The Bachelor's Bargain

It was partly because she hadn’t wanted him to worry, when she knew he could do nothing to help, that she hadn’t told him the true reason Robert and his family had moved in with her. She had let Uncle Amos believe it was because it was so quiet and empty with her mother gone that she had asked Robert to move back to the family home.

But Uncle Amos, who was an inventor and often quite vague about matters outside his work, had given her a shrewd kind of look, as if suspecting she was doing a little inventing herself. To her mind, though, hers was a necessary invention. For, while Uncle Amos’s inventions earned him nothing—he seemed to subsist by writing articles for clever magazines and barely scraped a living for himself—so Merren knew she would not be approaching him to help Robert out.

Which left her with the one option she was trying to avoid. She flicked her glance to the dressing table where, without so much as bothering to read it, she had dropped the man Jarad’s card. A sick feeling entered her stomach. She didn’t want to do it; she didn’t.

Merren went over to the dressing table and picked up the card, and read it, and, oh, grief! She worked for an electronics company herself—only a tiny one by comparison, but large enough for her to be familiar with the name Roxford Waring, one of the biggest and most highly respected multinationals in the electronics field. The man Jarad had given her his personal business card, which also listed his home number. Oh, heaven’s above, Jarad Montgomery was a director of Roxford Waring! Was she really contemplating contacting one of their board members with a view to borrowing some money from him?

Merren needed to think, so she escaped from the house and posted her letter, and, knowing the utter futility of it anyway, called in at the police station and reported having been mugged. She thought it unlikely they would catch the criminals, and knew she would never see her bag again.

Which, as she bowed to the inevitable and searched for a telephone kiosk—no way could she make this call from home—reminded her that she didn’t even have the price of a phone call with her.

She didn’t want to make that call; she didn’t, she didn’t. What she wanted to do was to go home, go to bed, and stick her head under the bedclothes—and stay there.

But there wasn’t only herself to think of here. By reminding herself she had a deeply stressed brother, a deeply depressed sister-in-law, two young nieces and a baby nephew, Merren located a phone box.

She went in, grabbed at what courage she could find, quickly dialled the operator and asked the operator for a transfer charge call. And, even while she knew her name wouldn’t mean a thing to Jarad Montgomery, she gave it to the operator—and waited.

The operator went off the line and Merren, feeling all hot and wishing she wasn’t doing this, started to feel certain that even if Jarad Montgomery didn’t refuse to accept the call from her, he most definitely wouldn’t be expecting her to take him up on his offer of, ‘If you change your mind about the money.’

By the time she heard his ‘Hello’ on the line, Merren was battling with pride—she didn’t want his money anyway.

But—she needed it, so it was stiltedly that she answered, ‘Hello, Ja…Mr Montgomery. Er—Merren Shepherd here.’ Oh, drat, the operator would have already told him who his caller was.

‘Merren Shepherd?’ he replied, obviously not knowing her from Eve, for all he had accepted the charge. Either that, or he was playing with her.

That thought nettled her. ‘As in “waif and stray”,’ she enlightened him shortly.

There was a pause, for all the world as if he was trying to place her. Then, ‘That Merren Shepherd!’ he responded smoothly, and Merren hated him again, with a vengeance.

But he was waiting, and there just wasn’t any way of dressing it up. ‘You were—um—Were you serious—about the m-money?’ she questioned.

‘Two thousand, you said.’

‘Yes.’

‘Come to my office tomorrow,’ he instructed.

Her hands were all clammy; she gripped the phone hard. She swallowed. ‘What time?’

‘Eleven,’ he said, and knowing she was going to have to take time off work, Merren also knew she was in no position to argue. Not that it would do her much good anyway—the line had gone dead.

Merren reeled out of the telephone kiosk, feeling a mixture of very intense emotions. She didn’t like what she was doing, but by the sound of it Jarad Montgomery was prepared to help her.

She didn’t like him, was niggled by his ‘That Merren Shepherd!’ as much as she was niggled by, ‘Come to my office tomorrow’ and his short ‘Eleven’ before he’d hung up.

No, she very definitely didn’t like Mr Jarad Montgomery. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Mr Jarad Montgomery was the only hope she’d got.

CHAPTER TWO

MERREN had a nightmare that night. She awoke frightened, breathless and crying out. Feeling stiff and bruised, she switched on the light and calmed herself by reflecting that it wasn’t surprising she should dream violently of being hit, being chased—chased to the edge of a cliff—and of falling, falling.

She didn’t know how long she had been yelling, but supposed it couldn’t have been for very long, or very loudly either, because she hadn’t disturbed anyone. Though, since she had moved up to the attic bedroom, it was unlikely anyone had heard her. No one was rushing up to rescue her from her night-time villains anyhow.

She felt wide awake, and would have liked to go down to the kitchen and make a warm drink, but feared, albeit that Robert and his family were heavy sleepers, that she might wake the baby. Baby Samuel had been fretful from birth, and, as she well knew, could cry for hours!

Not unnaturally, she supposed, thoughts of Jarad Montgomery came into her head. Had she really asked him for two thousand pounds? Had he really agreed to loan the money to her? And, if he had, how on earth was she going to pay it back?

That one thought kept her sleepless for the next hour. She still hadn’t come up with any answer when from utter weariness, she fell asleep again. It was daylight the next time she awakened—and the baby was crying.

Merren left her bed to go down a flight of stairs to see to her little nephew. She couldn’t remember having been hit on her shoulders, but her shoulders ached when she moved, while other parts of her body were vying with each other for rainbow effect bruising. The baby seemed heavier to lift out of his cot than usual, but, for once, he was being a little gentleman and decided to beam gummily at her after she’d changed him and given him a drink.

‘You’re a rascal,’ she told him affectionately, and he grinned some more.

Then her dressing gowned brother came to join them, and, clearly wanting a word before anyone else was about, began, ‘I’ve been thinking, Merren, that if I met you at the jeweller’s at lunchtime, I could take the money and settle the…’

‘Actually,’ she butted in quickly, ‘I’m—er—taking the day off work. I’ll have the money back here by one.’ Fingers crossed.

‘Can I have the car?’ he asked, assured of the money, wasting no time going on to his next priority.

But for once—feeling extremely vulnerable about money-carrying after her mugging yesterday—Merren just had to refuse.

‘It’s yours after one o’clock,’ she replied, and would not be persuaded otherwise.

Once she’d handed the baby over, Merren bathed and returned to her room, and kept out of the way until Robert walked Queenie and Kitty to school and Carol was occupied with Samuel.

Merren studied her wardrobe. She did not want to remember the sketch she must have looked yesterday. She wouldn’t forget Jarad Montgomery’s, ‘You won’t want to go through the streets looking like that’ in a hurry. Today, when she saw him again, she wanted to look smart. Why she should feel that way she didn’t know. Her old friend pride, she supposed.

Dressed in her newest suit of deep blue, which brought out yet more blue to the colour of her eyes, Merren was walking through the revolving doors of the office of Roxford Waring before it so much as occurred to her that she might not even see Jarad Montgomery! ‘Come to my office’, he said. But he hadn’t actually said he’d see her.

She approached the reception desk and almost asked if Mr Montgomery had left a package for her to collect. But quickly she pulled herself together. Get a grip! He’d want to know how she was going to pay him back—if only she knew! No one was going to hand over that sort of money to a complete stranger without asking some pretty pertinent questions.

‘I’m here to see Mr Jarad Montgomery.’ She smiled at the smart receptionist. ‘Merren Shepherd,’ she gave her name.

She was expected! Merren rode up in the lift with her insides all of a churn. She did so hope she wasn’t here on a fool’s errand. He’d meant it, hadn’t he? She just wouldn’t be able to go home again, wouldn’t be able to face Robert if he hadn’t.

She tapped on the door she had been directed to. She’d expected his PA to invite her in. But the door was opened by Jarad Montgomery himself. Though for a moment he did not invite her in, but just stood there looking at her. But, while his glance went over her blonde-streaked reddish hair—tidy today in comparison to yesterday, for all she still wore it loose—Merren took a moment to study him.

He was as tall as she remembered. But in his immaculate business suit, crisp shirt and tie, he looked even more authoritative today than he had yesterday—and that was saying something.

‘You’ve polished up well,’ he drawled, and suddenly her nerves were disappearing.

You’re looking pretty snappy yourself. ‘I made an effort,’ she countered, hoping he would think she was joking.

‘Come in.’

Merren entered his office, noticed the communicating door to his PA’s office was closed, and was glad about that. By the look of it he was treating this as a private matter.

‘How are you feeling?’ he enquired, indicating a chair before going and taking a seat behind his desk. ‘You were pretty shaken up yesterday,’ he recalled.