Rival Attractions

Another minute and she’d be rushing off to town to buy paint and brushes, Charlotte acknowledged ruefully. What was coming over her? She had never felt this almost nest-building urge to improve her home before. It must be the unexpected balminess of the spring sunshine, she told herself, firmly refusing to give in to her sudden desire to get to work on the kitchen almost immediately.

She had work to do. There would be time to spare for redecorating later in the year. If Oliver Tennant succeeded in taking her business away from her, she’d have plenty of time for playing with colour schemes and pots of paint.

When her father had originally opened his office in the local town, he had bought a small three-storeyed Tudor building, sandwiched in between its fellows down one of the old cobbled streets that ran off from the market square.

The site had advantages and disadvantages. The street had now been designated a conservation area, which gave it an appealing visual charm, an old-worldliness that suggested that within the building might be found the kind of thatched-roofed, rose-smothered country cottage of people’s dreams. The street was also a draw to tourists and visitors who came to the town, which meant that there always seemed to be someone standing outside the old-fashioned mullioned windows staring in at the details of properties for sale. Against that, the cobbled street outside was now a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, with handsome black and gold painted bollards at either end of it to deter any driver tempted to use it as a short cut. This meant that any would-be clients had to make their way to the office on foot. In the past, when they had been the only estate agency in the area, this had not mattered, but now, with Oliver Tennant opening up…

His offices were on the outskirts of the town, not centrally placed like hers, but they were housed in the very large and popular shopping complex, purpose-built to accommodate the needs of the modern shopper and his or her car.

Charlotte was frowning as she parked her own car on the municipal car park on waste ground behind the Town Hall. Today was market day, which meant that the market square would be closed to parkers.

Sheila Walsh, who had been her father’s secretary-cum-office-manager and who had been with them for ten years, welcomed her into the office above the reception area with a smile and a cup of coffee. Sheila was a married woman in her late forties with two grown-up children and a husband in the police force. She was a sensible, attractive woman to whom tact and discretion were second nature. Charlotte had found her help invaluable when she had first returned home to take up the reins of the business. She might have the qualifications, she had acknowledged, but Sheila had something far more valuable. She had experience and a way of dealing with people that Charlotte envied.

It had been at Charlotte’s insistence that her father had agreed that Sheila should be promoted to ‘office manager’ and be given a salary and a percentage of their profits commensurate with the amount of work she did for them.

Without Sheila there was no way she could run the business as successfully as she did, Charlotte recognised, thanking her, and sitting down so that they could both go through the post.

‘The new place opens up officially today,’ Sheila commented. ‘I wonder what he’s like…the new man,’ she mused.

Unwillingly Charlotte told her, ‘I met him last night at Adam’s and Vanessa’s dinner party.’

It was part of Sheila’s skill that she never probed. She waited now in silence, her eyebrows slightly raised.

She liked working with Charlotte. Initially, on hearing that her boss’s daughter was coming home to take over the business, she had been uncertain as to whether or not she would stay on, but once she had realised how much Charlotte genuinely valued her, and how soft-hearted she really was beneath her rather austere exterior, she had put all her reservations to one side, and, as she told people quite genuinely now, her work brought her immense pleasure and satisfaction.

It saddened her that so many people misjudged Charlotte. Even her own husband had remarked, after first meeting her, that she was rather formidable. Sheila often wondered compassionately how it was that, while a woman could so easily see through another woman’s armour to her vulnerability, a man was completely deceived by outward appearances and manners. Men were like children really, she often though scornfully; they always went for the gooey, heavily iced cake, not realising that once the icing was gone all they were going to be left with was stodgy and often unappetising sponge. Women were far more enterprising, far more aware; they knew that the very best things in life were often concealed by the most unappealing of exteriors.

Sheila Walsh was a traditionalist and made no apology for it. She loved her work and found it stimulating and rewarding, but it was her marriage and her family that formed the bedrock of her life. Without Rob to go home to at night, to talk over the events of the day with, to fight with and love, her life would be very arid.

Although Charlotte was older than her own daughter, Sheila acknowledged that she was inclined to feel a motherly protectiveness towards her. She was constantly urging her to buy new clothes, to go out and enjoy herself. Charlotte was such an attractive-looking girl in reality, but she tended to put men off with her brisk put-down manner. And yet one only had to see Charlotte with the children of her friends to realise what kind of woman hid behind her rather formidable exterior.

Sheila had got to know Charlotte very well over the last six years, and now, seeing the faint flush that stained her skin and the way she shifted her gaze, as though not wanting Sheila to look too penetratingly at her, Sheila became extremely curious about Oliver Tennant.

She had more intelligence than to ask too many questions, though, simply listening while Charlotte told her almost hesitantly about the dinner party.