Love's Only Deception

‘For the weekend …?’ she echoed weakly.

‘Yes. Sir Charles feels it would be advisable for you to meet the family. I understand the nephew will not be there,’ James Seymour’s voice cooled perceptively, giving Callie the impression that he disliked the absent nephew even more than he apparently disliked her—if that were possible. His disdain for her had been obvious from the moment she had entered the office half an hour earlier. ‘I believe business matters have taken him out of the country,’ he explained abruptly.

Callie could understand his reluctance to talk to her—after all, she had no real claim on the Spencer family, and James Seymour obviously thought so too, revealing the family movements as if pressured to.

Well she had had enough, she didn’t want to hear any more. ‘Please tell Sir Charles I accept his invitation. I have to leave now—–’

‘We haven’t finished, Miss Day—–’

‘I’m sorry,’ she stood up, ‘but I really do have to go. Perhaps you could send me a letter explaining everything in more detail?’ she added to soften the blow.

He looked as if she had insulted him, sitting ramrod-straight in the leather desk-chair. ‘That isn’t the way I like to do business, Miss Day—–’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll call you,’ she told him before disappearing out of the door.

It all seemed like a bad dream, the money, the thirty-seven and a half per cent shares in Spencer Plastics. She felt sure she would wake up soon and just be ordinary Callie Day with none of the responsibility of money and shares.

She told her friend Marilyn so; Marilyn and her husband Bill lived in the flat next door. ‘I’m sure the haughty Mr Seymour will find there’s been some mistake. He has to,’ she groaned.

Marilyn shook her head dazedly. ‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You’re rich, don’t you realise that?’

‘Of course I do,’ Callie frowned. ‘Although Mr Seymour said it would take several months to sort out the details. But I don’t feel I have any right to those things.’

‘Jeff wanted you to have them, that’s all the right you need.’

‘I doubt the Spencer family see it that way,’ she grimaced.

The two of them were sitting in Marilyn’s kitchen drinking tea, baby Paul playing happily at their feet.

‘From what I can tell, you’re more Jeff’s family than any of that snobby lot,’ commented Marilyn. ‘Not one of them came to the funeral.’

Callie shrugged. ‘Mr Seymour said they weren’t informed in time. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted them there,’ she added with a catch in her throat. ‘Only people who loved you while you were alive should be allowed to say goodbye to you. Jeff always said that.’

‘And now Jeff is saying he wants you to have those things, that he still wants to take care of you,’ Marilyn pointed out gently. ‘If you turn them down it will be like throwing his love back in his face.’

Put like that, she had little choice but to go to Berkshire for this weekend, grit her teeth and make the most of it. But she felt sure it was going to be a disaster.

She got up from the breakfast table, if it could be called that at eleven-thirty in the morning! Sir Charles and Lady Spencer would probably be scandalised by such behaviour. But she had been out with some friends the evening before, a party that had gone on long into the early hours of this morning, carrying on to one of the girls’ flats once the other party had ended. Her hangover wasn’t going to help her cope with the Spencer family! She was expected for dinner, Mr Seymour had told her when she telephoned his office yesterday, his manner even more frosty than at their first meeting.

A long soak in the bath, her hair washed, and she was starting to feel a little more human, although what to wear was another problem. She was invited to dinner, and yet she would be arriving late afternoon. Of course she could always change before dinner … Yes, that was what she would do, what she would be expected to do. Oh dear, she was going to make a fool of herself this weekend, she just knew she was. She wasn’t used to mixing with Sirs and Ladies, and she usually sat down to dinner in whatever she had worn to the office that day!

She chose one of the suits she wore to work to arrive in, a black tailored skirt and jacket, a white Victorian-style blouse worn beneath the jacket, a large cameo brooch pinned at her throat. Her hair swung smoothly about her shoulders, clean and silky, her whole appearance was one of cool confidence. She just hoped she acted that way when she got there.

Once she got out of London and on to the motorway it was a clear run down to Berkshire, her ten-year-old Ford Escort excelling itself and doing a steady sixty miles an hour. Royal Berkshire, the home of Windsor Castle, one of the Queen’s residences. It was also the home of the Windsor Safari Park, which perhaps wasn’t quite so prestigious. Maybe that was one of the subjects she should avoid this weekend.

The trouble was she had no idea what she was going to talk about! They obviously couldn’t discuss Jeff and the shares for the whole of the time she was there, and she doubted she would have anything else in common with the Spencer family. The truth of the matter was, she had nothing in common with them, not even Jeff. He had been as far removed from them as she was, hadn’t even owned to being a member of the family.

Dear Jeff. Callie had loved him so much, his death had come as a shock to her, even more so than her mother’s, which had been expected, as her illness had been terminal. But the car accident that had taken Jeff from her too had left her numbed with grief, still had the power to reduce her to tears, and she rapidly blinked them away as she saw the turn-off for Ascot.

She had instructions to the Spencer house from there; the name of the house did not reveal its location. She followed the instructions implicitly, and finally found herself completely out in the country, slowly turning the Escort down a long gravel driveway, a huge stately Tudor manor house standing at the end of it.

The gardens were resplendent with flowers, despite the lateness of the season, the October weather not being exactly conducive to the delicate blooms. Someone obviously tended these gardens with tender loving care—and why not? she thought cynically. Money could achieve most things, even a flowering garden in October. Oh dear, she was getting cynical! But maybe that was the only way she was going to get through this weekend. Sir Charles was likely to eat her alive otherwise.

Her Escort looked slightly out of place next to the Jaguar, a Rolls-Royce parked next to it, a huge garage at the side of the house containing two more cars, although from this distance she couldn’t tell their make.

There was a man coming down the steps towards her as she got out of her car, a tall grey-haired man of perhaps fifty, fifty-five, still handsome despite his years, the superb cut of his cream trousers and Norfolk jacket pointing to him not being a servant. Could this possibly be Sir Charles himself?

Callie closed her eyes. Oh Jeff, Jeff—she was in the lions’ den now, and he had put her there.

She didn’t fit in with these people, should never have come here. Just the house was enough to frighten the life out of her! It was certainly nothing like the small flat Jeff had shared with her for the last four years.

The man she assumed to be Sir Charles Spencer looked no more welcoming than the house did, seeming slightly surprised by her. ‘Miss Day …?’ He looked at her with narrowed blue eyes.

She put her overnight case down on the gravel and slammed the boot shut, hoping it wouldn’t shoot up again as it often did. It didn’t and she gave a relieved smile as she straightened. ‘Yes, I’m Caroline Day,’ she confirmed breathlessly.

‘Charles Spencer.’ He thrust his hand out at her.

‘I’m pleased to—meet you,’ she faltered in her warm greeting as he barely touched her hand before releasing it again.

‘Come into the house.’ He didn’t return her polite greeting, but bent to pick up her small suitcase. Suddenly he frowned. ‘I had no idea you were so—–young,’ he said bluntly.

Callie held herself back from saying she hadn’t realised he was so old! ‘I’m twenty-two,’ she felt she almost had to defend herself.

‘My dear, in my book that is young.’

Maybe it was to a man of fifty, but plenty of her friends were already married with children of their own. ‘Jeff always said—–’

‘Jeff?’ Sir Charles pounced. ‘Do you mean my brother Jeffrey?’

‘Er—yes. He always said that you’re only as young, or old, as you feel.’

His mouth twisted contemptuously. ‘Looking at you, Jeffrey must have felt very young indeed,’ he drawled.

She didn’t like this man, not his manner towards her, or his derogatory way of talking about Jeff. No matter what their differences, and from Sir Charles’ manner there had to have been a lot, Jeff had never made a single criticism of his brother. Jeff had only ever talked of the good times, of the times when he, Charles, and Cicely were all children.

‘He was always lots of fun,’ she said stiffly, walking through the door the manservant held open for her.

‘Take this upstairs to Miss Day’s room,’ Sir Charles handed her case over as if it had stung him. ‘Come through to the drawing-room, Miss Day, and meet my wife and son.’ He strode forward, pushing open the double oak doors.

So the nephew was here after all. If he was as pompous as his father then this was going to be a really fun weekend!

A woman stood up as they entered the room, or rather, she flowed up, moving with a liquid grace that drew attention to the perfection of her tall figure. She was a beautiful woman, although obviously of middle age, her black hair perfectly coiffured, her beautiful face made up in dark and light shades that gave her an ageless appearance. The grey silk dress she wore looked as if it were real silk. Thank goodness, Callie thought, she had put on something smart herself!

‘My wife Susan,’ Sir Charles introduced needlessly. ‘Susan, this is Miss Day.’

Lady Spencer’s handshake was as fleeting as her husband’s had been, her slender fingers barely touching Callie’s. And had it been her imagination, or had Sir Charles emphasised the ‘this’ in the introduction, almost as if she weren’t what they had been expecting. Maybe they just weren’t used to the lower classes, they didn’t either of them look as if they got off their pedestal very often. No wonder you got away from this lot, Jeff, Callie thought ruefully. They would have suffocated him with their stuffy attitudes and falsely polite manners.

‘Please call me Callie,’ she invited, not one to stand on ceremony, even if they were. ‘Everyone does.’