Читать книгу The Marriage Merger - Liz Fielding - Страница 9

‘SARAMINDA?’ Bram Gifford took the fax from his secretary. ‘Isn’t that some island in the middle of nowhere? One plane a week in the dry season if the pilot’s sober?’

‘Not so. I checked it out on the Internet. Saraminda, according to the sales pitch, is an undiscovered paradise. It’s being touted as the latest luxury “fall off the end of the earth” holiday destination.’

‘Paradise is overrated. It inevitably comes with a serpent.’ He knew that for a fact. He’d got the scars to prove it. ‘Besides, this isn’t luxury, this is a package tour,’ he said as he scanned the fax. ‘Flora Claibourne is the package.’ Then, ‘What “work-related project” could involve a couple of weeks in this doubtful paradise, do you suppose?’

‘Maybe the Claibourne girls are looking into the possibility of opening a local branch to sell designer swimsuits and sun specs to rich tourists?’

Bram pulled a face. ‘Please let it be so. That level of incompetence would be a gift.’

‘But unlikely. Nothing I’ve ever heard about the Claibourne girls suggests they’re incompetent. It’s more likely that Flora’s going to have a look at this “lost princess” they’ve found in some ruins deep in the interior. Dripping with gold and jade and pearls and goodness knows what else.’ She handed him a printout from the tourist department website. ‘Flora Claibourne designs the most stunning jewellery exclusively for the store.’

‘So?’

‘Maybe she’s looking for inspiration.’

He tossed the paper on his desk. ‘More likely it’s some fancy way of keeping me out of the way while their lawyers waste their time searching for some way to prevent us from ousting them.’

‘Maybe it is, but you’ll be shadowing her anyway and it has to beat trailing her around a department store for a month. You could do with a holiday.’

‘This won’t be a holiday.’

‘I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think. You’ve got a lot in common.’

‘We both have a major holding in a department store. And we both want to be in control,’ he agreed, with just a touch of irony. ‘Whether that will make for a relaxing time, I take leave to doubt.’

‘Is she pretty? Her sisters are lovely but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photograph of Flora.’

Bram offered her a copy of Ashanti Gold, the latest non-fiction title to grip the public imagination and become a runaway bestseller. ‘Her picture’s on the back,’ he said, leaving her to make up her own mind.

‘Oh, well, I suppose you can’t have everything. You’ll be in paradise; getting Eve would be too much to ask. You’ll just have to lie back, close your eyes and remember how much you want to get your hands on that department store.’

‘Haven’t you got something important to do?’ he asked irritably.

‘Yes, but this is more interesting. I’ll go and make some coffee.’

Left to himself, Bram took out his wallet. At the back, stashed away where no one would see, was a snapshot of a small boy with his puppy. He looked at it for a long time. Then, about to return it to its hiding place, he put it instead in the small pocket provided for such treasures.

It was a timely reminder that he’d thought he’d found paradise once, when he was young enough to believe in such a concept. He’d bitten the apple and found the serpent.

‘You’ve done what?’

‘Don’t look at me like that, Flora Claibourne. You were there when it was arranged for Bram Gifford to shadow you during May. I asked you to put off your trip, but you went ahead and arranged it anyway.’

It had been a matter of self-preservation. Flora didn’t think her sister would accept that as an excuse, however, so she pleaded a higher cause. ‘I can’t put off an invitation from the Saramindan government until it’s more convenient for you, India. You might be pretty big here, but I don’t suppose they’ve ever heard of Claibourne & Farraday.’

‘Nonsense. Their royal family has an account with us.’ She shrugged. ‘But it doesn’t matter. If you won’t stay here and let Mr Gifford watch you at work, he must go with you to Saraminda.’

‘That’s out of the question.’ Flora reached up to capture a handful of untidy curls that had slithered from a comb, twisting them carelessly into a knot on top of her head and anchoring them out of her eyes. ‘And pointless. I don’t know a thing about running Claibourne & Farraday, Indie. I just design the occasional jewellery collection—’

India regarded her younger sister with undisguised exasperation. ‘You do a lot more than that,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you understand just how important you are to us. You bring us your own amazing jewellery designs, new fabrics you’ve picked up on your travels, and before you know it the entire store has been inspired. Last year you went to Africa and this summer everyone’s going to be wearing hot colours and animal prints to go with those gold wire chokers and cuffs. The opposition is scrambling to catch up. But you know what they say about a bandwagon. If you can see it—’

‘You’ve missed it. I know.’

‘And this autumn and winter is going to be fabulous. Celtic silver and platinum jewellery against soft, misty greens and mauves…’

Flora knew when she was being buttered up, and this was buttering on a grand scale. ‘Indie—’

‘Enough. You didn’t object at the time, and one month out of your life is not a lot to ask…’ she paused briefly ‘…considering you’re a director of this company.’

‘That was not my choice. I’m not a businesswoman.’ She’d been railroaded into taking it on in order to show solidarity against the Farradays. ‘I really don’t have the time—’

‘I’ll let you go, Flora—and I promise I’ll never ask you to do another thing for me once this Farraday nonsense is out of the way—but I need you to show total commitment right now. Not next month. Not next year. Now. We have to offer a united front in the face of their attempt to grab control. Please don’t be difficult.’

Flora wanted to be difficult. She wanted to scream and stamp and throw things, just the way her mother did when she didn’t get her way. Knowing from experience just how unattractive that was, she restrained herself. She didn’t give up, though. ‘I’m going there to look at some ancient finery, take some pictures and then write about it, Indie. It’s not a spectator sport,’ she said. ‘And Bram Gifford will not be amused when he finds out that it’s nothing to do with the store.’

‘You’ll have to convince him that it is. Tell him you’re working on next year’s collection. Ask his advice about camera angles if he gets tricky,’ she suggested, abandoning buttering in favour of arm-twisting. ‘Men can’t resist any opportunity to display their superiority. Especially Farraday men,’ she added, with feeling. ‘I just need you to keep Bram Gifford busy and out of my hair while the lawyers work on a strategy to keep them out. It isn’t much to ask.’ She paused only long enough to draw breath. ‘Unless you want to see them move in and take over?’

Flora didn’t care much one way or the other, but she knew better than to say so.

‘The last thing I want is him being left to his own devices, poking around the store, probing into things that don’t concern him,’ India added. ‘And if you leave him behind, that’s what he’ll be doing.’

Flora thought that as a major shareholder Abraham Farraday Gifford had every right to ask difficult questions. But since that was part of the agreement—whichever family was in control ran the place without interference—she didn’t bother to say so. Her apparently watertight excuse to avoid getting involved in this shadowing scheme had just developed a leak.

‘Any progress with the lawyers?’ she asked, infinitely hopeful.

‘Well, the fact that the agreement states control should pass to the “oldest male heir” offers considerable scope on the sex discrimination front, but it isn’t going to hold Jordan Farraday for long. He’s older than I am, so he can surrender the “male” bit without giving away a thing—’

‘After which it’ll be a mad race to see who can produce the first baby Claibourne or Farraday so that the next generation can do this again in another thirty years,’ said Flora. Put like that, maybe she did have a duty to help put an end to such nonsense.

Her sister apparently missed the irony, because she simply shrugged and said, ‘As women, I think we might have the upper hand there.’

Flora doubted that. She strongly suspected that if Bram Gifford called for volunteers, he’d be in severe danger of being trampled in the crush.

‘In the meantime,’ she went on, ‘I’ve got to make my case on the grounds of equality in the workplace. Which means proving I’m Jordan Farraday’s equal.’

‘So prove it. Go ahead and announce your stunning plans for the total revamping of Claibourne & Farraday. Surely that’s the quickest way to demonstrate your capability?’

‘There’s a problem with that.’

Flora waited.

‘I can’t announce my plans right now because they include removing the name Farraday from the store.’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to relaunch it as Claibourne’s. One snappy, modern name instead of two long-winded ones.’

‘Oh, fudge! I really wish you hadn’t told me that.’ Flora really wished she hadn’t asked. She wasn’t good at secrets. Not those kind of secrets. She’d used up her entire store of secrecy genes keeping just one. ‘I can see how that might be…um…’

‘Like waving a red rag at a bull? Inviting court injunctions and goodness knows what else?’

‘I shouldn’t think goodness would have much to do with it.’

‘Which is why you have to keep Bram Gifford occupied for the next month. Try and stun him with one of your flashes of genius—demonstrate just how indispensable you are to the success of the store. I don’t expect him to be on our side, but if he can be neutralised—’

‘You’re not suggesting I neutralise him the way Romana neutralised Niall?’ Flora asked. ‘Because I’m telling you now—’

‘Until they return from their honeymoon we won’t know who neutralised whom,’ she said. ‘I need you, Flora. I really need you.’

That her sister would admit to needing anyone had to be a first. India had always been entirely self-sufficient. But Flora had her own problems. ‘I just don’t see what I can do. I’m going to be working in the museum most of the time and when I’m not there I’m going to have to take a trip into the interior to look at the excavations. It’ll be very short on mod cons and it’s got nothing to do with the store.’ She hoped, if she kept repeating that, India might eventually realise the futility of involving her.

‘Bram Gifford doesn’t have to know that.’

‘Oh, please! His middle name is Farraday. He won’t be that easy to fool.’

‘Then don’t even try. The Tutankhamun treasure inspired the Egyptian look. With a bit of effort your “lost princess” could do the same. Just give us something to work with. And it won’t hurt Mr Gifford to work up a sweat following you through the rainforest.’

‘What about me?’

‘You won’t even notice the discomfort. You never do.’ India finally smiled. ‘It won’t be that bad, Flora. I’ve been doing a little research of my own and, believe me, Bram Gifford is at the top of every girl’s wish list.’

‘Not mine,’ she said, with feeling. She’d seen photographs of him in Celebrity magazine—a golden bear of a man, oozing wealth and power, with an endless succession of lovely women clinging to his arm.

Her mother would adore him.

‘Hey, I’m not suggesting anything serious, but it wouldn’t hurt to flirt with him a little. Just don’t, whatever you do, fall in love with the man.’

The warning was quite unnecessary. If he was going to be dogging her heels, the next month was going to be quite bad enough without making a total fool of herself. Once was more than enough. But she didn’t say that. What she said was, ‘Don’t be silly. There isn’t a girl alive who could meet him without falling in love with him. That’s what men like Bram Gifford are for.’ Her mother had an entire collection of them. But she pulled a face so that India would know she was joking.

India, realising that she’d won, laughed more with relief than amusement. ‘I have the feeling that meeting you will be a unique experience for him.’

Bram leafed through the thick file of newspaper cuttings and magazine articles that in one way or another touched on the life of Flora Claibourne. Other than the dreary formal portrait used on the jacket of her book, which made her look ten years older that she was, and the broadsheet reviews, few concerned her as an individual.

Mostly they included her as an add-on. She was a member of a well-known family whose loves and lives had always provided fodder for newspaper diarists. She didn’t appear to have had any affairs worth reporting, though. Unlike her mother, who was a tabloid editor’s dream.

Peter Claibourne’s second wife had been a model. Tall, leggy and stunningly good-looking in those early photographs. She hadn’t stayed with Claibourne long. She hadn’t stayed with anyone long. She must be in her forties now, although cosmetic surgery and kind lighting made her appear closer to Flora’s age. Maybe that was why they had rarely been seen together much once Flora had grown out of photogenic babyhood. The myth of endless youth would not survive the comparison, and since her latest husband—formerly her personal trainer—was considerably younger than her, that illusion was a necessity.

And Flora might prefer it that way too. It must be tough to be compared with your mother and found wanting.

On those rare occasions on which she’d been forced to put on a long frock and makeup she looked ill at ease, as if desperate to escape and return to the safety of her books. She looked, he decided, like a virgin who didn’t quite know what her body was for.

An innocent little fish just waiting for a cunningly tied fly to be drifted temptingly over the water? It seemed unlikely. She was twenty-six years old. There must be more to her than that.

There was a long ring at the doorbell.

He took one last look at the photograph. It was true that she was no Eve, but it was entirely possible she’d open up like a flower to the sun in response to a little attention. He wouldn’t be closing his eyes, though. He’d be watching her every minute of the day.

Picking up the overnight bag that contained his passport, along with the essentials for coping with a long flight, he went to answer it.

‘Mr Gifford? Your car for the airport, sir.’

Flora Claibourne barely looked up from the notes she was reading as he joined her in the rear of the limousine that was taking them to the airport. Just long enough to nod and say, ‘I’m sorry about dragging you away like this, Mr Gifford. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.’

She was wearing a crumpled linen trouser suit in some indescribably drab colour, her hair an untidy bird’s nest inadequately secured with pins and combs. If she’d tried, he thought, she couldn’t have looked less appealing.

He turned on a suitably low-wattage smile to match her cool businesslike manner. Maybe the sun would warm her up.

‘It’s Bram,’ he said. ‘And don’t apologise. A couple of weeks on a tropical island sounds a lot more attractive than following you around a department store.’

‘The whole purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate what it takes to run a department store,’ she pointed out, not bothering with a smile of any kind. Or a return invitation to use her given name.

Prickly, as well as plain. God, he hated women who made no attempt to look attractive, instead challenging the male of the species to hunt for inner beauty and gain his true reward. He had news for her. The average male wasn’t interested in inner beauty. But it wasn’t his job to tell her that. His brief was to find out what was going on behind the scenes at Claibourne & Farraday.

He didn’t think flattery would impress her much either, so he said, ‘If that were the case we’d both be wasting our time. You know nothing and since I’m a lawyer, not a shopkeeper, I’m not especially interested.’

The smile hadn’t made any impression; maybe he could disarm her with frankness. Okay, so he wasn’t being totally frank. He was very interested in getting the Claibournes out and the Farradays in with the minimum amount of fuss. Legally.

‘At least this way I’ll be wasting my time in the sun.’

She glanced at him again without raising her head, just a sideways look—a lift of lashes untroubled by mascara but long and dark enough without it. In any other woman he’d have taken it as the opening move in a game of flirtation, but Flora appeared to be totally oblivious of the effect such a look might provoke. Or maybe she was cleverer than he’d given her credit for. She must have learned something from her mother, even if she’d only absorbed it by osmosis.

‘Have you packed walking boots?’ she asked.

No, she was oblivious, he decided.

‘Should I have?’

She shrugged, as if it was of no particular concern to her whether he had or not. ‘I anticipate taking a trip into the interior. It might be rough going. Of course you don’t have to come with me.’ She reached up and pushed a comb more firmly into the bird’s nest. ‘I’m sure you’d be much happier staying at the beach.’

Roughly translated, that meant, I’d be much happier if you stayed on the beach, he thought. She’d probably be a lot happier if he stayed at home. Well, it wasn’t his role in life to make her happy.

‘On the contrary, Miss Claibourne, I’m along for the ride. Wherever it goes. I’ll be most interested in everything you do.’

She looked doubtful, but didn’t argue, returning to the handwritten notes in the file she was holding, suggesting without words that they were far more interesting that anything he might have to say.

Again, in any other woman he would have assumed it was all part of the game and been amused, but it was clear that Flora Claibourne didn’t play games. She really didn’t care.

Round one to her, then.

His presence ignored, he opened his briefcase and extracted a brand-new hard-back book. Ashanti Gold, by Flora Claibourne.

He, too, began to read.

Flora didn’t miss his attempt to flatter, although why he would bother at all surprised her. Not that it mattered, because she wasn’t impressed. She’d seen all the moves before.

He pushed long, elegant fingers through his shaggy mane of sun-streaked hair, taking it back from his forehead in an unconsciously graceful gesture.

That one was a classic, she thought. And beautifully done, with not a hint of the self-conscious. He made it look like a gesture he’d used all his life—not one he’d practised in front of a mirror.

She still wasn’t impressed. Bram Gifford might consider himself a world-class charmer, but it would take more than the purchase of her book, a faux interest in her subject, to turn her head. But she didn’t say anything.

While he was pretending fascination with the history and uses of gold in West Africa he wasn’t attempting to engage her in conversation, which was just fine with her.

With any luck he’d read all the way to Saraminda.

Saraminda. The name had an exotic ring to it and the island didn’t disappoint, Flora decided, as the small inter-island plane banked steeply to line up with the floor of a tropical valley, offering them a breathtaking view of the mountainous landscape.

The lower slopes were farmed on terraces painstakingly cut into the hills, but above the farms the foothills rose in wave after wave, until they soared into peaks densely thicketed with the dark green vegetation of a rainforest that until recently had hidden the ruins of a temple where a young woman had been buried with all the ceremony of a queen.

Allegedly.

She’d met Tipi Myan briefly at a reception given by the travel department at the store more than a year ago. He hadn’t been Minister of Antiquities then. He’d been running the country’s tourist authority.

Call her cynical, but if she’d been in his shoes she might have been tempted to use that very tenuous acquaintance to ask the author of Ashanti Gold to write about his “lost princess”. It would provoke a lot more interest in his island than an article by some jobbing photo-journalist looking for a story to sell.

It had been his good fortune that she’d been looking for an escape route at the time. One that had backfired on her. As Bram Gifford leaned across her to get a better look, his thick corn-coloured hair catching the sun, the small inner voice that warned her she was being used, grew louder.

She was being used by everyone. All that had changed was her ability to see the game for what it was and ensure that she wasn’t hurt in the process.

‘We’re going up there?’ Bram asked, looking up at mountain peaks gold-misted in the dawn light before turning to her. He was, she thought, heart-meltingly handsome, with warm, toffee-brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. ‘You aren’t bothered about snakes and spiders and creepy-crawlies?’

For pity’s sake! Did she look like a bird-witted fool? Patronising cancelled out toffee-brown eyes—however crinkly their corners—every time.

‘In my experience they have more reason to be scared of me than I have of them,’ she replied matter-of-factly. She’d witnessed the most practised flirts at work, but she’d only been caught once. She was a quick learner, and it would take a lot more than ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ to impress her. ‘There are far more unpleasant things in this world than arthropoda,’ she added.

Bram, who’d expected the usual shiver of horror, gave a mental nod in her direction. Not too many women of his acquaintance would have resisted the opportunity to squeal a little, just to boost his ‘big strong man’ quotient. Or used arthropoda in a sentence. But then he was the first to admit that he wasn’t interested in their IQ.

Having neatly put him down, she wasn’t waiting for him to compliment her on her backbone either. He was getting the message, loud and clear, that she didn’t care what he thought.

Instead she began gathering her personal possessions without any fuss, not taking the slightest bit of notice of him.

In his experience this was usually a calculated ploy. Not noticing men had been raised to an art form by a certain type of woman. The kind who wanted to be noticed.

He had to concede that she didn’t appear to be one of them, but he’d reserve judgement.

Right now the early-morning sun, pouring in through the window, was lighting up her tortured hair and glinting off a dozen hairpins. Someone should do her a favour and throw them away, he thought. And those damned combs that she was forever replacing without seeming to notice what she was doing. As if reading his mind, she raised her hands to capture a loose strand of hair and anchor it in place.

Then, as if sensing him watching her, she let her hands drop to her lap. ‘I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking. That’s so remiss of me. Are you concerned for your own safety, Mr Gifford?’

This was the nearest they’d come to a conversation in the endless hours of flying. She was still sticking to his surname though, despite his request that she call him Bram. But at least it was a question: a mocking one, to be sure, but one that required an answer. A decided advance on the monosyllabic responses she’d stuck to throughout the long flight.

Clearly a seasoned traveller, she’d eaten little, refused anything but water to drink and slept without fuss when she wasn’t working—although that hadn’t been often. And while they’d waited for their transfer to the Saraminda flight at Singapore she’d toured the shops, looking at everything but buying nothing. And saying even less.

He’d used the time when she’d been sleeping to take a long hard look at Flora Claibourne. She might be clever, but she was a woman, and they all had their weak spots. If he was going to get her to open up to him, trust him, confide in him, he’d have to discover hers.

Of the three Claibourne sisters she most favoured her father in looks. Not much of a start for a girl. On her, the nose only just missed being a disaster. But then all her features were larger than life. She had a full, generous mouth that might have been dangerous if she’d bothered to make the most of it. And eyes that, although a rather undistinguished shade of brown, were strikingly framed by long lashes and fine brows.

It was a face full of character, he decided. Then had recalled his formidable grandmother ticking him off when, as a callow youth, he’d rather unkindly dismissed some girl as plain. ‘Her face may not be pretty, but it has character, Bram,’ she’d told him. ‘And she has lovely skin. That will last long after chocolate-box prettiness has lost its charm.’

He hadn’t been convinced at the time. Still wasn’t. But he had to admit that Flora Claibourne had lovely skin too. In the clear, unforgiving light at thirty thousand feet it had seemed almost translucent, with just the faintest dusting of freckles that had been invisible in the grey London morning they’d left behind them. The kind of skin that without sun block would frazzle to a red, peeling crisp. He hoped she didn’t take her reverse vanity that far.

He’d noticed, too, that asleep she lost the wary look that she disguised well beneath a faintly aggressive attitude. So what, exactly, was she wary of? Him? He hadn’t done anything to warrant wariness. Yet.

Awake, she’d concentrated on work, and he’d known better than to push his company on her. Instead he’d read her book from cover to cover, which was why he now knew more than he’d ever wanted to know about the history of gold working in West Africa. That wasn’t a complaint. She had a lively style and could tell a story. It was just that he hadn’t anticipated reading it all in one go.

To sum up, then, she was aggressively dowdy, wary and clever. In short, everything he disliked in a woman.

She was also, having ignored his presence for most of the flight, now taking the opportunity to poke a little fun at him. She might not have the style of her sisters, but he was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t going to be the push-over he’d anticipated.

A flicker of anticipation rippled through him. An unexpected charge of excitement. It was a long time since the outcome of the chase had seemed so uncertain. Or the stakes so high.