’

‘That isn’t enough?’

Her words had sounded sharp, she realised, when Trent looked at her long and hard. But whatever he was thinking, his manner remained mild. ‘Should we row on our first date?’ he asked.

First date! She liked him; she must do, or she would not be here now. But at his hint of a second date she felt wary. ‘I’ll take you to your home,’ he said before she could make up her mind how she felt about going out with him again.

Trent drove easily, effortlessly, and in no time at all it seemed that they were pulling up outside her home. When he got out of the car and came round to her door, Alethea got out feeling nervous and unsure.

She wouldn’t ask him in. Lord knew what surprises awaited them—her embittered mother had had hours in which to build up a fine head of vitriol. Or perhaps Maxine was walking the downstairs rooms trying to pacify a wailing Polly.

At the door she turned. ‘Thank you for a pleasant evening,’ she trotted out, and was all jittery inside. Silently, unspeaking, he stared down at her in the porch light. She didn’t know if he would try to kiss her, nor how she would react if he did. As yet she had formulated no answer, should he ask for the second date he had hinted at.

But Alethea was totally mystified when Trent neither attempted to kiss her nor to ask her out again. But, his tone even—he could have been discussing the weather-he replied civilly, ‘The pleasure was mine. Goodnight, Alethea.’ And with that he went back to his car.

Alethea did not want to see him drive off. Motivated by pride that insisted he should not go away with any idiotic notion that she might be hanging on his every word and deed, she did a rapid about-turn and swiftly let herself in through the front door.

Only when she had the door shut—she was on the inside and he was on the outside—did she pause to take stock. He hadn’t so much as tried to kiss her, much less ask her out again! Not that she’d have gone out with him again if he had asked, she firmly decided. But then all thoughts of Trent de Havilland were momentarily taken from her mind when the stair light came on and her sister came hurrying into view.

‘Has he gone?’ Maxine whispered, leaning over the bannister rail, either because of the possibility of Trent de Havilland still being around, or because she was scared of waking one of the children.

‘Yes, just,’ Alethea whispered back.

‘Shall I make you some hot chocolate?’

By the sound of it, Maxine wanted to talk. ‘Lovely,’ Alethea accepted, and the two of them went quietly into the kitchen.

It was there that Alethea soon realised that her sister’s need to talk did not stem from a loneliness of spirit, as she had supposed, but from an urgent need to have a discussion that would not wait until morning, when there was every chance they would be interrupted.

For, without so much as enquiring, Did you have a nice evening?, Maxine launched in to ask, ‘Do you know who Trenton de Havilland is?’

Alethea stared at her. Trent had introduced himself to Maxine and their mother as Trenton? But she concentrated on Maxine’s question. Alethea knew that Trent was a nifty Viennese waltzer, was interesting, not to say stimulating to go out with, and also that he was a friend of her employer. But Maxine had asked if she knew who he was. ‘Who is he?’ Alethea queried.

‘He didn’t tell you that he owns Science Engineering and Consulting?’ Maxine pressed.

‘I know he has his own company,’ Alethea answered, feeling slightly perplexed and wanting to know what Maxine was getting into a state about, for she was certainly growing more and more agitated by the second. ‘He told me he was in science engineering, but...’ Alethea broke off suddenly, remembering how Trent had only had to mention his name for it to mean something to her mother. ‘Are you saying that, like Mother, you know of his business?’

‘I should do—Keith works for him!’

‘Keith...’ Alethea stopped, horrified, Science Engineering and Consulting suddenly clicking in her head to be SEC, who had suspended her brother-in-law while investigations into his honesty were taking place! Oh, my stars, her brother-in-law was employed in a trusted position by Trent and had abused that trust. ‘Does Trent know Keith works for him?’ she asked, alarmed.

‘Heavens, no. Keith’s not that far up the corporate tree that his chairman would know of his existence!’

That was some small relief to Alethea. She felt she would never have survived the embarrassment had Trent known all the time he had sat opposite her this evening that her brother-in-law, his employee, was a crook who had robbed him. ‘Mother knew all about Trent being the man who pays Keith’s salary, though, didn’t she?’

‘She saw Keith’s letter today from SEC. It had the name of the chairman and directors on it. You know Mother’s sharp brain. She’ll have filed away all that information without even realising she was doing it.’

‘Oh, grief!’ Alethea exclaimed, and remembered how both her mother and sister had looked when she had come into the sitting room at a minute before seven that evening. ‘Mother seems to be permanently bitter about men. But is that why you looked a degree or two more sour when Trent was here? Because...’

‘How else could I look?’ Maxine asked tearfully. ‘Here am I stuck in this house which, since Mother insisted I bring everything that wasn’t nailed down so that some other woman couldn’t have it, is so crammed full you can’t move without tripping over, and there were you, all dressed up to go out for a fun evening with a man who I’d just realised could be ultimately responsible for bringing a court action against my children’s father!’

‘Oh, Maxine!’ Alethea exclaimed as her sister started to cry. Men, men, rotten men, she fumed as she hurried over to her.

Alethea wasn’t sure that she meant all men as she tried to comfort her sister. When Maxine was a little calmer, she made her the drink which Maxine had offered to make her. And when, half an hour later, she and her sister were upstairs and in their rooms, one thing was set like concrete in Alethea’s mind. Maxine’s disclosures about who was in charge of SEC made it well and truly settled. Even if Trent de Havilland did make contact to ask her for a second date, now that she knew that, ultimately, he was the man her brother-in-law had stolen from, there was no way she could ever go out with him again!