Читать книгу A Paper Marriage - Jessica Steele - Страница 7

‘HE PAID you back!’ Lydie gasped. And, reeling from what her father had just revealed, ‘But Mother said—’ Lydie broke off, her stricken gaze going from her mortified father to her mother.

This time her mother did meet her eyes, defiantly. But it was Wilmot Pearson who found his voice first, and, transferring his look to his wife, ‘What did you tell her?’ he demanded angrily.

‘Somebody had to do something!’ she returned hostilely, entirely unrepentant.

‘But you knew Jonah Marriott had repaid that loan—repaid it ahead of time. I told you. I clearly remember telling—’

‘Mother! You knew?’ Lydie chipped in, horrified. ‘You knew all the time that that money had been repaid—yet you let me go and ask Jonah for money!’ Oh, how she had asked him. No, Please will you lend us some money? but ‘This isn’t a social call’ she had told him shortly, and had gone from there to suggest he didn’t have any decency and that it was about time he paid that loan back—when all the time he already had. And she had thought he looked a bit surprised! No wonder! ‘Mother, how could you?’

Her mother did not care to be taken to task, and was at her arrogant worst when she retorted, ‘Far better to owe Jonah Marriott money than the bank. At least this way we get to keep the house.’

‘Don’t be so sure about that!’ Wilmot Pearson chipped in heavily—and uproar broke out between her parents for several minutes; he determined he would sell the house to pay Jonah Marriott and her mother said her father would be living elsewhere on his own if he did, and that Beamhurst was to be preserved to be passed down to Oliver. It was painful to Lydie to hear them, but when her mother, retorting that at least they wouldn’t be opening the doors to the bailiffs come Monday morning, seemed to be getting the better of the argument, her father turned and vented his frustration out on his daughter.

‘He—Jonah—he gave you a cheque, just like that, did he? You told him you wanted that “loan” I made him back—and he paid up without a murmur?’

‘He—um—said he had never forgotten how you helped him out that time. He was grateful to you, I think,’ Lydie answered, starting to wish that her mother had never phoned her last Tuesday.

‘So he gave you fifty-five thousand pounds out of gratitude and without a word that he had already settled that debt? How the devil do you suppose I’m going to pay him back?’ her father exploded, and in high temper, ‘Why ever didn’t you bring that cheque home to me first?’ he demanded. ‘Why in the world did you bank it without first consulting me?’

Lydie felt she would have brought the cheque to her father, had not Jonah Marriott put the idea of banking it first into her head. And suddenly she began to get the feeling that, one way and another, she had been well and truly manipulated here. First by her mother, very definitely by her mother, and secondly by Jonah Marriott himself.

‘Well?’ Her father interrupted her thoughts.

‘It seemed the best way to do it,’ she answered lamely. ‘If there had been any sort of a traffic snarl-up I could have been too late for the bank here. And I knew—’ thank you, Mother ‘—that the bank wanted their money by today.’

‘And they’ve got it—and it’s for certain they’ll hang on to it!’ he stated agitatedly. ‘There’s absolutely no chance they’ll let me have it back again.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’d better go and see Jonah.’

‘I’ll go!’ Lydie said straight away, as she knew she must.

‘You,’ her father erupted, ‘have done enough! You can stay here with your mother and dream up your next scheme.’

That comment was extremely unfair, in Lydie’s opinion, but she understood his pride must be hurting like the very devil. ‘Please let me go?’ she pleaded. He hesitated for the merest moment, and Lydie rushed on quickly, ‘You’re not the only one with any pride,’ she added—and all at once her father seemed to fold.

He looked at her, his normally quite reserved daughter who, up until then, had caused him very little grief. ‘None of this has been very easy for you either, has it?’ he queried, more in the calm tone she was familiar with. And, relenting, if reluctantly, ‘We’ll go and see him together,’ he conceded.

That wasn’t what Lydie wanted either. ‘I’ll go and ring him,’ she offered.

‘Not go and see him?’

‘I’ll probably have to make an appointment first.’ In this instance of eating extra-large portions of humble pie, it seemed more diplomatic to try and get an appointment first rather than to go barging straight into his office.

‘We’ll make the call from my study,’ Wilmot Pearson declared, and, giving his wife a frosty look in passing, for which, since her home was for the moment secure, she cared not a jot, he and Lydie went from the drawing room and to his study.

She was glad that her father allowed her to make the call and did not insist on doing that himself, but her insides were on the churn again as she dialled the Marriott Electronics number.

Again when she asked to speak with Mr Jonah Marriott she was put through to his PA. ‘Hello, it’s Lydie Pearson…’

‘Oh, good afternoon,’ the PA answered pleasantly, before Lydie could continue. ‘I missed seeing you this morning.’ And Lydie realised that plainly Jonah must have made some comment to his PA about her visit—probably something along the lines of Don’t ever let that woman come in here again—she’s too expensive. Lydie hoped he hadn’t revealed the full content of her visit to his confidential assistant. ‘I’m afraid Mr Marrriott’s at a meeting. If you would like to leave a message?’

Blocked. ‘I should like to see him some time. Later this afternoon if that’s possible.’

‘He’s flying to Paris tonight, but…’

Something akin to jealousy gave Lydie a small thump at the thought that he would be dallying the weekend in Paris. Ridiculous, she scoffed. But she began to realise she had inherited a little of her mother’s arrogance in that she would beg for nothing. ‘I’ll give him a call next week. It’s not important,’ Lydie butted in pleasantly, wished the PA an affable goodbye, and turned to relay the conversation to her waiting father. ‘Try not to worry, Dad,’ she added quietly. Having been set up by her mother, she was not feeling all that friendly towards her, but attempted anyway to make things better between her parents. ‘And try not to be too cross with Mother; she only did what she did to help.’

Wilmot Pearson looked as if he might have a lot to say about that, but settled for a mild, ‘I know.’

The atmosphere in the house was not good for the rest of the day, however, and Lydie took herself off for a walk with a very great deal on her mind. She still felt crimson around the ears when she thought of the way she had gone to Jonah Marriott’s office and demanded fifty thousand pounds!

Oh, heavens! But—why on earth had he given it to her? Not only that, but he had made sure his cheque was banked and not returned to him with a polite note from her father. ‘There’s money in this account to meet this amount?’ she had asked him. ‘There will be…by the time you get to your father’s bank,’ he had said, as in Make haste and get there—and she had fallen for it!

Lydie carried on walking, not knowing where she was emotionally. With that money in the bank her father had some respite from his worries—and he sorely needed that respite. Against that, though, since it was she who had asked for, and taken, that money, regardless of where she had deposited it, she was beginning to realise that the debt was not her father’s but hers; solely hers.

Feeling quite sick as she accepted that realisation, all she could do was to wonder where in creation she was going to find fifty-five thousand pounds with which to repay him? That question haunted her for the remainder of her walk.

She returned home knowing that adding together the second-hand value of her car, the pearls her parents had given her for her twenty-first birthday and her small inheritance—if she could get into it—she would be lucky if she was able to raise as much as ten thousand pounds!

She went to bed that night knowing that Jonah Marriott’s hope that it would not be another seven years before they met again must have been said tongue in cheek. He must have known she would be on the phone wanting to see him the moment she discovered his loan from her father had been repaid long since. Jonah Marriott, without a doubt, had told his PA to inform her when she rang that he could not see her.

Why he would do that, Lydie wasn’t very sure, and conceded that very probably he’d given his PA no such instruction. It was just one Lydie Pearson feeling very much out of sorts where he was concerned. Him and his ‘Obviously your father doesn’t know you’ve come here.’ It was obvious to her, now, that Jonah knew her father would have soon stopped her visit had he the merest inkling of what she was doing.

Lydie spent a wakeful night with J. Marriott Esquire occupying too much space in her head for comfort. Oversexed swine! She hoped he was enjoying himself in Paris—whoever she was.

The atmosphere in her home was no better when she went down to breakfast on Saturday morning. Lydie saw a whole day of monosyllabic conversation and of watching frosty glances go back and forth.

‘I think I’ll go and see Aunt Alice. Truthfully,’ she added at her father’s sharp look.

‘While you’re there for goodness’ sake check what she intends to wear to the wedding next Saturday,’ her mother instructed peevishly. ‘She’s just as likely to turn up in that disgraceful old gardening hat and wellingtons!’

Lydie was glad to escape the house, and drove to Penleigh Corbett and the small semi-detached house which her mother’s aunt, to her mother’s embarrassment, rented from the local council.

To Lydie’s dismay, though, the sprightly eighty-four-year-old was looking much less sprightly than when she had last seen her, for all she beamed a welcome. ‘Come in, come in!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t expect to see you before next week.’

They were drinking coffee fifteen minutes later when, feeling quite perturbed by her great-aunt’s pallor, Lydie enquired casually, ‘Do you see your doctor at all?’

‘Dr Stokes? She’s always popping in.’

‘What for?’ Lydie asked in alarm.

‘Nothing in particular. She just likes my chocolate cake.’

Lydie had to stamp down hard on her need to know more than that. Great-Aunt Alice was anti people discussing their ailments. ‘Are you taking any medication?’ Lydie asked tentatively.

‘Do you know anybody over eighty who isn’t?’ Alice Gough bounced back. ‘How’s your mother? Has she come to terms yet with the fact dear Oliver wants to take a wife?’

‘You’re wicked,’ Lydie accused.

‘Only the good die young,’ Alice Gough chuckled, and took Lydie on a tour of her garden. They had lunch of bread, cheese and tomatoes, though Lydie observed that the elderly lady ate very little.

Lydie visited with her great-aunt for some while, then, thinking she was probably wanting her afternoon nap, said she would make tracks back to Beamhurst Court. ‘Come back with me!’ she said on impulse—her mother would kill her. ‘You could stay until after the wedding, and—’

‘Your mother would love that!’

‘Oh, do come,’ Lydie appealed.

‘I’ve got too much to do here,’ Alice Gough refused stubbornly.

‘You don’t—’ Lydie broke off. She had been going to say You don’t look well. She changed it to, ‘You’re a little pale, Aunty. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘At my age I’m entitled to creak a bit!’ And with that Lydie had to be satisfied.

‘I’ll come over early next Saturday,’ she said as her great-aunt came out to her car with her.

‘Tell your mother I’ll leave my gardening gloves at home,’ Alice Gough answered completely po-faced.

Lydie had to laugh. ‘Wicked, did I say?’ And she drove away.

The nearer she got to Beamhurst Court, though, the more her spirits started to dip. She was worried about her great-aunt, she was worried about the cold war escalating between her parents, and she was worried, quite desperately worried, about where in the world she was going to find fifty-five thousand pounds with which to pay Jonah Marriott.

And, having thought about him—not that he and that wretched money were ever very far from the front of her mind—she could not stop thinking about him—in Paris. She hoped it kept fine for him. That made her laugh at herself—she was getting as sour as her mother.

‘Aunty doesn’t look so well,’ Lydie reported to her mother.

‘What’s the matter with her?’

‘She didn’t say, but…’

‘She wouldn’t! Typical!’ Hilary Pearson sniffed. ‘Some man called Charles Hillier has been on the phone for you.’

‘Charlie. He’s Donna’s brother. Did he say why he phoned?’

‘I told him to ring back.’

Poor Charlie; he was as shy as she had been one time. But while to a large extent she had grown out of her shyness, Charlie never had. He had probably been terrified of her mother. Lydie went up to her room and dialled his number. ‘I’m sorry I was out when you rang,’ she apologised. She was very fond of Charlie. He was never going to set her world on fire, but she thought of him as a close friend.

‘Did I ring your mother at a bad time?’ he asked nervously.

‘No—she’s a little busy. My brother’s getting married next Saturday.’ Lydie covered the likelihood that her mother had been rude to Charlie if he had been in stammering mode.

‘Ah. Right,’ he said, and went on to say he had planned to ask her to go to the theatre with him tonight, and had been shaken when he’d rung Donna to hear that she had already left Donna’s home. ‘You’re helping with the wedding, I expect,’ he went on. ‘Would you have any free time? I’ve got the tickets and everything. I thought we’d have a meal afterwards and you could stay the night here, if you like. That is…You’ve probably got something else arranged?’ he ended diffidently.

‘I’d love to go to the theatre with you,’ Lydie accepted. ‘Would it put you out if I stayed?’

‘Your bed’s already made up,’ he said happily back, and she could almost see his face beaming.

Lydie went to tell her mother that she was going to the theatre with Charlie Hillier and would not be back until mid-morning the next day.

‘You’re spending the night with him?’

‘He has a flat in London. It could be quite late when we finish. It seems more sensible to stay than to drive home afterwards.’

‘You’re having an affair with him?’ her mother shook her by accusing.

‘Mother!’ Honestly! Charlie wouldn’t know how to go about an affair. Come to think of it, Lydie mused whimsically, neither would she. ‘Charlie’s just a friend. More like a brother than anything. And nothing more than that.’

Lydie went back upstairs and put a few things into an overnight bag. Charlie had overcome his shyness one time to attempt to kiss her, but had confessed, when they’d both ended up mightily embarrassed, that he had kissed her more because he thought he ought to than anything else. From then on a few ground rules had been established and they had progressed to be good friends who, on the odd, purely spontaneous moment, would sometimes kiss cheeks in greeting or parting. She had stayed at his flat several times with Donna and young Thomas before baby Sofia had come along. But over the last year Lydie had a couple of times comfortably spent the night in his spare bedroom after a late night in London.

The play Charlie took her to was a light-hearted, enjoyable affair. ‘Shall we get a drink?’ he asked at interval time.

For herself, she wasn’t bothered, but felt that Charlie probably wanted one. ‘A gin and tonic sounds a good idea,’ she accepted, and went with him to mingle with the crowd making their slow way to the bar.

They eventually entered the bar, where she decided to wait to one side while Charlie got the drinks. But Lydie had taken only a step or two when all of a sudden, with her heart giving the oddest little flip, she came face to face with none other than Jonah Marriott!

He stopped dead, his wonderful blue eyes on the riot of colour that flared to her face. ‘I thought you were in Paris!’ she blurted out, surprised at seeing him so unexpectedly causing the words to rush from her before she could stop them.

‘I came back,’ he replied smoothly.

She could do without his smart remarks. It was obvious he had come back! ‘I need to see you,’ she said tautly—by no chance did she intend to discuss her business where they stood. But suddenly she spotted something akin to devilment in his eyes and knew then that if he answered with something smart—That’s what they all say—she was going to hit him, regardless of where they were.

He did not say what she expected, but instead drawled, ‘Monday, same time, same place,’ and they both moved on.

She felt unnerved, unsettled, and wished it were Monday, when she would march into his office and demand to know why he had given her a cheque for fifty-five thousand pounds! She was glad when Charlie returned with their drinks.

But Lydie started to feel worse than ever when she abruptly realised that to demand why of Jonah wasn’t relevant. What was relevant was to make some arrangement with him to pay him back. Her spirits sank—how? With that question unanswered, she flicked a glance around—her gaze halting when she spotted Jonah. He was not looking at her but over in their direction, at the tall manly back of her dark-haired escort. Her glance slid from Jonah to the stunning, last word in perfection blonde he was escorting. And she’d thought her spirits couldn’t get any lower!

Not wanting Jonah to catch her looking in his direction, Lydie tore her eyes away from the sophisticated blonde. ‘How’s business?’ she asked Charlie.

‘We’ve got a new woman at the office—she started a couple of weeks ago,’ he said, and went red.

‘Charlie Hillier!’ Lydie teased. ‘You’re smitten.’

He laughed self-consciously, and she smiled affectionately at him. ‘Well, she is rather nice.’

‘Are you going to ask her out?’

He looked horrified. ‘Heck, no! I hardly know her!’

Dear Charlie. He had been a frequent visitor to his sister’s home, but Lydie had known him a year before they had begun to graduate from more than an exchanged hello and goodbye.

She did not see Jonah again that night, and had a late supper with Charlie and went to bed. They shared toast and eggs for breakfast, and Lydie drove home to Beamhurst Court with her head on the fidget with thoughts of her great-aunt, her parents and a man who appeared to enjoy escorting sophisticated blondes to the theatre. Had he taken the blonde with him to Paris?

She awoke on Monday in a state of anxiety. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ her father asked when she went down to an early breakfast.

She didn’t know about couldn’t sleep—he did not look as if he had slept at all! She looked at his weary face and knew she should tell him that she was going to see Jonah Marriott, but somehow she could not. ‘I thought, with Mother wanting Aunt Alice to look smart on Saturday, that I’d better make an effort and get myself a new outfit,’ Lydie announced. And, seeing that her father looked about to remind her of a very important phone call they had to make, ‘I thought,’ she hurried on, ‘that while I’m in London I’d call in at the Marriott building and make an appointment for us to see Jonah. He was abroad somewhere last week, so I suppose he’s still got a lot of catching up to do and will be too busy to see me today.’ She was lying to her father again, and hated doing so, but this, seeing Jonah, she felt most strongly, was something she had to do on her own.

But her father was nobody’s fool. ‘How did you manage to get an appointment with him last Friday? He would have been catching up then too.’

‘On Friday I thought he owed you money. I didn’t bother to make an appointment. I just sort of barged my way in.

Her father looked appalled. ‘You…’ he began.

‘Please, Dad,’ she butted in. ‘I was wrong. I know it. Which is why I feel I have to do it the right way this time.’

‘I can ring from here. He…’

‘I know I’ve embarrassed you by going to see him at all. But please try to understand—I need to be involved here. I can’t let you take over from me.’

Her father grunted. But, muttering something about being determined to see Jonah at the first possible opportunity, he agreed to allow her to make the appointment.

Lydie was walking into the Marriott Electronics head office building when she started to half wish her father was with her. She felt sick, shaky, and she heartily wished this imminent interview were all over and done with.

She rode up in the same lift, walked shakily along the same corridor and turned round the corner without an earthly idea of what she would say to the man. Eating humble pie did not come easy.

Outside his door, she paused to take a deep breath. She knew she was ten minutes earlier than she had been on Friday, but she was too wound up to wait for ten minutes of torturous seconds to tick by.

She put her right hand on the door handle and took a deep breath, and then, tilting her chin a proud fraction, she turned the handle and with her heart pounding went in.

Jonah Marriott was not alone, but was mid-instruction to the woman Lydie had seen step out of the lift last Friday. He looked up and got to his feet to greet her. ‘Lydie,’ he said and, turning to his PA, introduced them to each other.

‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ Elaine Edwards commented with a smile, and obviously aware of this appointment, even if Lydie was early for it, she picked up her papers, said, ‘I’ll come back later,’ and went through into her own office and closed the door.

‘Enjoy the play?’ Jonah asked, taking Lydie out of her stride—she had intended to pitch straight in there with some “The debt is mine but I can’t pay”-type dialogue.

‘Very much,’ she answered, with barely an idea just then what the play had been about.

‘Take a seat,’ he offered. ‘Was that your steady boyfriend?’

‘Er—what? No. Um—I see him sometimes,’ she replied, wondering what that had got to do with anything, though she would not have minded asking if the blonde were his steady. Not that she was terribly interested, of course.

She took the seat he indicated and opened her mouth, ready to put this conversation along the lines it was to go, when, ‘Coffee?’ he asked, and she knew then that she was not the one in charge of how the conversation went—he was. He was playing with her!

‘No, thank you,’ she refused, her tone perhaps a little less civil than it should be in the circumstances. ‘When I came here last Friday I was under the impression you had not honoured the debt you owed my father. I…’

‘So I gathered,’ Jonah replied, having retaken his seat behind his desk, leaning back to study her.

She did not care to be studied; it rattled her. ‘You should have told me!’ she flared. ‘You knew you had repaid that loan!

He smiled—it was a phoney smile. ‘I knew I would end up getting the blame.’

Just then guilt, embarrassment, and every other emotion she had experienced since seeing him again last Friday after seven years, all rose up inside her, causing her control to fracture. ‘And so you should!’ she snapped. ‘You set me up!’ she accused hotly.

The phoney smile abruptly disappeared. He cared not for her tone; she could tell. ‘I set you up?’ he challenged. ‘My memory is usually so good, but correct me if I’m wrong—did I ask you to come here, dunning me for money?’

Dunning! Put like that it sounded awful. Her fury all at once fizzled out. ‘I trusted you,’ she said quietly. ‘Yet you, the way you hinted that I should pay the cheque into my father’s bank straight away, made sure I did just that.’

Jonah Marriott eyed her uncompromisingly. ‘Would you rather I had not given you that cheque?’ he questioned toughly. ‘Would you prefer that your father was still in hock to his bank?’

She blanched. It was becoming more and more clear to her that Jonah Marriott was much too smart for her. He knew, as she had just accepted, that by taking the money from him she had allowed her father some respite. At least there wasn’t a “For Sale” notice being posted in their grounds that morning. ‘Why did you give me that money?’ she asked. ‘And why make it pretty certain that I’d bank it first and tell my father afterwards?’

Jonah shrugged. ‘Seven years ago your father’s faith in me, his generosity, made it possible for me to successfully carry out my ideas. From what you told me on Friday, Wilmot was in a desperate fix with no way out. Without a hope of repaying any financial assistance, I knew there was no way he would accept my help.’

That was true. Lydie sighed. She felt defeated suddenly. ‘My father wanted to see you as soon as possible. I said, since I was coming to London today, that I’d make an appointment and that we would both come and see you.’

Jonah eyed her solemnly. ‘You lied to him?’

‘I’m not proud of it. Until last week, when I told him I was going to see a great-aunt but came here instead, I had never lied to my father in my life.’

Jonah nodded. ‘I can see reason for you lying to him about coming here the first time—obviously either your brother or your mother has been bending your ear with falsehoods too—but why lie to your father about coming here today?’

‘Because—because he’s been a very worried man for long enough. It’s time somebody else in the family took some of the load.’

‘Namely you?’

‘It was I who asked you for that money. I who—er—um—borrowed it, not him. The debt is mine.’

Jonah stared at her for some long moments. ‘It’s yours?’ he queried finally.

‘My father didn’t ask for the money. Nor would he. As you so rightly said, he wouldn’t—not for something he couldn’t see his way to pay back.’ She broke off and looked into a pair of fantastic blue eyes that now seemed more academically interested than annoyed. ‘The debt is mine,’ she resumed firmly, ‘and no one else’s. I’ve come today to…’ her firm tone began to slip ‘…t-to try and make arrangements to repay you.’

He looked a tinge surprised. ‘You have money?’ he enquired nicely.

Lydie swallowed down a sudden spurt of ire. Was she likely to have taken money from him had she money of her own? ‘I intend to sell my car and my pearls, and there’s a small inheritance due in a couple of years that I may be able to get my hands on—but otherwise I have only what I earn.’

‘You’re working?’ he enquired.

He was unnerving her. ‘I’m between jobs at the moment,’ she answered shortly. ‘I was leaving my job this week anyway, but left early when my mother telephoned last Tuesday and—’ Lydie broke off and could have groaned out loud. Jonah Marriott was a clever man. From what she had just said he would easily deduce it had been her mother who had told her that he had reneged on his debt to her father.

Jonah did not refer to it, however, but asked instead, ‘What sort of work do you normally do?’