Max's Proposal
Jane Donnelly
A suitable wife?It was a practical proposal. Max Vella, a rich and famous businessman, needed a wife to organize his many social functions, and Sara needed money to help her sister.So Sara took on the role of dutiful wife, but just as she was beginning to realize that her feelings for Max were more than just business, she discovered that she wasn't the only candidate he'd had in mind. The beautiful and enviable Imogen was everything Sara was not and, if Sara wanted to keep her man, it looked as if she had a fight on her hands!
“I’m asking you to marry me,” Max said slowly (#uccb19646-9feb-58dc-bd0d-88cbfbf23639)About the Author (#u2d285617-2460-5f58-b317-2190f66a8c6e)Title Page (#uc84733a1-0bcd-5028-ab5a-3ffd7895b60c)CHAPTER ONE (#u10d02c73-c646-5dda-89b5-ab805b957c42)CHAPTER TWO (#ufa8a201d-3c9a-5a9a-8f42-70da20a38458)CHAPTER THREE (#u6fe0e0bc-3bc4-57ab-ad4a-e0d9bd990fc1)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I’m asking you to marry me,” Max said slowly
Sara froze. “What did you say? Are you drunk?” she gasped.
“Not in the least.”
“Why?”
“I’m in my mid-thirties, I’m tired of playing the field and I need a wife.” Which still left the question unanswered.
“But why me?”
“You’re honest. You’re loyal, you’re bright and beautiful, and I find you very desirable. I mistrust love matches. I’m not an emotional man, and from what I’ve seen of others, love usually turns into a bad joke.”
Sara was lost for words....
Jane Donnelly began eaming her living as a teenage reporter. When she married the editor of the newspaper, she freelanced for women’s magazines for a while, and wrote her first Harlequin
novel as a hard-up single parent. Now she lives in a roses-around-the-door cottage in England near Stratford-on-Avon, with her daughter, four dogs and assorted rescued animals. Besides writing she enjoys traveling, swimming, walking and the company of friends.
Max’s Proposal
Jane Donnelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
SARA SOLWAY’S toes felt red-hot in the pretty pumps with the rhinestone heels. So much for that bargain. Marked down in the sales, she hadn’t been able to resist them. Now if she didn’t get out of them soon she would be needing scissors to cut them off because she could feel her feet puffing up. Music and voices filled the air from the Bonfire Night Ball in the great hall of the Moated House, but there was no one else in this corridor. Sara leaned against a door and balanced on one leg. But then the door swung inwards and sent her sprawling backwards into the room.
For a few seconds she lay winded on the carpet. Lights and noise spilled in from the corridor; behind her the shadowy room was quiet. She sat up, easing off her shoes, which felt wonderful. She was not going back straight away. She wouldn’t be missed for a while. She was on duty tonight, covering the ball for the local newspaper. Carrying her shoes, she padded between the shapes of furniture towards the long window at the far end of the room and the big wing-backed chair. She sank into the downy softness of the chair and pulled her feet up under her so that she could massage her insteps. When she went back she would get a strong black coffee to keep herself awake...
But then suddenly lights went on. She shifted slightly, flexing her shoulders, and stiffened when she recognised a man’s voice. She hadn’t caught the words. Realising who was speaking had brought her wide awake. Although he was the one with every right to walk into any room. It was his house. He was hosting tonight’s charity ball. If anyone strolled in, switching on lights, it would probably be Max Vella. But he was about the last man Sara wanted to find her snoozing in a hidden corner. Not that it was any of his business what she did. He didn’t own the Chronicle. Half the town maybe, but he was not her boss.
Then she heard him say, ‘Right, and now I’ll tell you what you’re going to do.’ Sara could be overhearing something top secret because he was not giving friendly advice he was issuing orders. Another man mumbled something and Vella said, ‘Just listen.’
Sara was a born reporter and that meant a born listener, and she huddled down in the chair, making herself as small as possible, bright-eyed with anticipation. She could see nothing. Her chair was turned away from the room, facing the window, and that was as well because it meant they couldn’t see her.
They were discussing some property that might be going at a knock-down rate, Sara gathered, and the other man was to grease palms and keep Vella’s name out of it. The other man didn’t sound too happy. He sounded small and anxious, while Max Vella was always big and aggressive enough to stop a tank.
She must remember every word. This could add up to a corruption expose. The local paper she worked for would be wary of taking on one of the town’s leading employers, but there were other papers and radio stations that would be interested.
They seemed to be walking away from her towards the door, because the voices were quieter until she heard Vella say, ‘If he won’t co-operate I want him out of the way permanently. Another accident. As soon as possible.’ Sara’s little glow of triumph went as abruptly as if icy water had been tipped over her. He couldn’t have meant what she thought he’d meant. Everybody knew he was as ruthless as they come, but out of the way permanently ...?
This sort of thing was part of the plot of novels and TV films. It did happen. But when you’d come along to cover a charity bash and overheard your host arranging a fatal accident it paralysed you. Another accident? How many had there been? She pressed fingertips to her temples, feeling a vein pulsing hotly beneath the thin skin. What was she going to do? Who should she tell? Who would believe her when she said she’d fallen asleep and woken to hear this? They would think she’d still been only half-awake, and with only Sara’s word who would make an enemy of Max Vella?
He had the clout of big money. But somebody’s life was in danger and when she got out of here she must look for who was with Vella. She would have to if he and the man were still together—although she probably wouldn’t recognise the other man’s voice as it had hardly been raised above a murmur.
She was breathing fast and shallowly, like a cornered animal. There had been silence since she’d heard the door close. They had surely been gone long enough for her to creep out and hurry back into the cover of the crowds, but she couldn’t move a muscle. She was punch-drunk, shocked rigid and she felt him before she saw him.
His shadow seemed to fall over her and then he was beside the chair, looming over her. ‘Well, hello,’ he said. ‘What have we here?’
Instinctively and frantically she tried to grin, stretching her lips in a grimace that might pass as a smile, gibbering, ‘Oh, hello; this is a wonderfully comfortable chair. It’s a dreadful thing to say but I fell asleep for a few minutes. Not that this isn’t a brilliant party, but my shoes were pinching so I kicked them off and closed my eyes.’ She looked at her wrist-watch, and he must see how her hand was shaking. ‘Am I in time for the fireworks?’
‘You haven’t missed the fireworks,’ he said. ‘You haven’t missed a thing.’
He knew what she had heard and she couldn’t get out of here. She couldn’t pass him; he was too big, too strong. She couldn’t scream either because her throat was closing up.
‘Not very observant, are you?’ he said.
‘Huh?’ What was he talking about?
‘Second frame along.’ He pointed to the window wall. ‘That, my little newshound, is a mirror.’
In a heavy gilt frame was a large lacquered painting of red goldfish among dark weeds. It looked Oriental, and you could easily imagine that the fish were swimming, the weeds swaying. Among several pictures, Sara hadn’t even glanced at it before, but the background was a mirror and she could see how it would reflect anyone sitting in the wing-backed chair.
‘When did you see me?’ The words jerked through her dry lips.
‘About a minute into the conversation I looked across and there was this sharp little face peering between the weeds.’ He sounded amused, and she choked.
‘You recognised me?’
‘I’ve got very good eyesight. Yes, I recognised the redhead from the Chronicle.’
He must have eyes like a hawk, but Sara’s hair was bright. Looking into the mirror background now, she saw her own worried face, her hair the colour of the lacquered goldfish, and the tall, dark figure of the man beside her. She couldn’t turn and face him but she couldn’t take her eyes off his reflection.
‘You’d no business being in here,’ he went on. ‘And what you heard doesn’t amount to a row of beans. I’m interested in some real estate, but if I make an offer in my name the price goes up. I’m using a middleman, and so what? But, going by your beady eyes and the way your nose was twitching, you thought you’d got yourself a nice little scoop.’
He had been making a fool of her, and he was laughing at her now. ‘Did you both see me?’ she asked.
‘He’s short-sighted. He didn’t see you and he wasn’t in the room towards the end, but I wondered how you’d react if you thought you’d hit the lottery. You couldn’t believe your ears at first, could you? I saw you shaking your head. Then you decided it was for real. You actually believed I was knocking off the competition.’
She said sharply, ‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘Of course you did. You were scared silly.’
She was relieved of course that he had been playacting, but it had made her feel ill, and she snapped, ‘Of course I was shocked; I was appalled.’
‘It’s appalling that you were stupid enough to credit it.’
She jumped out of the chair to round on him, resentment bubbling up in her. ‘Why shouldn’t I believe it? For all I know you could be ordering accidents like hot dinners, and it was a stupid thing to do. I nearly had a heart attack.’
‘Serves you right,’ he said. ‘Skulking in corners, snooping.’ He tutted at her as if she were a pushy child.
When she said coldly, ‘I am a journalist,’ he grinned.
‘Not much of a one if you’re gullible enough to believe somebody would brief a hit man without making damn sure no one else was listening.’
But the room had been in darkness and must have seemed empty, and she was not as sharp as usual. Last night almost without sleep had dulled her wits, and belatedly she tried for a little dignity. ‘I was asleep in here. I woke up when you came in so I didn’t have that much time to clear my head.’
The top of her head reached halfway up his chest. Tall and powerfully built, he towered over her, and she needed the extra inches her high heels would give her. One shoe was right there and she shoved her foot into it, looking round for its mate.
‘I hope I can walk in these,’ she babbled. ‘It’s a mistake to take your shoes off if your feet get hot. I did it in a cinema once.’ Sara tended to jabber when she was nervous but not usually as badly as this.
The second shoe was under the footstool and as she kicked it out she swayed slightly. He need not have supported her and when he put a hand under her elbow it did more harm than good, startling her off-balance almost into his arms. And that was when the door opened and a couple took a couple of steps into the room. They both stared, gasped and backed out fast, pulling the door to behind them. Still holding Sara, Max Vella burst out laughing.
‘The question is,’ he said, ‘whether they think I’m assaulting you or we’re both enjoying this.’
She must have looked dishevelled to the pair who had just walked in, but it was such a mad idea that she and Max Vella were up to anything. And even crazier that he would be forcing himself on her. Sara couldn’t hold back a giggle.
She knew Vella, of course. She had met him at local functions where he was always a focus of attention. As he was anywhere. He was well over average height with a hard man’s good looks and the potent charisma of someone who had fought his way through rough times to come out right at the top.
She had also been in his arms before. Once. At a Lord Mayor’s ball when someone had bet her she wouldn’t dare ask him to dance, and Sara had taken the three paces that divided them and asked before she had given herself time to think. Then she had been in the middle of the dance floor with Vella as her partner, and he had said, ‘No comment, to whatever you’re going to ask next.’
He never gave interviews. He had thought that had been what she was after, and she’d said, ‘Would I ask you to dance for an interview?’
‘You would,’ he’d said. That near to him, she had been able to see how the sensual mouth curved when he smiled. There had been butterflies in her stomach and she’d quipped back, ‘I’ve just been dared to ask you. I have a very small bet riding on this.’
‘Not too small, I hope.’ He had been amused but she had begun to feel stupid. He was a stunningly sexy man but he was too rich and too strong for Sara.
Usually she was a good dancer but she had been dancing awkwardly then, wanting the music to stop. When it had he’d let her go at once and she’d backed off fast.
Now she was in his arms again, and this time she noticed the little lines that radiated from the corners of his eyes. He had hooded eyes, but she could see they were gun-metal grey, glinting with laughter, and the strength of him was overpowering enough to weaken her bones.
She croaked, ‘Shouldn’t we follow that couple and explain?’
‘Explain what?’
That they were going off with completely the wrong idea. But Sara wouldn’t know how to begin to explain so that had been a silly suggestion. If they gossiped it couldn’t matter to her. Almost certainly Max Vella wouldn’t care less what gossips said about him. He was no longer holding her, and she sat down on the footstool to ease her foot into the second shoe.
Vella had taken a chair too. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and that brought her head up with a jerk.
‘What for?’
‘For livening up the evening.’ She supposed she had given him a couple of laughs, what with this and the hit man.
‘Don’t tell me you were getting bored?’ she said sweetly.
‘I was not the one who fell asleep. You must have been bored to death.’
She was not expected to doze off when she was sent out to cover one of the top social occasions of the year. ‘I was tired,’ she said defensively.
‘You look healthy enough.’ He gave her a slow head-to-toe scrutiny and she found herself crossing her arms over her breasts as if she were covering nakedness, although her dress was perfectly adequate.
Of course she looked healthy. She was healthy. She had a slim, strong body and a clear complexion that looked even healthier than usual because she was flushing slightly under his stare. ‘How come the sudden lack of stamina?’ he enquired.
She snapped, ‘Lack of sleep last night.’
As she said it she realised how that could sound, and when he drawled, ‘Congratulations, is he here tonight?’ the blood burned even hotter on her cheekbones.
‘I was kept awake last night by four-year-old twins.’
Vella’s eyebrows rose. ‘Yours?’
He didn’t know much about her, except that she was the redhead from the Chronicle. Over the years they had had a few skirmishes. Once her paper had had to print an apology to him when Sara had misread her notes reporting a quote of his. But he had never shown any interest in her personally. She could be married or a single parent for all he knew. ‘They’re my sister’s,’ she said. ‘They were staying at my place last night and they ate half a pound of chocolate truffles between them.’
‘You sound about as useful a babysitter as you are a reporter.’
She prided herself on being accurate and conscientious in her work—that slip-up had been years ago—and she snapped, ‘How the hell would you know what I’m like as a babysitter? I didn’t give them the chocolates. They found them after they’d been put to bed.’ Sleeping pills had kept her sister Beth deep asleep in the little bed in Sara’s tiny spare room, and she had come into the kitchen this morning white-faced and heavy-eyed, as Sara had boiled a kettle for early-morning tea.
Sara had explained that the twins had passed a sickly night but were sleeping now, and Beth had said, ‘Wouldn’t you know it? I’m sorry, Sar, but we’ll have to go back. I know what you’re going to say and you’re right, of course, but I can’t help loving him.’
It was no more than Sara had expected. ‘Can’t help loving that man’ seemed to be the curse of the Solway women. Not Sara, but both her sister and her mother.
Head down now, Sara fumbled with her shoe, her hair veiling her face so Max Vella couldn’t see the shadow that crossed her face. She had had plenty of practice at hiding her personal problems, and when he said, ‘You didn’t finish the story of taking your shoes off in the cinema,’ she looked up and forced a smile.
‘I got them on again. It wasn’t easy but I hobbled out and snapped at the man I was with and he never asked me for another date.’
‘And you never asked him?’
She pulled a face, ‘If he couldn’t handle a little thing like that I couldn’t see much of a future for us.’
‘And you’re not a girl who does a lot of snapping?’
‘I do not. I have a very sweet nature.’
‘Now why don’t I find that tallies with what I know of you?’
‘I wouldn’t know why.’ She put on a look of injured innocence. ‘Unless, maybe, you bring out the worst in me.’
Whether he was roaring with laughter or chuckling, as he was now, his laughter sounded genuine. Tonight she liked his laughter. And she quite liked the way his crisp dark hair curled back from his forehead and round his ears. In a superbly tailored evening suit, white silk shirt and black tie, he was the lord of this manor house. But she’d heard he had started off locally on a market stall and had gone on from there with the devil’s own luck.
She blurted, ‘You started on the markets, didn’t you?’ She should be trying for an interview.
‘That was another life,’ he said.
‘I’d love to hear about it.’
‘I’m sure you would.’
She was never going to get a chance like this again—a tête-à-tête with Max Vella, him thanking her for brightening his evening. She took a deep breath and pleaded, ‘It wouldn’t hurt you, would it, to talk to me? It would be a scoop for me and I’m sure you don’t have anything to hide.’
She was sure that he had, and that he would never incriminate himself to a reporter. But her editor would be glad of any entertaining copy of the local tycoon with the Midas touch who never gave interviews. Starting with whether he was from gypsy stock. That was one of the rumours, and it could be a talking point.
‘You’re an opportunist,’ said Vella.
She had overheard him making a business arrangement just now and he thought she was using that as a gentle persuader. But he still seemed amused, and she said, ‘Takes one to know one,’ astonishing herself at her own cheek.
‘I’ll consider it.’ He was going to give her something to publish. She had an entrée here, and a lousy day was becoming surprisingly special. He sat down in one of the other chairs. ‘Now tell me about yourself,’ he said. He leaned back, arms folded, hooded eyes fixed on her, and she would have liked to get up off the footstool and sit in a chair herself. She was not too happy down here, crouching at his feet. It was flattering in a way, him being prepared to listen to her talking about herself, but he was probably the toughest man she had ever come across and she was going to have to watch what she told him.
‘Have you worked anywhere else but the Chronicle?’ he asked her.
‘I was taken on as a trainee journalist there and when I qualified I joined the staff.’
‘That’s it? No urge to move on?’ He must always have been hungry for success. He wouldn’t understand how anyone could stay in the same smallish job for years, and she had been with the Chronicle for over four years.
He made her feel a real stick-in-the-mud, and she said loftily, ‘Of course, I’ve got ambitions. I’m not planning on staying put till I draw my pension.’
The door opened again, the sound of voices drifting in, and Max stood up. ‘Can I help you?’ he said curtly.
‘Just looking around,’ trilled a woman. ‘It is all right, isn’t it?’
‘Not in here.’
Sara peeked round the side of the chair and heard the large lady in blue velvet say, ‘Pardon the intrusion,’ eyes popping at Sara as she turned to leave.
‘That was the mayoress,’ said Sara, as if he didn’t know.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a nosy old bat who didn’t believe what she was told and came to see for herself.’
The town’s mayoress was a great one for gossip, and hearing that Max Vella was wrestling in here with the local reporter would be a juicy item.
‘This is crazy,’ said Sara.
‘You didn’t help much. You could have stood up instead of peering up from floor level.’ He was grinning again. She had leaned sideways from the footstool to look round the chair so that it might have seemed she was lying on the floor. ‘Is some man with a claim on you likely to be barging in next to get you out of my clutches?’ he asked.
‘There’s nobody here with a claim on me.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Which meant of course he was glad there wouldn’t be another silly scene, rather than pleased there was no man at the centre of Sara’s life right now. The idea of anybody she knew standing up to Max Vella was extremely unlikely, but perhaps she ought to be getting out of here. She badly wanted to interview him but she was not so keen about him cross-questioning her. She had her shoes on. They were still tight and she took one off again and tried flexing it.
‘Why come to a dance in shoes that don’t fit?’ he enquired.
‘They felt fine earlier. They felt all right when I bought them; I got them in a sale last week and they seemed such a bargain.’
‘You get what you pay for,’ he said.
‘That’s rich, coming from you. You were setting up a bargain just now, weren’t you, that sounded like a very dodgy deal?’
He shrugged that off. ‘Life’s a dodgy deal. It’s a tough world.’
She couldn’t argue there, and she looked ruefully at her ‘bargain’. ‘Mostly,’ she said, ‘you get what you can afford, or have you forgotten how that was?’
‘I don’t forget much.’
For a moment she almost felt as if they could swap hard-luck stories, which was ridiculous when his luck was brilliant and he had everything, including a house that Sara had always loved. Vella had lived locally in the penthouse of a riverside block of apartments he owned, before he had moved into the Moated House. When he’d bought this place he had spent a fortune on renovations, but he was not a man Sara could imagine permanently settling anywhere, and she asked him, ‘Shall you stay here?’
‘Probably. I’ve been here now for—’ He paused to work out dates.
She said promptly, ‘Five years and nearly five months.’
‘That’s about right.’
‘That’s dead right. I remember you moving in. Mid-June and blazing hot.’ She could recall it vividly and there was a far-away look in her eyes. ‘We lived at Eddlestone then. I had a horse and I used to ride over the hills and I saw the vans below. I often came this way just to look down at the house.’
‘You did?’ That seemed to surprise him.
She said, ‘Well it’s a fantastic place, isn’t it, with its history and all? Some days when it’s raining or there’s dew on the grass you can imagine the moat’s still there. The buildings can’t have changed much, the towers and the bridge. You are so lucky to be living here.’
‘I was fourteen when I walked over the hills and saw it for the first time,’ he said. ‘And I promised myself that one day I’d have it.’
‘Did you believe you would?’
‘I always keep promises I make to myself.’ He smiled, but even if he used to be dirt poor he must always have felt that nothing was beyond him.
‘How about promises you make to others?’ she teased.
‘Now, that depends.’
They were both smiling now, and she asked him, ‘What were you doing when you were fourteen?’
‘Getting an education in a tough world. What were you doing when you weren’t riding your horse?’
Riding her horse had been part of the pampered life of her teens. ‘Getting an education that wasn’t going to be much use in a tough world,’ she said.
‘You seem to be coping.’
‘Oh, I manage well enough,’ she said airily. ‘I can even get into my bargain shoes.’ She stretched a slim ankle, although her foot felt puffy, and the rhinestone heels glittered.
‘They look good,’ he said.
‘Could be diamonds.’
‘Very flash. The heels alone had to be worth the money.’ For a moment they sat, saying nothing, with an antique French clock ticking softly on a rosewood side table. Then he said, ‘Ten to ten; we’d better get moving.’
The bonfire was lit at ten, followed by the fireworks, and if Max Vella missed the highlight of the evening everybody would be looking for him. As it was most of the company must have heard by now that he and the girl from the Chronicle were carrying on behind a closed door.
Vella pulled back a bolt on the long window and it became a door leading out onto lawns. ‘We can walk round to the courtyard from here,’ he said.
Some of the gardens had lamps burning and coloured lights in the trees, but out here there was only moonlight. There was no one else walking, and this way they would avoid the crowds in the house. The grass was velvet-soft and her thin high heels were digging into the springy turf, so that was one reason for taking off her shoes and going barefoot.
On the fifth of November bonfires dotted the skyline with bright orange beacons, and zooming rockets and scattering stars from other parties lit up the skies. ‘Tonight’s the night for wishing on a star,’ she said.
‘There are enough of them about.’
‘But with so many how would you know which was the right one?’
‘That is the problem. Knowing the right one.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ She sounded wistful. As a child she had wished on shooting stars. Little things had worked sometimes, such as wishing for a fine day for a picnic or a ring with a pink pearl in it. But the big wish that mummy wouldn’t cry any more had never come true so that, even when she had been very young, Sara had stopped believing in magic.
Beyond a row of trees the lawns dipped into a grassy ditch that had once been a stretch of the moat. Coming round the house, they were reaching a gravel path, and as she leaned against a wall to put on her shoes again Max Vella swung her up off her feet into his arms as easily as if she were a child.
Surprise took her breath away. Her instinct was to shriek, but she found she was laughing. ‘This is very obliging,’ she said. ‘Do you do this for all your guests?’
‘Only those who can’t get their shoes on,’ he said.
They were both smiling now, sharing a joke that nobody else could understand. She was getting quite a buzz from that, and the clean, cold smell of his aftershave was intoxicating. She breathed it in, the tip of her nose against his cheek. His skin looked smooth but she could feel a slight prickle where a beard might grow.
She looped one hand round his neck. ‘“Please to remember the Fifth of November”,’ she said gaily, and knew she would never forget this one. In her wildest dreams, or nightmares, she had never envisaged herself being carried away by Max Vella. He wouldn’t stumble. She was relaxed, treating this as a joke, and that was the way it had to be.
Until she had collided, as it were, with Max Vella, tonight had been work. She had been in no mood for partying. But now she was having fun, and when they left the gravel path and he continued to carry her over smoother flagstones, right into the courtyard, she made no move to get down.
Among the crowds they were the star turn so far this evening, and Sara was getting a fit of giggles at all the surprised faces turned towards them. As guests stepped aside for their host and his burden, she kept one arm round his neck and dangled her shoes in the other hand. A woman who owned several exclusive fashion shops right out of Sara’s price range asked, ‘Hurt your foot, dear?’
Sara said brightly, ‘Shoe trouble.’
‘How very convenient.’ The woman gave a sly smirk.
Max said, ‘It was my pleasure.’
‘You might have put that differently,’ Sara whispered in his ear.
‘My very great pleasure,’ he said.
‘They still don’t think that meant what you meant.’
‘Do you care what others think? Would it bother you, getting talked about?’
A few of the guests would be watching the fireworks display from windows, but it was a dry evening and almost everyone had come outside, where a throng of onlookers was circling the high structure of kindling and fuel that would soon blaze into the bonfire. Everybody seemed to be chattering, and the main topic would be that not only had Max Vella had a very private session with what’s-her-name from the local paper but he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her long enough to put her down and let her stand on her own feet.
The bonfire went up with a marvellous whoosh as Max gently put Sara down. Then they stood and watched the wonderful display of fireworks. Some of the time she held onto his arm, sometimes he put an arm around her, but they stayed linked together. The last rocket of all was the most spectacular, throwing out star after star which fell away until the final burst of white light, the biggest and the best, rose in the sky so high it seemed to be vanishing. Then it fell, like a great shooting star, to a chorus of delighted gasps.
Sara turned to Max. ‘That has to be the star for wishing on.’
‘So are you wishing?’
‘Are you?’
‘I don’t do much wishing.’
‘You don’t have much left to wish for.’
‘When I see something I want,’ he said softly, ‘I promise myself.’ Like the Moated House...
With fingertips he brushed her hair back from her forehead out of her eyes and she felt the shock of it like a body blow, because the gesture seemed as intimate as if his hand had been on her breast and he had kissed her full on the lips.
He was looking down at her. One heavy eyebrow was broken by a thin white scar that gave it a devilish quirk in the flickering glow of the fire. His eyes were so dark they were unreadable, and her mouth went dry because suddenly she had no doubt at all of his meaning. Max Vella wanted her...
CHAPTER TWO
MAX VELLA was not the first and he would not be the last man to want Sara—she had always attracted admirers. A few hours ago she could never have imagined Max Vella fancying her. Tonight it was possible. Surprising but possible, and she said with mock gravity, ‘What if your promise wasn’t on offer?’
‘That might make things more difficult.’ He was certainly coming on to her, but this was said with a smile, not to be taken seriously, and Sara was bubbling with laughter, all her problems forgotten for a few hours.
When the party-goers were surging out of the courtyard, back into the house and the buffet and the band, Max still held her hand through his arm. She was wearing her shoes again now, and if he asked her to dance she would dance, but in the great hall, at the foot of the wide oak-panelled staircase, he asked, ‘Do you want the guided tour?’
She had never seen more than the grounds and the ground floor, when she had come here covering charity functions. She had heard the house was fabulous and of course she was curious. If he was offering to show her around himself that was an incredible bonus. ‘I would like that very much,’ she said, and knew that most of the company watched speechless as she and Max Vella went up the staircase together.
Up here there were lights everywhere, and the sounds of the Bonfire Night Ball reached them. Household staff occasionally flitted around but most of these rooms and corridors were empty. The Moated House had fallen on hard times when Vella had bought it but now it looked as it must have done in its glory days. Sara was entranced, and awestruck at the mighty effort and expense that must have gone into restoring the house.
The decor and furniture were perfect. Every piece seemed right for its setting, and Max Vella told her how he had acquired some of them. From private collections and salesrooms, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, auctions all over the country and abroad. In getting what he wanted the master of the Moated House seemed to have set himself no bounds.
When she gasped with delight at a charming pair of porcelain figures of Harlequin and Columbine he took Columbine out of the black lacquered cabinet and put it into Sara’s hands. ‘She’s lovely,’ she said.
‘Chelsea red anchor period.’ Whatever that was. If she had not been a collector’s piece she would not have been here, but Sara wondered if he had ever looked into the exquisite little face and thought how pretty she was.
‘She’s lovely,’ Sara said again. ‘It’s magic, this house. I don’t know how you could ever think of leaving it.’
‘Did I say I was?’
‘You said you were probably staying.’
The scarred eyebrow lifted. ‘Always the newshound. You do remember what you hear.’ He was teasing her, and she looked up from the little figurine with a slanting smile.
‘If it’s interesting enough, I remember.’
Flirting and fooling with Max Vella was a heady experience. When Sara got away from here she might find it hard to believe that this had been going on, although there would be plenty around to remind her. By tomorrow she would be the talk of the town for a few days. Well it was worth it. She was having a really good time—seeing the house, being flatteringly targeted by a mesmerising man and she’d almost been promised an interview. Let them talk. She had weathered worse gossip before now. ‘I should be going. I’m in the office in the morning. It has been a memorable evening.’
‘For me too.’ He sounded like a courteous host. ‘Are you driving back?’
Her little car was parked with others near a side door, which meant she didn’t have to push her way through the throng and she could get away almost unnoticed. Max Vella went with her, and she wished he had not. With him standing over her, she could hardly keep her hand steady enough to get her car keys into the door lock, and then in the ignition. She did manage to say, ‘You won’t forget about the interview?’
‘Could I?’
Of course he could. He could do anything he damn well pleased. Her gaiety ebbed away, replaced by a reaction bordering on panic. She had been playing with fire, and now she headed for town, and her own little apartment, with her heart hammering.
Her flat was over a delicatessen in the town square. She parked her car in the delivery yard and let herself into the building by a back door, into a narrow hall with a steep flight of stairs. The old red-patterned carpet was wearing thin, and the magnificent staircase in the Moated House came into her mind. Compared with that this was like climbing a ladder, and compared with that house Sara’s flat was a dump.
Through the door at the top of the stairs she went into the living room where a small lamp on a side table had been left on. There were toys on the floor so Beth and the twins must still be here, and they were—all three of them lay in the same bed, the children nestling in their mother’s arms.
A beam from a street lamp cast enough light to show Sara a picture that brought a lump to her throat. Her sister’s dark red hair fanned out over the pillow, and long, silky lashes lay like shadows on her pale cheeks. Sleeping Beth looked hardly more than a child herself, although she was only a year younger than Sara, and the flaxen-haired children were so fragile and so vulnerable that Sara wanted to put her own arms around them all, to protect them as she always did.
‘Oh, Lord, what is going to happen to you?’ she whispered, and she went quietly out of the room, closing the door very gently. At least she would have a bed to herself tonight. Last night it had been the sofa and the twins’ bilious turn.
She tiptoed into the bathroom, undressed and washed, making as little noise as possible. She often came back from these high-fashion affairs feeling like Cinderella, and her dress tonight had been rather special. Silky, in deep pine-green with bootlace-thin shoulder straps, tight fitting to the low hipline then flaring to mid-calf. With a haute couture label, although Sara had found it in an up-market jumble sale:
Most of her wardrobe came from sales and nearly-new shops, because she had to make every penny of her salary count. And she wouldn’t be wearing her ‘bargain’ shoes again. Worry and weariness were creasing her smooth brow so that her reflection in the bathroom mirror looked older than her twenty-three years. At this rate, she thought wryly, Beth will be mistaken for my daughter before long. And it was crazy that Beth’s troubles should make her seem more like a delicate child while Sara aged for both of them.
The sisters had a family resemblance in features. And both were redheads, but Beth’s hair was dark auburn while Sara’s flamed, and Beth’s soft, pretty mouth was stronger, fuller, more sensuous in Sara. Beth faced the world with wide eyes while Sara’s eyes often narrowed as she assessed the situation, and that included the men in her life. There had been men in Sara’s life but she’d never taken them seriously enough for a deep relationship to develop. A touch of mockery at the wrong time had lost her several would-be lovers.
Her reflection blurred in the mirror as a wave of fatigue swept over her. She had to get into bed before she slumped down on the bathroom floor. It was a narrow bed in the little spare room but Sara slid gratefully between cool sheets and was on the edge of sleep when a faint report brought her awake again. Somewhere they were still letting off fireworks, and her thoughts drifted back to the bonfire at the Moated House and to Max Vella standing beside her.
His arm around her shoulders had been light, but she could imagine a heavier touch crushing her so that the sheets and duvet seemed suddenly unbearably weighty. His face was in shadow that could have been a mask, and she didn’t need that flash of waking nightmare interpreted. Common sense was warning her loud and clear: if he should get in touch she would have to come up with a very good reason why she couldn’t see him again.
She could say that although she hadn’t taken a partner to the ball she did have a lover. Someone to whom she was completely committed. Max Vella’s world must be full of willing women. He wouldn’t bother with the likes of Sara if she played hard to get.
He probably wouldn’t get in touch because he wasn’t that interested, and when she rang him about the interview he would have changed his mind about that. She tossed and turned for a few more minutes, and then fell asleep.
She would have slept longer if she had not been woken by the sound of bells ringing in her head. The sound pierced the cocoon of her slumber, and still with her eyes shut she shook her head until the ringing stopped. When she did open her eyes very slowly daylight was streaming into the room, and she would have liked to pull the sheets over her head and go back to sleep.
Her throat was dry, and she could hear the twins shrieking. She had to have a cup of coffee and a couple of aspirins or she would start the day with a thumping headache. This was a working day. She had to get into the office this morning, but first she had to find the strength to climb out of bed.
Almost at once the bedroom door opened and Beth came in with the twins skipping behind her. ‘Didn’t you hear the doorbell?’ said Beth. ‘This just came for you.’ And Sara struggled to sit up, mumbling.
‘What?’ It was a very large box of chocolates.
‘With a card,’ said Beth. Written on a white card in black ink Sara read, ‘No rum ruffles, try the hard centres. The interview. My office twelve midday.’ And the initials M.V.
‘A chauffeur brought them. Grey uniform, peaked hat, the lot. Who sent them?’ Beth was agog with curiosity as Sara went on staring at the card. Sara would have recognised the writing anywhere. She couldn’t remember seeing any of his writing before, but she knew he would use a thick nib and write without any flourishes. She said, ‘Max Vella. I met him last night. He’s giving me an interview.’
‘You must have made a very good impression on him last night,’ Beth said. ‘I’ve never seen such a big box of chocolates.’ It lay on the bed beside Sara, a box of fine Belgian chocolates the size of a tea tray. Josh reached for the box and his mother said, ‘Don’t even think about it—and how you can after those truffles.’
Sara would have to explain just what had happened before the gossip reached Beth about her sister and Max Vella. Beth would know that it was nonsense. It was quite funny, it should cheer Beth up, but Sara then realised that if she didn’t hurry she’d be late for work. She would have liked to take time and trouble, fixing her hair and her make-up, choosing something smart and efficient-looking for the midday interview. Getting an interview was a fantastic stroke of luck, but she would have been happier if she hadn’t been seeing him again so soon. In about a week’s time would have suited her better.
Beth was still trying to persuade Sara to eat a slice of toast as Sara struggled into her coat and hurried out of the flat. Toast would have stuck in her throat. ‘I don’t have time for breakfast,’ she called, although it was the thought of facing Max Vella again that was playing havoc with her nerves.
The offices of the Chronicle were across the town square from Sara’s first floor flat. That had always been great—from her door to her work in less than five minutes. But it meant that this morning she shot into Reception with her coat unbuttoned, still trying to smooth down her hair.
The girl behind the counter said, ‘Hello, hello, you didn’t waste your time last night, did you?’
‘Oh, heck.’ Sara stood still and breathed deep. ‘Has Carl been talking?’
There had been a Chronicle photographer at the ball. He must have come back with the news about Max Vella and Sara. ‘Believe me,’ said Sara, ‘it was not what it seemed.’
A door from the front office led into the editorial department, and there she faced her colleagues, all of them waiting for her version of last night’s goings-on. Trying to explain at this stage would be hopeless. She said, ‘Sorry, it isn’t that good a story, whatever Carl’s been telling you.’
‘Come off it,’ Carl said huffily. He knew what he’d heard, what he’d seen. ‘You were getting on with Vella like a house on fire, never mind a bonfire. And then you went off upstairs with him, just the two of you.’
‘He was showing me round the house. I’ve never seen round it before.’
Carl hooted. ‘Ha! All those rooms with fourposter beds in them.’ Bedrooms had just been part of the guided tour like other rooms, but everywhere they had gone she had been conscious of the dynamic force of the man beside her.
‘You went up the stairs,’ Carl was declaring as if this was his proof positive. ‘But nobody saw you come down again.’
‘There’s more than one staircase in that house,’ Sara said scathingly.
Carl grinned. ‘A backstairs way out? What time did you leave?’
‘Before you did,’ she said, and she didn’t want any more of this. ‘Get any good pictures?’ she asked.
‘I missed the best,’ Carl had to admit. ‘You barefoot and him carrying you into the courtyard.’
She couldn’t explain that either, and the editor spoke up. ‘Max Vella? We are talking about Vella?’ And Sara nodded. ‘Doesn’t sound like him,’ the editor mused.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Sara said wearily. ‘I’ll ask him when I see him again. He’s giving me an interview at twelve o’clock.’
The next half-hour she spent with the editor, planning the interview. The Chronicle was a longestablished county newspaper that rarely had anything very exciting to publish. Jim Kelly had been in this job for twenty-odd years. He was delighted that one of his staff would be interviewing the local tycoon who had never given an interview before.
‘Get some human interest,’ Sara was instructed. ‘Where he came from, what local plans he’s got.’
Like the dodgy deal I overheard, Sara might have said, when there were no names mentioned and nothing to tie it in with anything. ‘Human interest,’ she repeated, and Jim Kelly chuckled.
‘Some say Vella isn’t human but you seem to have surprised them all last night.’
‘Last night was pretty surprising all round,’ Sara muttered.
Afterwards she wrote captions for the pictures Carl had taken, and an account of the ball, the charity getting the proceeds, and a list of local bigwigs who had attended. She made no mention of course of herself, although she was going to be a main topic in any discussion of last night at the Moated House.
She was beginning to regret all of it. This morning she would have given a lot to put back the clock and keep out of the darkened room so that she never came up against Max Vella or anything that happened afterwards. Watching the office clock edging round to midday, her tension was building up by the minute, and when there was a phone call for her she hoped it was Vella’s office, postponing their meeting.
It was Beth. ‘Are you all right?’ Beth wanted to know. Assured that Sara was fine, she went on apologetically, ‘I’m going to have to talk to Jeremy. He’s at home and I’ve got to find out, well, how bad things are. Well I have, haven’t I?’
Sara was resigned to this; it was the way it always happened. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Get the figure and we’ll talk about it.’
One thing that never surprised Sara was her brother-in-law. Jeremy Bolton was a problem and always had been. Two nights ago Beth had phoned Sara’s flat in tears. ‘It’s happening again, he’s been betting on the horses again. He’s lost, of course, he always loses, but he never seems to learn. He promised me, and now—Oh, I’ve got to get away, I’ve got to get the twins out of here. I can’t think straight; I don’t know what to do. We can’t go to mother’s; you know how she is when she’s upset. She can’t listen, she can’t take it in. Sar, will you fetch us?’
Since then her sister and the twins had been staying with Sara, and now Beth was on her way to a tearful reunion when Jeremy would promise everything and Beth would believe him.
Tonight Sara would be drawn into that, but first she had a confrontation with Max Vella and it was a toss-up which meeting she was dreading more. Her sister’s husband was a never-ending drain on Sara’s finances and energy. He depressed her, but she knew what she was dealing with with Jeremy. No surprises there.
But Max Vella was as menacing as walking into an uncharted minefield. He was always civil with the press, open-handed to charities. Sara had heard it said, ‘He’ll be Sir Max before he’s forty, if he isn’t in jail.’ But she had never heard of him giving any journalist a face-to-face interview before.
She had amused him last night. He did have a cruel sense of humour. He had made her squirm with the hit man joke, scared her silly. He could be making a fool of her with this interview. She could imagine him sitting behind a huge desk, dominant and arrogant, while she perched on the edge of a small chair, stuttering her questions. He could imply as he had last night that she wasn’t much of a journalist if she blew it and ended up getting no story at all.
But she was good at her job, and she had to stop undermining her self-confidence by wondering why he had agreed to talk to her. The only important fact was that he had, and there was no reason why he should scare her. Well not scare her exactly but make her apprehensive, because he was the kind of man who overawed most people, and Sara couldn’t know what mood he would be in when she was shown into his office.
She arrived dead on time. She didn’t want to hang around and she was not keeping him waiting. So it was five minutes to twelve when she walked through the revolving doors into the office block and was taken to the top floor by a young man in a smart suit and what could be an old school tie.
Young men usually tried to chat up Sara. This one eyed her appreciatively but said nothing as they travelled up in the smooth, fast-moving lift. The lift doors opened onto an area of ash-panelled walls and thick grey carpeting. A door was open. Sara’s guide said, ‘Miss Solway, sir,’ and Sara thought, Into the lion’s den, and then, Well he can’t eat me, and went in with her long-legged stride.
Her next thought, as Vella rose from his chair behind the desk, was that he seemed even taller and broader-shouldered today. But he seemed welcoming. She was seated, offered tea or coffee, and started to say, ‘No, thank you,’ when she changed her mind. The headache she had woken with was still lurking. Even an affable Max Vella would be stressful and a tea or coffee might steady her. ‘I would like a coffee,’ she said.
Coffee for two was brought in by an elegant blonde. Max Vella took his black; Sara doubted if he went for sweetness in anything. She had sugar in hers but it was scalding when she took a sip, and that showed the state she was in because any fool could see it was steaming hot. It brought tears to her eyes as she gulped it down instead of spluttering it out, only thankful that she hadn’t dropped the cup.
After a few seconds she managed to say, ‘Thank you for seeing me. My editor was very pleased.’
‘We aim to please,’ said Vella.
She hoped, but from what she knew the one he aimed to please was usually himself. She took her pocket recorder out of her handbag and put it on the desk, switching it on and asking, ‘Do you mind?’
‘You don’t think you’re going to hear anything interesting enough to remember?’
‘Oh, I’m sure I shall.’ She was not sure at all.
‘Or is this likely to be more reliable than your notes?’ He had to be harking back to the time when Sara had given the impression he was turfing somebody out of a cottage when he had been doing no such thing, and the paper had had to print an apology in the next edition.
She snapped, ‘You don’t forget, do you? I was a student then; I’ve learned a lot since.’ And suddenly he was smiling and it was more like it had been last night.
‘So where do we start?’ he said, and she went quickly into her first question.
‘Anything you can tell our readers about your local plans? Such as the cinema?’
A supermarket near the town centre had closed down and options for the site were being considered. There was talk of a group of businessmen with Vella at their head building a cinema. ‘What do you think?’ he asked her. ‘Is there a demand? The last cinema closed down.’
The Chronicle had printed letters from the public and Sara had done a street quiz asking the opinions of passers-by. This was a tourist town with a theatre. Most visitors and most of the locals would welcome the extra entertainment. ‘The old cinema was years ago,’ she said. ‘I’m sure a new one would do well this time.’
‘You’d patronise it?’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘What are your favourite films?’
They discussed a few films—what she had seen recently, which she had enjoyed, which had bored her, which had made her think. It was such a relief to find him easy to talk to. She asked, ‘What were you doing here when you walked over the hills and first saw the Moated House?’
He told her. ‘Working with a travelling fair. I was one of the strong-arm gang who put up and dismantled the heavy rides.’
This was lovely stuff, and she recalled something else he had said last night. ‘You were only fourteen when you were doing this?’
‘I looked older. Big for my age and a good liar.’
‘And then?’
‘I started in the scrap-metal business, got a small yard in Yorkshire, went on the markets up and down the country, buying, selling, one thing leading to another.’
It sounded easy but it must have been a killing struggle, and she said with real admiration, ‘From small-time huckster to tycoon was a magnum leap.’
‘A step at a time.’
‘Why did you leave the fair?’
‘Time to move on. And there was a fight.’ His smile made her smile. ‘Bordering on a brawl.’
She tried to imagine him younger, hungrier, a scrapper, and couldn’t. The boy and the man were a world apart. His hands were smooth, the nails manicured, but they were strong enough to be a fighter’s hands, and she wondered when he had stopped using brute force because his brain was a deadlier weapon.
She asked, ‘Did you get that scar in the brawl?’ She was feeling confident enough to ask, as if they were on their way to being friends.
But he said, ‘I got it in the road accident that killed my parents.’
And she cringed at her lack of sensitivity, stammering, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Now tell me about yourself.’ And somehow the conversation reverted back to Sara.
She didn’t mind. She answered everything he asked about her job, her likes and dislikes, although it did seem more as if he were interviewing her than the other way round. It was when he said, ‘Which was your house when you lived in Eddlestone?’ that she became uneasy.
She said abruptly, ‘The Grange, next to the church. That was a long time ago too.’
He nodded. ‘You were Geoffrey Solway’s daughter.’ But she was not discussing her father with him. Max Vella had been here when Geoffrey Solway had died but Vella had always been in a much higher league. There had been no business dealings between them. If they had met it had been casually. That part of Sara’s life was no concern of Max Vella, and she resented him dragging it into this—interrogation.
She was realising now that was the word for how the interview was going. She was being interrogated. She had been beguiled into believing this was a friendly meeting, but he had questioned her far more than she had been permitted to question him. ‘Where are you living now?’ he asked her.
She said, ‘In a very small flat in the square. You’re not the only one to make a quantum leap. Only yours was up and mine was down.’
A phone on the desk rang. Saved by the bell, she thought, and picked up her tape recorder. When she was calmer she would play it back and see what she could dig out.
‘I’ll be with you,’ Vella said into the phone, and to Sara, ‘We’ll continue this later. This evening over dinner. I’m thinking of offering you a job. I’ll collect you at your flat at seven-thirty p.m.’
‘Don’t bother,’ she said. She heard the words come out of her mouth but he didn’t seem to. He was glancing through a sheaf of papers he had taken out of a drawer, and the sharp-suited young man appeared at Sara’s elbow as suddenly as a genie popping out of a bottle. Max Vella could turn up where he liked at seven-thirty Sara decided; she would be anywhere but the flat.
The young man saw her down in the lift and the commissionaire touched the peak of his hat in salute as she left the building. She sat in her car, fingers clenched, trying to quell a surge of frustration.
There were several expensive cars in the car park and if she had to guess which was Vella’s she would pick the silver-grey Mercedes—it looked like his kind of car. Sara had a real urge to scratch the gleaming paintwork. He had annoyed and disturbed her. Bringing up her family background was probably no more than the bluntness of a man who never had to consider anyone else’s feelings, but it had hit a raw nerve in Sara. She was over-sensitive today with Beth going back to Jeremy, and the problem would be waiting for Sara: how much the bookies had let Jeremy run up this time.
Beth would be phoning Sara or coming to the flat, and when Sara found the door at the top of the stairs unlocked she half expected to find Beth and Jeremy sitting in her living room, both looking woebegone and very young. Jeremy was another one who never seemed to age. He and Beth could pass as teenagers but Sara felt very old indeed.
The living room was empty, and she called, ‘Hello,’ getting no reply. There was no one in the kitchen, and the bathroom door was ajar. Nobody in there either.
She called again, ‘Hello, Beth,’ lifting the latch on her bedroom door. She couldn’t get in because the bolt had been slipped in there, and for a second she thought resentfully, They could have stayed in their own home to make up. But of course they would have done. And then she heard a little choking sound, like a strangled whimper.
The children could have done it, if they had been left alone for a few minutes. She spoke through the narrow space edging the door that didn’t fit too well. ‘Jo, Josh, are you in there? Pull the bolt back. You can do it. Just pull it along.’ There was silence, and she spoke louder. ‘Who is in there?’ Rapping with her knuckles, ‘Can you hear me?’
Nobody answered; something was very wrong. She beat on the door again, shouting, ‘Answer me.’ When no one did she was turning away—she had to get in, maybe with a ladder to the window—then she heard the click of the bolt sliding back. She lifted the latch and pushed the door, and Beth stood there swaying, her eyes glazed and little white pills slipping through her nerveless fingers.
CHAPTER THREE
SARA caught Beth as she slumped to the floor and staggered with her to the bed. Beth’s head fell back, her mouth was open, there were pills on her tongue, and when Sara put fingers into her mouth she gagged and heaved.
‘How many?’ Sara’s voice was hoarse and Beth wasn’t hearing. A bottle of pills was half-empty. A few more pills were scattered on the bedside table with an empty glass and a vodka bottle. Beth was no drinker—a couple of glasses of wine could get her giggling and silly, and spirits always brought on one of her migraines—but Sara was praying she only had a hangover to deal with here. When Beth’s eyelids fluttered Sara hissed in her ear, ‘How many pills have you taken?’
‘I swallowed some, I think,’ Beth whimpered.
‘Not those that were in your mouth.’ Sara shook her gently but insistently. ‘Don’t go to sleep. Wake up. Come on Bethie.’ She heaved her sister into the sitting position. ‘Talk to me; what are you doing? It’s going to be all right, whatever’s happened; I promise you, Bethie.’
She rushed to the kitchen to switch on the kettle and scoop spoonfuls of instant coffee into a mug. Then back to Beth, who was still sitting up on the bed with her head dropping onto her knees, moaning, ‘Oh, God, I feel awful.’
‘Of course you do,’ Sara howled. Beth had come to the door with a fistful of pills. Sara had scooped three of them off her tongue and now she worked frantically, getting strong coffee down her.
‘Come on, Bethie, there’s a good girl, it’s going to be all right.’ Beth’s fuddled mind cleared enough for her to assure Sara that the sleeping pills in her mouth were the first she had taken.
‘Where are the children?’ Sara had been so caught up in the horror of finding Beth like this there had been no time to think of anything else, but for a moment now she was terrified.
When Beth whispered, ‘I left them with Maureen before I went home,’ Sara breathed a prayer of relief. Maureen was a friend and neighbour of Beth’s, a sensible, middle-aged woman. The children would be safe with her.
She had Beth stumbling around, drinking water now, and slowly coming out of the anaesthetic of alcohol into the despair that had made her lock herself in that room.
When Sara asked, ‘Why?’ Beth began weeping.
‘It’s over.’
‘Has Jeremy left you?’ Sara thought that could only be a blessing.
But Beth said, ‘Of course not. But this time there’s no hope at all.’ She sat down on the little sofa in the living room, hugging herself and rocking to and fro. ‘There are men after him, money lenders and that, who are going to half kill him, and then at work—’ Jeremy worked at an estate agent’s in town ‘—there’s big money trouble there. He’s got till the end of the month to pay it back and he can’t, and he’s going to end up in prison, in jail. And I can’t face it, Sar.’ She lifted a tear-stained, stricken face. ‘If you hadn’t come back early I wouldn’t have had to.’
Sara’s blood ran cold when she thought what she would have found if she had returned at her usual time. ‘What about the children?’ she demanded. ‘How could you leave the children?’
‘They’d have been all right. You’d have looked after them.’
Beth was a child herself, as loving and as vulnerable. Sara had always known that, and what she had to do now was make Beth see that nothing was so bad there was no hope. They couldn’t find the cash to save Jeremy. Sara had no assets and her credit rating was nil, but as she racked her brain a sudden thought came like a flash of light.
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