His Convenient Marriage

It was a blazingly hot afternoon, and Chessie was wondering when she could legitimately sneak off and go for a swim in the river, when Alastair halted beside the stall.

‘My God, Chessie.’ He was laughing, but there was another note in his voice too. ‘I’d hardly have known you.’

But I, she thought, the breath catching in her throat, I would have known you anywhere. Anywhere.

It was as if all her life until then had been geared for this one brilliant, unforgettable moment.

They stood there, smiling at each other, almost foolishly. Momentarily oblivious to everything and everyone around them. Then Alastair said quietly, ‘I’ll call you,’ and she nodded, jerkily, afraid of showing her delight too openly.

They were practically inseparable in those first weeks of reunion, talking endlessly. She’d just left school, and was preparing to join her father in the City the following September, initially as a junior dogsbody, styled personal assistant.

Alastair, they both presumed, would do the same—start learning the family electronics business from the bottom rung of the ladder.

The weather was hot, one perfect day spilling into another, and Chessie found herself spending a lot of time at the Court, where Linnet had managed to persuade her husband to install a swimming pool.

Until then, Chessie had been too insignificant for Lady Markham to notice, but she could hardly continue to ignore her when they were occupying adjoining sun loungers.

‘Hi,’ she drawled, eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses, and her spectacular figure displayed in a bikini one centimetre short of indecent. ‘So you’re Ally’s little holiday romance. How nice.’

Chessie bit her lip. ‘How do you do, Lady Markham?’ she returned politely, touching the languidly extended fingers.

‘Oh, Linnet—please.’ The red mouth curled into a smile. ‘After all, sweetie, we’re practically the same age.’

Back to the Brothers Grimm, Chessie muttered under her breath as she turned away.

She’d have preferred to avoid Linnet altogether during her visits, but this proved impossible. To Chessie’s embarrassment the older woman had immediately recognised the fact that she was still physically innocent, and enjoyed bombarding her with a constant stream of unwanted intimate advice, like poisoned darts.

But nothing Linnet could say or do had any real power to damage her happiness. Or her unspoken hopes for the future.

That came from a totally unexpected direction.

When Sir Robert announced that he was sending his son to business school in America, it was like a bolt from the blue. At first, Alastair seemed determined to fight his father’s decision, but when Sir Robert remained adamant, his mood changed to coldly furious acceptance.

‘Can’t you make him listen?’ Chessie pleaded.

‘It’s no use, darling.’ Alastair’s face was hard. ‘You don’t know my father when his mind’s made up like this.’

It was true that Chessie had only ever seen the genial, open-handed side of Sir Robert. This kind of arbitrary behaviour seemed totally out of character.

‘But I’ll be back, Chessie.’ He stared into space, his face set. ‘This isn’t the end of everything. I won’t allow it to be.’

And I believed him, thought Chessie.

She hoped it wasn’t some subconscious conviction that one day he’d return to claim her that had kept her here in the village. Because common sense told her she was crying for the moon.

If Alastair had been seriously interested in her, if it had been more than a boy and girl thing, then he’d have asked her to marry him before he’d gone to the States, or at least begged her to wait for him. She’d made herself face that a long time ago.

It had been obvious that everyone in the neighbourhood had been expecting some kind of announcement. And even more apparent that, once he’d departed, people had been feeling sorry for her. The sting of their well-meant sympathy had only deepened her heartache and sense of isolation.

As had the attitude of Sir Robert, who’d made it coldly clear that he’d regarded it as a transient relationship, and not to be taken seriously. While Linnet’s derisive smile had made Chessie feel quite sick.

She’d never realised before how much the other woman disliked her.

She’d wondered since whether Sir Robert, a shrewd businessman, had divined something about her father’s looming financial troubles, and had decided to distance his family from a potential scandal.

To widespread local astonishment, Sir Robert had announced his own early retirement, and the sale of his company to a European conglomerate. Following this, within a few weeks of Alastair’s departure, the Court had been closed up, and the Markhams had gone to live in Spain.

‘Joining the sangria set,’ Mrs Hawkins the post mistress had remarked. ‘She’ll fit right in there.’

But now, it seemed, they were coming back, although that didn’t necessarily mean that Alastair would be returning with them. That could be just wishful thinking on Jenny’s part, she acknowledged.

And Chessie hadn’t wanted to question her too closely about what she’d heard. For one thing, Jenny should not have been hanging round the post office eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. For another, Chessie didn’t want to give the impression she was too interested.

The burned child fears the fire, she thought wryly. She’d worn her heart on her sleeve once for Alastair already. This time, she would be more careful.

If there was a ‘this time …’

‘My God, Chessie, I’d hardly have known you.’

Was that what he’d say when—if—he saw her again?

Certainly, she bore little resemblance to the girl he’d known. The Chessie of that summer had had hair streaked with sunlight. Her honey-tanned skin had glowed with youth and health as well as happiness, and her hazel eyes had smiled with confidence at the world about her.

Now, she seemed like a tone poem in grey, she thought, picking at her unremarkable skirt and blouse. And it wasn’t just her clothes. The reflection in the window looked drab—defeated.

Yet any kind of style or flamboyance had not seemed an option in those hideous weeks between her father’s arrest for fraud and his fatal heart attack on remand.

She’d survived it all—the stories in the papers, the visits of the fraud squad, Jenny’s descent into hysteria—by deliberately suppressing her identity and retreating behind a wall of anonymity. Something she’d maintained ever since.

She’d expected to find herself a kind of pariah, and yet, with a few exceptions, people in the village had been kind and tactful, making it easy for her to adopt this new muted version of her life.

And working for Miles Hunter had helped too, in some curious way. It had been a tough and exacting time with little opportunity for recriminations or brooding.

In the last few months, she’d even managed to reach some kind of emotional plateau just short of contentment.

Now, thanks to Jenny’s news, she felt unsettled again.

She was about to turn back to her desk when she heard the sound of an engine. Craning her neck, she saw Miles Hunter’s car sweep round the long curve of the drive and come to a halt in front of the main door.

A moment later, he emerged from the driver’s seat. He stood for a moment, steadying himself, then reached for his cane and limped slowly towards the shallow flight of steps that led up to the door.

Chessie found she was biting her lip as she watched him. Her own current problems were just so minor compared to his, she thought, with a flicker of the compassion she’d never dared show since that first day she’d worked for him.

It was something she’d never forgotten—the way he’d stumbled slightly, getting out of his chair, and how, instinctively, she’d jumped up herself, her hands reaching out to him.

The blue eyes had been glacial, his whole face twisted in a snarl as he’d turned on her. ‘Keep away. Don’t touch me.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She’d been stricken by the look, and the tone of his voice. ‘I was just trying to help …’