The Mistress of His Manor

‘I’m afraid that’s me.’ She met his eyes bravely. ‘I’m Jo Logan.’

‘What?’ March stared blankly.

‘I’m Jo Logan,’ she repeated unhappily.

‘You said your name was Sutton!’

‘No, I didn’t. You saw that in my school book. Sutton was the name of my adoptive parents. When I was thirteen they died, and I came to live with Kate. When she married Jack Logan I took his name.’

March’s eyes suddenly hardened. ‘So you knew Charles Peel, the driver?’

Jo nodded miserably. ‘Oh, yes, I knew Charlie. He was my boyfriend at the time. I was supposed to be in the car that night, too, but I wouldn’t set foot in it because Charlie was well over the limit. As usual. I did everything I could to make him see sense, even fought him physically for the keys, but we had such a blazing row he pushed me away and roared off in a rage to pick up a friend. I knew his friend as Red…’ Jo halted, biting her lip.

Chapter Four

‘THAT was the name my brother went by at Oxford.’ March shook his head as though to clear it. ‘You, of all people, are Jo Logan? My God! It never occurred to me that the missing link was a girl.’ He took in a deep breath, his eyes suddenly arctic. ‘After the accident I went to see the driver. But Charles Peel categorically denied knowing any man called Joe Logan—which was true, of course. You are not a man.’

‘I don’t blame you for feeling angry,’ she said unhappily.

‘I’m not angry, exactly. I just wish it hadn’t been you,’ he said harshly. ‘In the end the police decided not to press charges, and young Peel was utterly frantic with anxiety about my brother, and so desperately guilt-ridden and penitent we felt he’d been punished enough.’

Jo smiled cynically. ‘Charlie always did really great penitence.’

March frowned as he resumed his place on the sofa. ‘That’s very cold.’

‘I speak from experience.’ She gave a mirthless little laugh. ‘If you’d tracked me down I would have given you a rather different take on the accident. I wondered why Charlie asked if anyone had been in touch with me. He tried to convince me that he’d turned over a new leaf. He even cried and swore he was on the wagon for keeps. But he’d done the dramatic penitent act before, so I didn’t believe him.’ Jo took in a deep breath. ‘I haunted the hospital for a while, for information on how Red—your brother—was doing. I knew I couldn’t get in to see him, but one of the girls on my staircase in college had a relation in Admissions there, who made enquiries for me and reported back. I was desperate to go home, but there was no way I could leave Oxford until I knew Red had been discharged.’ She paused to look at March. ‘Though I have no idea why he was muttering my name. I didn’t know him very well. We weren’t even in the same college.’

He shrugged. ‘He seemed convinced you’d been in the car and injured, even killed. I suppose I should have asked later, but I was so damned relieved when he started getting better I couldn’t risk prodding his memory into life in case it put him back to square one. And of course I knew there’d been no one else in the car.’

She shivered. ‘I suffered agonies of guilt afterwards because I’d failed to get Charlie’s keys away from him,’

‘Were you in love with him?’ asked March, surprising her.

Jo thought it over. ‘It’s hard to believe now,’ she said wearily, ‘but I thought I was at the time.’ Her mouth turned down. ‘I was straight out of a girls’ school. Charlie was quite a bit older. If you met him you know he was rather good-looking. My head was turned when he singled me out. At first I thought his drinking was the usual student stuff, but it soon became obvious that Charlie was well on the way to becoming an alcoholic.’

‘Were you lovers?’

Jo flushed. ‘Not a word I would use. We did sleep together once or twice, but it was the first time for me and not—not very successful. All my fault, according to Charlie.’

March mouth tightened. ‘The idiot’s drink problem was to blame, not you. What happened to him afterwards?’

‘I refused to return his calls after the accident, so he wrote to me eventually, saying he’d dried out in some clinic. He was starting work at Peel Plastics, a small company owned by his father. Charlie loathed the idea, but knew he had no hope of graduating after what had happened.’ Jo’s eyes dulled. ‘Neither had I. He’d put an end to all possibility of that for me as well as himself.’

‘And you wanted to graduate?’

‘Of course I did! It was what I’d worked so hard for at school, and Jack and Kate were so proud when I got to Oxford.’ Her mouth twisted in disgust. ‘But I blew the whole thing. Someone made of sterner stuff than me would have stopped blaming Charlie, I suppose, and knuckled down to get a degree. But the whole Oxford experience was ruined for me—academically and every other way.’

March nodded slowly. ‘It’s dawned on me at last why you looked familiar the first time I spotted you. I must have seen you outside the hospital.’

‘Very probably. I was there often enough.’

He frowned. ‘When I referred to you as Miss Sutton, why the hell didn’t you put me right there and then?’

Jo’s colour rose. ‘I had my reasons.’

He was silent for a while, eyeing her closely. ‘Your name is Logan and your father is Jack. Would he, by any chance, be the moving force behind Logan Development?’

Her chin lifted. ‘Yes.’

‘Ah. Not just a builder, but a well-known developer and conservationist.’

‘Yes.’

His eyes speared hers. ‘You obviously didn’t want me to know that your father is a wealthy man.’

Jo flushed guiltily. ‘Do you blame me? It was my main attraction for Charlie. And for some of the male students on my business course.’

March eyed her in a silence that grew so prolonged and unbearable Jo was ready to scream by the time he broke it. ‘So you were afraid a mere jobbing gardener like myself might also get ideas about the little rich girl?’ he drawled, the words like shards of ice. He got to his feet, looking down his nose at her with such hostility she shrivelled inside. ‘We haven’t known each other long, but in my supreme vanity I thought you might have trusted me more than that. Have no fear. I’m not interested in your father’s wealth—nor in you any more, if that’s what you think of me,’ he added bitterly. ‘Goodbye.’

Goodbye? Jo listened in numb disbelief as March walked out of the room and out of the house. At the growl of his car engine, mortified colour rose in her face. So that was that, then. Finding out that she was Jo Logan had damped down March Aubrey’s ardour pretty sharply. And, to top that, her reason for keeping her wealthy background secret had enraged him so much he had transformed into an implacable, arrogant stranger right before her eyes.

Jo got up early next morning, feeling like death warmed up. Her bathroom mirror confirmed that she looked like it. After a shower followed by hot coffee there was slight improvement, but Sunday lunch at Mill House was a prospect she just couldn’t face for once.

‘I’ve got the sniffles, Kate,’ she fibbed. ‘So I won’t come round for lunch. A cold is the last thing you need right now.’

‘Oh, darling, what bad luck. How did it go last night?’

‘Very well,’ lied Jo. ‘My date was impressed. Molly was on top form.’

‘Good. But I hate to think of you alone and sneezing today,’ said Kate, sounding worried.