A Husband's Price

The breadth of his rangy shoulders was, she admitted admiringly, deeply impressive, accentuating the narrowness of his hips, the length of his leanly muscular legs. The tan of his skin was slicked with sweat and his forehead, beneath the soft fall of rumpled dark hair, was beaded with it. And his eyes, an intriguing smoky grey, narrowed now in overt male appraisal, were firmly fixed on the slender, golden figure of her stepmother.

Claudia shivered. It was a brilliant day, the hottest this summer so far. Yet she shivered right down to the soles of her grungy canvas shoes. She stepped forward, out of the shadows, uselessly regretting her faded, a-bit-baggy old jeans, the washed-out old shirt she wore for house-cleaning.

Her movement broke the spell. Whatever had been here, shimmering and stinging in the scented summer air, had gone. Helen said, her musical voice low and quite definitely husky, ‘Adam, meet your employer’s solitary offspring and pride of his life—Claudia. Dearest, say hello to Adam. And then, perhaps, he can run along and find Old Ron before Chef arrives with his cleaver!’

‘Hi there—’ Adam Weston brushed the wayward hank of soft dark hair out of his eyes and stepped forward, extending a strong, long-boned hand. And smiled.

And Claudia, for the first, and very probably the last, time in her life, fell deeply, shatteringly and quite, quite helplessly in love...

‘So there you are.’ The mesmeric spell of the past was broken as Guy Sullivan walked slowly into the book-lined room leaning on his ebony-handled cane, a little of the strain leaving his eyes when he saw his daughter. ‘Amy’s just got back from collecting Rosie from school. They were looking for you.’ His eyes fell on the album and he shook his head slightly, admitting, ‘I can’t think why I wanted to look at that. No good looking into the past—you can’t bring it back. Neither of us can.’

Claudia got to her feet and resolutely stuffed the album back in its former hiding place, aware of her father’s eyes on her, the rough compassion in his voice. Six weeks ago, his wife and her husband had been killed when the car they were in was mown down on a blind bend on a steep hill by an articulated lorry that had lost its brakes.

Just over a week later, they had discovered that Helen and Tony had been lovers. Their affair had been on and off, but mostly on, since before Tony had introduced the glamorous divorcée and suggested that Guy consider her for the post of relief receptionist.

Her father had made that discovery when he had been going through his dead wife’s effects and had happened across diaries and some highly explicit love letters. It had devastated him. Coming on top of the shock of the fatal accident, it had brought about his third heart attack in six years.

It hadn’t been anything like as severe as the one he’d had, right out of the blue, at the end of the summer six years ago but, nevertheless, it had weakened him still further and it would be a long time before she could stop worrying about him.

And how she was going to be able to break the other piece of shattering news she couldn’t imagine. The thought of what it could do to him terrified her.

‘Did you mention the possibility of the loan we need to refurbish the guest suites?’ Guy sat on the chair Claudia had vacated and leaned his cane against the table.

His once strong features were now gaunt and grey and Claudia would have done anything to spare him from this final horror. But the best she could do was prevaricate, just for now, delay the inevitable for as long as she possibly could.

Ask the bank manager for a loan? As if!

Her discussion with the manager this afternoon had been on a different topic entirely. Their business was as good as bankrupt, their financial difficulties severe—so severe that selling up was the only option. It was something her father was going to have to be told about. But not now.

Now she asked, changing the subject, ‘Where’s Rosie?’ As a rule she collected her small daughter from school every day, but because of her appointment at the bank she’d had to ask Amy to do it. She didn’t know what they would do without the grey-haired, rosy-cheeked dumpling who had been at Farthings Hall as long as Claudia could remember. Amy had done her best to do what she could to fill the gap when Claudia, as a ten-year-old, had been left motherless.

‘Amy took her through to the kitchens for some juice. Oh, I forgot to mention it, but Jenny can’t come in this evening—summer flu, or some such excuse.’ Guy Sullivan got slowly to his feet. ‘Look, I can help Amy out round the kitchens—we can take the trickier stuff off the menu—and free you up to take Jenny’s place, wait on tables.’

‘No, Dad.’ Claudia automatically declined the offer. Her father was physically and emotionally frail, and still in need of all the rest he could get. ‘Amy and I can manage.’

Ever since Tony had had a falling-out with Chef six months ago—and Claudia had never got to find out what it had been about—she and Amy, with Jenny’s help, had been keeping the restaurant going on a reduced and simplified menu. Tony had been reluctant to hire a replacement chef and now Claudia knew why. Tomonow she would have to cancel the advertisements for the new and experienced staff she’d decided had to be hired if the hotel and restaurant were to continue. There was no point now. The business, their home, was to be sold over their heads.

‘Why don’t you sit outside, Dad? It’s a glorious day; let’s make the most of it.’ She almost added, While we can, but managed to stop herself in time. ‘I’ll fetch Rosie and we’ll all have tea on the terrace.’

Ten days later, Amy asked rhetorically, ‘I guess you can’t have told your father the bad news yet?’ She filled a mug with strong black coffee and held it out. ‘He looked happy, almost back to his old self, when his friend collected him this morning, so he can’t know that his home’s about to be sold from over his head.’

‘I’m a coward,’ Claudia admitted wearily, taking the mug of steaming coffee. ‘But every day he gets that little bit stronger. And the stronger he gets, the more able he’ll be to cope with yet another blow.’

‘And what about you?’ Amy demanded. ‘The blows fell on your head, too. Your husband died; he’d been playing around with that madam, Helen, his own stepmother-in-law, would you believe? And yes—’ her round face went scarlet ‘—I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead—but really! So you’ve had blows, just the same, so why should you have to carry this other load on your own?’

‘Because I haven’t had three heart attacks in half a dozen years and because I didn’t love Tony, and Dad adored Helen.’ Claudia looked at the mug in her hands, and frowned just slightly. ‘I really haven’t got time to drink this.’

‘Of course you have,’ Amy asserted firmly. ‘This Hallam man won’t be looking under beds for fluff or running his fingers round picture frames looking for dust. You’ve been running around like a scalded cat ever since you got back from taking Rosie to school. So drink your coffee and try to relax. You’ve got time for that before you need to get changed. And, no matter what anyone else believed, where you’re concerned, nobody can pull the wool over my eyes. Like my own daughter, you are. I knew your marriage to Tony Favel wasn’t a love match. When you married him you were still hankering after Adam—and don’t pop your eyes at me—I knew how you were feeling when he just upped and disappeared. But, like I said, you and Tony rubbed along; you didn’t hate him, so what happened must still have been a dreadful shock.’

Claudia eyed her old friend over the rim of her mug as she sipped the hot liquid. What else did Amy suspect? Know?

She didn’t want to think about that. She put her mug down on the work surface, changing the subject. ‘How many tables are booked for this evening?’

‘All of them.’ Amy collected the used mugs and up-ended them in the commercial-size dishwasher. ‘I dare say we do have to keep going as best we can so it can be sold as a going concern. But thank heaven we’re at the end of the season, that’s all I can say.’

Casting her eyes over the spotlessly gleaming kitchen, Claudia nodded her heartfelt agreement. It was early October now and hotel bookings ceased at the end of September, so they didn’t have that aspect to worry about. They didn’t do lunches, either—they wouldn’t start up again until Easter—but evening meals went on right through the year. So yes, that was something they could give thanks for.

And there were other things, too, she admitted as she lay in the warm bath water ten minutes later. Life wasn’t all bad; there were tiny glimmers of good luck if you looked hard enough.

The bank manager wasn’t exactly an ogre. He had shown considerable if understated compassion at that meeting she’d had with him ten days ago. After painting his pitch-black picture and explaining that Farthings Hall would have to be sold, and preferably as a going concern, to cover those terrifying debts, he had advised, ‘Before you have to advertise the property for sale I suggest you contact the Hallam Group—you’ve heard of them?’

Claudia had nodded. Who hadn’t? No one remotely connected to the hotel and leisure industry could be ignorant of that huge and exclusive outfit.

She’d felt suddenly nauseous. One shock too many, she supposed. The bank manager had used the intercom to ask someone called Joyce to bring through a tray of tea, leaning back in his chair then, steepling his fingers as he had continued—just as if she’d denied any knowledge of the Hallam Group—‘Quality hotels and leisure complexes; they don’t touch anything that’s run-of-the-mill or even marginally second-rate. It’s mainly a family-run company, as you probably know, and Harold Hallam was the majority shareholder. He died, oh, it must be a good twelve months ago and rumour has it his heir is about to expand, acquire new properties.’

He had paused when the tea was brought through and poured, then had suggested, ‘If you could interest them in Farthings Hall and effect a quick sale, it would be better all round—a quick takeover by the Hallam Group would mean less time for the type of speculation that could agitate your father. I suggest you ask your solicitor to get in touch with them.’

Useful advice, because only yesterday her solicitor had phoned to say that someone from the Hallam Group would be coming out to Farthings Hall to meet her this morning to discuss the possibility of a private sale.

‘Don’t commit yourself to anything. This new chief executive might be trying to show his board of directors what a smart operator he is. Remember, this will be an exploratory meeting only. The legal people can be brought in after the initial informal discussion between the principles. That’s the general idea, I believe.’

That suited Claudia. And what suited her even more was David Ingram’s invitation to her father. They were near neighbours, had been friends since boyhood, and David had wanted to know how Guy felt about being picked up the next morning. After lunch, they could have a game of chess.

Claudia had breathed a huge sigh of cowardly relief when her father had accepted the invitation. She could have her meeting with the Hallam man with her father none the wiser. Every day that passed without him having to learn the miserable truth was a bonus.

And Rosie was out of the way, too, safely at school. Had she been at home, she would have wanted to be with her mummy, even though she loved Amy to pieces. Serious conversation with a bubbly, demanding five-and-a-bit-year-old was problematical to say the least.

The trouble was, since the death of her daddy and Steppie—as Helen, her stepgrandmother, had preferred to be called—Rosie had become very clingy. Not that either of them had spent much time with the little girl, and both of them had developed the habit of absenting themselves if Rosie had been ill or just plain tiresome.

Their deaths must have left a hole in the little girl’s life; one day they’d been around—in the background, but around—and the next they’d been blown away. But possibly the most traumatic thing had been her beloved grandpa’s illness and his subsequent need for lots of rest and quiet. Rosie probably couldn’t understand why her grandpa could no longer play those boisterous games she enjoyed or read to her for hours on end.

Claudia sighed and heaved herself out of the bath. The Hallam man would be arriving in half an hour. She couldn’t remember if the solicitor had actually said his name. But it would be Mr Hallam. She definitely recalled him saying that her visitor was the deceased Harold Hallam’s heir. It would be his son. Her solicitor would surely have said, had the new chief executive gone under a name other than the family one.

And what to wear? A simple grey linen suit with a cream silk blouse. Cool, businesslike, entirely suitable for a young widow.

Her soft brown hair caught back into the nape of her neck with a mock-tortoiseshell clip, and with the merest suggestion of make-up, her mind played truant, sliding back to those photographs she’d been looking at on her return from her traumatic meeting with her bank manager. Particularly, the one of her.

How she had changed. Still five feet seven inches, of course, but she’d lost all those lavish curves. After Rosie’s birth she’d fined down but now, since the traumas of the last few weeks, she looked positively scrawny. The Claudia in that old photograph had been a cheerful optimist, with laughing eyes and a beaming, open smile.

The mirror image she scrutinised now was older, wiser, a bit of a cynic with an overlay of composure, a strength of will that practically defied anyone to mess with her. She was through with being anyone’s eager little doormat. She was twenty-four years old, the age Adam Weston had been when they’d first met. She looked and felt a great deal older.

And another difference: the woman in the mirror was as good as bankrupt. The girl in the photograph had been quite a considerable heiress.

And therein had lain the attraction, of course.

She remembered with absolute and still painful clarity exactly how, over six years ago now, she had discovered that particular home truth.

Helen had told her. Helen had been sitting on the edge of her bed, clad in brief scarlet satin panties and bra, looking absolutely furious, yet finding compassion as she grabbed Claudia’s hand and squeezed it.