A Paper Marriage (5 page)

'He has a flat in London. It could be quite late when we finish. It seems more sensible to stay than to drive home afterwards.'

`You're having an affair with him?' her mother shook her by accusing.

`Mother!' Honestly! Charlie wouldn't know how to go about an affair. Come to think of it, Lydie mused whimsically, neither would she. `Charlie's just a friend. More like a brother than anything. And nothing more than that.'

Lydie went back upstairs and put a few things into an overnight bag. Charlie had overcome his shyness one time to attempt to kiss her, but had confessed, when they'd both ended up mightily embarrassed, that he had kissed her more because he thought he ought to than anything else. From then on a few ground rules had been established and they had progressed to be good friends who, on the odd, purely spontaneous moment, would sometimes kiss cheeks in greeting or parting. She had stayed at his flat several times with Donna and young Thomas before baby Sofia had come along. But over the last year Lydie had a couple of times comfortably spent the night in his spare bedroom after a late night in London.

The play Charlie took her to was a lighthearted, enjoyable affair. `Shall we get a drink?' he asked at interval time.

For herself, she wasn't bothered, but felt that Charlie probably wanted one. `A gin and tonic sounds a good idea,' she accepted, and went with him to mingle with the crowd making their slow way to the bar.

They eventually entered the bar, where she decided to wait to one side while Charlie got the drinks. But Lydie had taken only a step or two when all of a sudden, with her heart giving the oddest little flip, she came face to face with none other than Jonah Marriott! He stopped dead, his wonderful blue eyes on the riot of colour that flared to her face. `I thought you were in Paris!' she blurted out, surprised at seeing him so unexpectedly causing the words to rush from her before she could stop them.

`I came back,' he replied smoothly.

She could do without his smart remarks. It was obvious he had come back! `I need to see you,' she said tautly-by no chance did she intend to discuss her business where they stood. But suddenly she spotted something akin to devilment in his eyes and knew then that if he answered with something smart-That's what they all say- she was going to hit him, regardless of where they were.

He did not say what she expected, but instead drawled, `Monday, same time, same place,' and they both moved on.

She felt unnerved, unsettled, and wished it were Monday, when she would march into his office and demand to know why he had given her a cheque for fifty-five thousand pounds! She was glad when Charlie returned with their drinks.

But Lydie started to feel worse than ever when she abruptly realised that to demand why of Jonah wasn't relevant. What was relevant was to make some arrangement with him to pay him back. Her spirits sank-how? With that question unanswered, she flicked a glance around-her gaze halting when she spotted Jonah. He was not looking at her but over in their direction, at the tall manly back of her dark-haired escort. Her glance slid from Jonah to the stunning, last word in perfection blonde he was escorting. And she'd thought her spirits couldn't get any lower!

Not wanting Jonah to catch her looking in his direction, Lydie tore her eyes away from the sophisticated blonde. `How's business?' she asked Charlie. `We've got a new woman at the office-she started a couple of weeks ago,' he said, and went red.

`Charlie Hillier!' Lydie teased. `You're smitten.'

He laughed self-consciously, and she smiled affectionately at him. `Well, she is rather nice.'

`Are you going to ask her out?'

He looked horrified. `Heck, no! I hardly know her!'

Dear Charlie. He had been a frequent visitor to his sister's home, but Lydie had known him a year before they had begun to graduate from more than an exchanged hello and goodbye.

She did not see Jonah again that night, and had a late supper with Charlie and went to bed. They shared toast and eggs for breakfast, and Lydie drove home to Beamhurst Court with her head on the fidget with thoughts of her great-aunt, her parents and a man who appeared to enjoy escorting sophisticated blondes to the theatre. Had he taken the blonde with him to Paris?

She awoke on Monday in a state of anxiety. `Couldn't sleep?' her father asked when she went down to an early breakfast.

She didn't know about couldn't sleep-he did not look as if he had slept at all! She looked at his weary face and knew she should tell him that she was going to see Jonah Marriott, but somehow she could not. `I thought, with Mother wanting Aunt Alice to look smart on Saturday, that I'd better make an effort and get myself a new outfit,' Lydie announced. And, seeing that her father looked about to remind her of a very important phone call they had to make, `I thought,' she hurried on, `that while I'm in London I'd call in at the Marriott building and make an appointment for us to see Jonah. He was abroad somewhere last week, so I suppose he's still got a lot of catching up to do and will be too busy to see me today.' She was lying to her father again, and hated doing so, but this, seeing Jonah, she felt most strongly, was something she had to do on her own.

But her father was nobody's fool. `How did you manage to get an appointment with him last Friday? He would have been catching up then too.'

`On Friday I thought he owed you money. I didn't bother to make an appointment. I just sort of barged my way in.

Her father looked appalled. 'You...' he began.

`Please, Dad,' she butted in. `I was wrong. I know it. Which is why I feel I have to do it the right way this time. '

`I can ring from here. He...'

`I know I've embarrassed you by going to see him at all. But please try to understand-I need to be involved here. I can't let you take over from me.'

Her father grunted. But, muttering something about being determined to see Jonah at the first possible opportunity, he agreed to allow her to make the appointment.

Lydie was walking into the Marriott Electronics head office building when she started to half wish her father was with her. She felt sick, shaky, and she heartily wished this imminent interview were all over and done with.

She rode up in the same lift, walked shakily along the same corridor and turned round the corner without an earthly idea of what she would say to the man. Eating humble pie did not come easy. Outside his door, she paused to take a deep breath. She knew she was ten minutes earlier than she had been on Friday, but she was too wound up to wait for ten minutes of torturous seconds to tick by.

She put her right hand on the door handle and took a deep breath, and then, tilting her chin a proud fraction, she turned the handle and with her heart pounding went in.

Jonah Marriott was not alone, but was mid-instruction to the woman Lydie had seen step out of the lift last Friday. He looked up and got to his feet to greet her. 'Lydie,' he said and, turning to his PA, introduced them to each other.

`We've spoken on the phone,' Elaine Edwards commented with a smile, and obviously aware of this appointment, even if Lydie was early for it, she picked up her papers, said, 'I'll come back later,' and went through into her own office and closed the door.

`Enjoy the play?' Jonah asked, taking Lydie out of her stride-she had intended to pitch straight in there with some "The debt is mine but I can't pay"-type dialogue.

`Very much,' she answered, with barely an idea just then what the play had been about.

`Take a seat,' he offered. `Was that your steady boyfriend?"

'Er-what? No. Um-I see him sometimes,' she replied, wondering what that had got to do with anything, though she would not have minded asking if the blonde were his steady. Not that she was terribly interested, of course.

She took the seat he indicated and opened her mouth, ready to put this conversation along the lines it was to go, when, `Coffee?' he asked, and she knew then that she was not the one in charge of how the conversation went-he was. He was playing with her!

`No, thank you,' she refused, her tone perhaps a little less civil than it should be in the circumstances. `When I came here last Friday I was under the impression you had not honoured the debt you owed my father. I...'

`So I gathered,' Jonah replied, having retaken his seat behind his desk, leaning back to study her.

She did not care to be studied; it rattled her. `You should have told me!' she flared. `You knew you had repaid that loan!

He smiled-it was a phoney smile. `I knew I would end up getting the blame.'

Just then guilt, embarrassment, and every other emotion she had experienced since seeing him again last Friday after seven years, all rose up inside her, causing her control to fracture. `And so you should!' she snapped. `You set me up!' she accused hotly.

The phoney smile abruptly disappeared. He cared not for her tone; she could tell. `I set you up?' he challenged. `My memory is usually so good, but correct me if I'm wrong-did I ask you to come here, dunning me for money?'

Dunning! Put like that it sounded awful. Her fury all at once fizzled out. `I trusted you,' she said quietly. `Yet you, the way you hinted that I should pay the cheque into my father's bank straight away, made sure I did just that.'

Jonah Marriott eyed her uncompromisingly. `Would you rather I had not given you that cheque?' he questioned toughly. `Would you prefer that your father was still in hock to his bank?' She blanched. It was becoming more and more clear to her that Jonah Marriott was much too smart for her. He knew, as she had just accepted, that by taking the money from him she had allowed her father some respite. At least there wasn't a "For Sale" notice being posted in their grounds that morning. `Why did you give me that money?' she asked. `And why make it pretty certain that I'd bank it first and tell my father afterwards?'

Jonah shrugged. `Seven years ago your father's faith in me, his generosity, made it possible for me to successfully carry out my ideas. From what you told me on Friday, Wilmot was in a desperate fix with no way out. Without a hope of repaying any financial assistance, I knew there was no way he would accept my help.'

That was true. Lydie sighed. She felt defeated suddenly. `My father wanted to see you as soon as possible. I said, since I was coming to London today, that I'd make an appointment and that we would both come and see you.'

Jonah eyed her solemnly. `You lied to him?"

'I'm not proud of it. Until last week, when I told him I was going to see a great- aunt but came here instead, I had never lied to my father in my life.'

Jonah nodded. `I can see reason for you lying to him about coming here the first time-obviously either your brother or your mother has been bending your ear with falsehoods too-but why lie to your father about coming here today?"

'Because-because he's been a very worried man for long enough. It's time somebody else in the family took some of the load.'

`Namely you?"

'It was I who asked you for that money. I who-er-um-borrowed it, not him. The debt is mine.' Jonah stared at her for some long moments. `It's yours?' he queried finally.

`My father didn't ask for the money. Nor would he. As you so rightly said, he wouldn't not for something he couldn't see his way to pay back.' She broke off and looked into a pair of fantastic blue eyes that now seemed more academically interested than annoyed. `The debt is mine,' she resumed firmly, `and no one else's. I've come today to...' her firm tone began to slip '...t-to try and make arrangements to repay you.'

He looked a tinge surprised. `You have money?' he enquired nicely.

Lydie swallowed down a sudden spurt of ire. Was she likely to have taken money from him had she money of her own? `I intend to sell my car and my pearls, and there's a small inheritance due in a couple of years that I may be able to get my hands on-but otherwise I have only what I earn.'

`You're working?' he enquired.

He was unnerving her. `I'm between jobs at the moment,' she answered shortly. `I was leaving my job this week anyway, but left early when my mother telephoned last Tuesday and-' Lydie broke off and could have groaned out loud. Jonah Marriott was a clever man. From what she had just said he would easily deduce it had been her mother who had told her that he had reneged on his debt to her father.

Jonah did not refer to it, however, but asked instead, `What sort of work do you normally do?"

'I'm a nanny. I look after children.'

`You enjoy it?" 'Very much. I thought, once Oliver's wedding is out of the way, that I'd look around for something else.'

`In the same line?'

Lydie gave him a slightly exasperated look, and was wondering what his questioning had got to do with her repaying him when it all at once dawned on her it had everything to do with it. She was proposing to pay him back fifty-five thousand pounds-out of her earnings. 'Actually-it, the job-it pays quite well,' she offered- rather feebly, she had to admit.

He smiled again, that smile she had no faith in. `Even so, I don't know that I want to wait thirty years for you to save up.'

'You can't put the debt at my father's door!' she erupted fiercely, her lovely green eyes at once sparking fire.

He stared at her, unsmiling, for several long moments. `I have no intention of doing that,' he stated.

`You accept that the debt is mine, and mine alone?"

'You're determined to take the-er-debt on as your own?'

She did not have to think twice about it when she thought of her poor dear father's haggard face, his shoulders bent with worry. `I am,' she said. 'I'll make arrangements to...'

`You have a plan?"

'No,' she had to confess. `But I...' `Don't go selling your car or your jewellery,' Jonah advised, it seeming plain to him, evidently, that she hadn't any idea how to meet her debt.

`I don't know how else to begin to make a start on repaying you.'