Levelling The Score

‘Really?’ Craig looked curious, but not impressed.

‘Are you going to come up and have supper with me later, Jen?’ Craig asked. ‘Or …’

‘Jenna and I have some personal family business to discuss,’ Simon answered smoothly for her. ‘Private family business …’

Craig took the hint, the look he gave Jenna over Simon’s shoulder as he opened the door to leave making her expel a faint shaky sigh of relief.

It was good to know that Craig would be upstairs if she needed him, although quite what Simon could do if he discovered that Susie had deceived him she wasn’t too sure.

‘Er … would you like a cup of coffee, Simon, or …?’

‘What I would like, Jenna, is to know exactly what game my idiotic sister is playing now. And don’t try telling me that she’s staying here with you.’ His eyes swept the neatness of the small room disparagingly. ‘I know my sister … if she were here, there’s no way she wouldn’t already have littered the place with her possessions.’

Jenna bit down on her bottom lip, knowing that what he said was all too true.

‘Where is she, Jenna?’

The silkiness was gone from his voice now, leaving it hard and determined. He must be a very frightening man to face in court, she thought on a soft shiver.

‘Susie is twenty-four-years old, Simon,’ she told him, stalling for time. ‘If she wanted you to know her every movement, I’m sure she’d let you know …’

‘Nice try, but it won’t wash … Susie is up to something, probably with that moronic idiot, Halbury!’

‘Susie loves him,’ Jenna retorted angrily.

‘So she is with him!’ Triumph glinted darkly in his eyes. ‘I thought as much, the stupid little fool … If she can’t see that it’s her trust fund he’s in love with …’

‘You’ve no right to say that,’ Jenna interrupted him.

‘Haven’t I? Have you met Halbury yet, Jenna?’

She bit her lips again, in vexed admission that he had caught her out.

‘You know my sister … How many times has she been in love in the last five or six years? Once a month on average, wouldn’t you say?’

Jenna was forced to concede that he had a point, but she conceded it in silence.

‘The man’s nothing more than a fortune-hunter,’ Simon told her bitterly. ‘He’s filled Susie’s head with some idiotic idea that he’s a talented fashion designer, and that with her money …’

‘Maybe he’s right,’ Jenna suggested tartly. ‘Just because the all-seeing, all-knowing Simon Townsend doesn’t approve of him, doesn’t necessarily mean …’

‘All right, Jenna, you can cut out the acid remarks. He’s been made bankrupt twice in the last four years. Before he started dating Susie he was involved with the eighteen-year-old daughter of a building millionaire, but Daddy realised what was going on and put a stop to it. Halbury must have thought he’d strayed into paradise when he found Susie.’

His voice held such a ring of bitterness, that Jenna went cold with anxiety for her friend. It was true that Susie was not and never had been a good judge of character. She took everyone at face value, believing that all her fellow human beings were as honest and innocent as she herself.

Because the Townsend family as a whole played down the money inherited from a wealthy industrialist uncle of their father’s, Jenna herself had almost forgotten about it. Now her forehead pleated with concern, as she said slowly, ‘But surely Susie can’t touch her trust fund until she’s thirty?’

‘Or marries beforehand, in which case she inherits when she’s twenty-five—in four months’ time,’ Simon reminded her.

Immediately Jenna felt herself flush with guilt. She ought to have questioned Susie more deeply, knowing her feather-headed friend’s prosperity for trouble, but she had been so caught up in the potential pleasure of putting Simon’s nose out of joint that she had completely overlooked this facet of Susie’s personality.

Another unpalatable thought struck her. Had Susie, knowing how she felt about Simon, deliberately introduced him into the situation as a ploy—a decoy, so that she wouldn’t question her too deeply? And then she remembered the rest of what Susie had told her.

‘Susie’s old enough to make up her own mind about whom she wants to marry, Simon,’ she told him. ‘Since you know your sister so well, I’m surprised that you didn’t realise what the effect of trying to force her hand would be,’ she concluded, with an admirable attempt to mimic his own sardonic coolness.

‘Ah, I see … So now I’m featuring as the big bad brother, am I? I take it that Susie has been discussing John Cameron with you?’

‘She told me that you were trying to coerce her into marrying one of your friends—yes,’ Jenna agreed baldly.

His eyebrows rose mockingly. ‘Is that really what she told you? Goodness me, she must have a more inventive imagination than I’d given her credit for. And you believed her?’

His smile wasn’t kind, and it raised an anguished pattern of goose-bumps down the length of her spine.

‘Do tell me, Jenna—how was the dastardly deed to be accomplished? Was I going to drug her and carry her off somewhere, where I could keep her imprisoned until she agreed to marry John, or …’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ Jenna snapped, interrupting him, bright flags of colour flying in her cheeks. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Simon, but it won’t work. I know you, remember … there are far more subtle ways of bringing force to bear on someone. Susie was afraid that she would let you persuade her into marriage with this—this John …’

‘Umm … I suppose she neglected to mention that less than twelve months ago when she first met him in Canada, she was actually engaged to John, albeit very fleetingly. She broke off the engagement when he told her that they would be living on his money.’

Jenna felt herself flush again. She wasn’t’ sure whom she was the most annoyed with, Susie, Simon, or herself for being such a gullible idiot.

‘Where have they gone, Jenna? And don’t bother trying to lie to me. I know she’s gone off somewhere with this Halbury idiot.’

‘Cornwall,’ Jenna told him, defeated. ‘Your parents’ house … She wanted time on her own with him, to get to know him properly …’

Defeat and guilt tasted acid in her mouth. Simon was just as capable of shading the truth as Susie herself, but in this instance … She gnawed on her bottom lip, wishing she had never got involved in the situation in the first place.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you think?’ Simon asked ironically.

‘Go down and bring her back?’

‘Clever girl!’ He glanced at his watch, revealing a tanned forearm, crisped with very masculine-looking dark hairs.

‘Enjoyable though I find your company, Jenna, I’m afraid I’ve got to go …’

‘Will you drive down there tonight?’

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘Like a knight on a white charger, intent on protecting my sister’s virtue?’ He shook his head. ‘No, not tonight.’ He walked to the door, and then paused, turning to eye her thoughtfully. ‘By the way, do give my apologies to your … friend, for interrupting his … homecoming …’

Jenna caught the underlying message and gritted her teeth against it. ‘There’s no need to be coy, Simon,’ she responded coolly. ‘If you’re trying to intimate that you believe Craig and I are lovers, why not come right out and say so? After all, there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t be, is there?’

‘None,’ he agreed cordially, giving her a hard-edged look. ‘And although it’s none of my business, I have to say that you hardly took the part of the eager lover, desperate to return to his arms,’ he told her with gentle malice.

She couldn’t let it pass, it came too close to home, too close to a truth she couldn’t bear to admit.