The Trouble with Trent!

‘I’m too conceited to believe that, of course.’ He attempted to coax a smile out of her.

Alethea could not have smiled had her life depended upon it. How could her mother have said such a thing? She would have liked to have believed otherwise, of course, but she knew her mother. ‘You have your own company, don’t you?’ she guessed.

‘I do,’ he owned.

‘You told my mother, and...’

‘I didn’t so much as tell her—just gave her my name.’ Her mother never ceased to amaze her. Some days she never went outside the house and yet, when Alethea arrived home from work, her mother was up to date on all the gossip. But now, local gossip aside, it seemed her mother had mental index cards on the London business world!

‘Shall we go?’ she offered bluntly. The coffee they had ordered to finish their meal had only just arrived, but her sensitivity was such that she was wondering why Trent hadn’t left her home there and then, without waiting for her to present herself downstairs. That was what her mother had wanted, of course.

‘You’re not going to let what I’ve told you spoil what has been a very pleasurable evening for me—and I hope for you too—are you?’

‘Trent—I...’ Alethea halted, and realised that, in addition to her mother not wanting her evening with Trent to start, her parent would be quite pleased, if, since start it had, it should end badly. Alethea knew her mother hadn’t wanted Maxine to leave home and thereby break her mother’s sphere of influence. Mother had done everything in her power to prevent Maxine’s marriage. But, from what Alethea could see now, her mother wasn’t waiting for her to go so far as to become involved with anyone. At the first sign that Alethea was going out with any man who might be strong-minded, her mother was out to nip in the bud any remote possibility that might lead to her other daughter leaving home. Alethea took a shaky breath, and stared across into a pair of dark eyes that were silently, steadily watching her. ‘To answer your question,’ she said, ‘my father left home when I was ten.’

Trent’s look was warm and encouraging. ‘For another woman,’ he stated, seeming to know it for a fact, though Alethea hardly thought that her mother had imparted that piece of knowledge.

Normally Alethea would have clammed up on the subject, but just then she was feeling cross enough with her mother not to care. Alethea knew full well that, should she challenge her mother tomorrow over what she had told Trent, Mrs Pemberton would tell her she was making a fuss over nothing.

‘Yes, for another woman,’ she confirmed, whether Trent needed confirmation or not.

‘And your mother thereafter set about trying to see to it that no man came near you or your sister.’ He paused a moment, then commented lightly, ‘Um—she seems to have failed miserably with your sister—I counted three children.’

‘She has only three,’ Alethea stated, Trent’s manner and his humour causing her to feel better.

‘But their father, or fathers, aren’t allowed inside the house?’ he suggested.

Alethea shook her head. ‘Maxine married. Only her marriage recently broke up.’

‘That’s a pity,’ he commented, and Alethea was unsure if he meant for the children’s sake, Maxine’s sake, or marriage’s sake. ‘It can’t be easy for her,’ he added.

‘Apparently it wasn’t the first time her husband’s eye had wandered,’ Alethea said, not wanting Trent to think that her dear sister was in any way to blame for the marriage split.

‘But this time she decided to return home?’

‘Bringing her furniture with her,’ Alethea commented, not wanting to tell him the other, more dishonest facts of it, and wondering if Trent would be nursing a bruise on his shin tomorrow.

‘So that accounts for the chest in the hall,’ he grinned.

‘We are a touch overcrowded,’ she laughed, and was suddenly feeling good again. She heard herself tack on, ‘I’ve been toying with the idea of moving out and finding a place of my own—though I don’t suppose I will.’

‘Your mother wouldn’t let you?’

Honestly! Instantly she was up in arms. ‘I’m twenty-two!’ she informed Trent crossly. ‘The decision is mine.’ She stared with hostility at him, sparks of annoyance flaring in her eyes. But, as she looked at his dark, unwavering gaze, so she glimpsed a dancing light. He, she realised, had aggravated her deliberately! ‘Provoking devil!’ she mumbled, but had to smile. ‘I think it’s time I went home,’ she stated.

Trent settled the bill and, without comment, escorted her outside. Though just when she was starting to think, in a slightly miffed way, that he’d had enough and couldn’t wait to drop her off at her door, he sent that notion clear out of her head by offering, ‘With your house so overcrowded, shall we go back to mine for coffee?’

‘I’ve just had coffee,’ she reminded him, feeling better that he seemed to want to prolong the evening. But he was the sophisticated type and she was not green; coffee could well be another word for what he was actually offering!

‘I thought we might talk, get to know each other,’ he answered, as he saw her into his car.

I’ll bet! Alethea waited until he joined her in the car. ‘We’ve been talking all night,’ she thought to mention.

‘All I’ve learned about you, apart from my observations on your sensitivity and sincerity, is that you live in an overcrowded household of women, that you may or may not be intending to find somewhere less overcrowded, and might I suggest—if the high-pitched squealing that was going on when I arrived is anything to go by—you need somewhere a little more peaceful to live. I’ve also discovered that you work as an assistant PA.’

‘That isn’t enough?’

Her words had sounded sharp, she realised, when Trent looked at her long and hard. But whatever he was thinking, his manner remained mild. ‘Should we row on our first date?’ he asked.

First date! She liked him; she must do, or she would not be here now. But at his hint of a second date she felt wary. ‘I’ll take you to your home,’ he said before she could make up her mind how she felt about going out with him again.

Trent drove easily, effortlessly, and in no time at all it seemed that they were pulling up outside her home. When he got out of the car and came round to her door, Alethea got out feeling nervous and unsure.

She wouldn’t ask him in. Lord knew what surprises awaited them—her embittered mother had had hours in which to build up a fine head of vitriol. Or perhaps Maxine was walking the downstairs rooms trying to pacify a wailing Polly.

At the door she turned. ‘Thank you for a pleasant evening,’ she trotted out, and was all jittery inside. Silently, unspeaking, he stared down at her in the porch light. She didn’t know if he would try to kiss her, nor how she would react if he did. As yet she had formulated no answer, should he ask for the second date he had hinted at.

But Alethea was totally mystified when Trent neither attempted to kiss her nor to ask her out again. But, his tone even—he could have been discussing the weather-he replied civilly, ‘The pleasure was mine. Goodnight, Alethea.’ And with that he went back to his car.

Alethea did not want to see him drive off. Motivated by pride that insisted he should not go away with any idiotic notion that she might be hanging on his every word and deed, she did a rapid about-turn and swiftly let herself in through the front door.

Only when she had the door shut—she was on the inside and he was on the outside—did she pause to take stock. He hadn’t so much as tried to kiss her, much less ask her out again! Not that she’d have gone out with him again if he had asked, she firmly decided. But then all thoughts of Trent de Havilland were momentarily taken from her mind when the stair light came on and her sister came hurrying into view.

‘Has he gone?’ Maxine whispered, leaning over the bannister rail, either because of the possibility of Trent de Havilland still being around, or because she was scared of waking one of the children.

‘Yes, just,’ Alethea whispered back.

‘Shall I make you some hot chocolate?’

By the sound of it, Maxine wanted to talk. ‘Lovely,’ Alethea accepted, and the two of them went quietly into the kitchen.

It was there that Alethea soon realised that her sister’s need to talk did not stem from a loneliness of spirit, as she had supposed, but from an urgent need to have a discussion that would not wait until morning, when there was every chance they would be interrupted.

For, without so much as enquiring, Did you have a nice evening?, Maxine launched in to ask, ‘Do you know who Trenton de Havilland is?’

Alethea stared at her. Trent had introduced himself to Maxine and their mother as Trenton? But she concentrated on Maxine’s question. Alethea knew that Trent was a nifty Viennese waltzer, was interesting, not to say stimulating to go out with, and also that he was a friend of her employer. But Maxine had asked if she knew who he was. ‘Who is he?’ Alethea queried.

‘He didn’t tell you that he owns Science Engineering and Consulting?’ Maxine pressed.

‘I know he has his own company,’ Alethea answered, feeling slightly perplexed and wanting to know what Maxine was getting into a state about, for she was certainly growing more and more agitated by the second. ‘He told me he was in science engineering, but...’ Alethea broke off suddenly, remembering how Trent had only had to mention his name for it to mean something to her mother. ‘Are you saying that, like Mother, you know of his business?’

‘I should do—Keith works for him!’

‘Keith...’ Alethea stopped, horrified, Science Engineering and Consulting suddenly clicking in her head to be SEC, who had suspended her brother-in-law while investigations into his honesty were taking place! Oh, my stars, her brother-in-law was employed in a trusted position by Trent and had abused that trust. ‘Does Trent know Keith works for him?’ she asked, alarmed.

‘Heavens, no. Keith’s not that far up the corporate tree that his chairman would know of his existence!’

That was some small relief to Alethea. She felt she would never have survived the embarrassment had Trent known all the time he had sat opposite her this evening that her brother-in-law, his employee, was a crook who had robbed him. ‘Mother knew all about Trent being the man who pays Keith’s salary, though, didn’t she?’