A Paper Marriage (9 page)

`An impression which you gave him.'

`Oh, shut up!' Lydie snapped, irritated. `Anyhow, Dad seemed to think I'd fallen for you...'

`Because, for some obscure reason, that is what you let him believe.'

`If you don't stop interrupting I shall never get this out!'

`I won't say another word.'

Lydie borrowed one of her mother's sour looks and bestowed it on him. He did not so much as flinch-she'd have to get more practice. `Anyhow, my father said something about me hardly knowing you, and how I'd only seen you twice recently, and I said it was three times, that I'd seen you at the theatre on Saturday. People are always misinterpreting me!' Lydie shrugged, feeling totally fed up by then. `Anyway, Dad suddenly remembered how I hadn't come home on Saturday night- and there you have it.'

`He believes you spent the night with me?' Jonah asked, amazed.

Never had she felt more uncomfortable. `Yes,' she mumbled, but went quickly on, `After that, getting you a wedding invite was small beer.' She did not like the fact that, having come to an end, all Jonah did was stare at her long and hard. `So there it is!' she fumed. `And perhaps now we can get down to the details of how I'm going to repay my debt to you.' Her voice softened. `I don't mean to sound ungrateful, Jonah. I am grateful to you; I really am. It's just that everything's been a bit nightmarish recently, and I've been called upon to tell lies which less than two weeks ago I wouldn't have dreamed of uttering.'

Jonah's harsh look all at once seemed to soften. `Poor Lydie,' he murmured, and, relenting, he smiled a smile that rocked her, then said, `Let's make a pact to always be truthful with each other.'

`I'd like that-I think. Even if it's-er embarrassing?'

`Even if,' he stated.

`Fine,' she said, `I agree.'

`So, for a start, you'd better dump Charlie.'

`Dump Charlie?' she exclaimed incredulously. `Charlie's my friend!' she protested.

`Dump him!' Jonah instructed, his manner totally unyielding.

`Why?'

Jonah did not look as if he would answer, but after some cold seconds replied, `All this is about money paid into your father's bank account with no conditions on my part. You have created conditions in order to save your father more embarrassment. And I understand that. But, since you have claimed me to your family as your boyfriend and-not to be too impolite-your overnight lover-' as if he cared about being impolite, she fumed `-what you must understand is that I can't have you running around town staying overnight with some other man.' And, having succinctly explained that, he ended heavily, `So, dump him.'

She could have told him that Charlie was not her friend in the boyfriend sense-but, hang it all, a girl had to have some pride. `Do I go around telling you to dump your women-friends?' she protested instead.

`You're in no position to tell me to do anything,' Jonah replied bluntly, and, as the truth of that hit home, the fire went out of her. That was until, his tone more giving, he added, `But, since I must be fair over this, I have to tell you I don't have any women-friends.'

'Much!' Lydie erupted. `That was a mirage I saw you with at the theatre the other Saturday, was it?"

'I don't usually go around explaining myself, but with our total honesty clause established I don't mind telling you that my theatre date with Freya was one made before you claimed me.'

Lydie gave him a hostile look, but, as she recalled the stunning blonde, she found her curiosity needed to be satisfied. `You won't be seeing her again?' she asked, then realised that sounded much too personal and as if she was interested, and added hurriedly, `Not that it's any of my business.'

`True,' Jonah agreed, `it isn't.' But went on to confide, 'I'm a bit jaded with the hunt, if you'd like more truth.'

Her eyes widened. `You've given up women?'

His lip twitched. `That wasn't what I said,' he corrected her. Then proceeded to send her rigid with shock, by continuing, `From what you've said, it doesn't sound as if your parents will be too upset should you spend next weekend with me.' First Lydie went scarlet, and then pale. Then realised that he could not possibly be suggesting what she thought he was suggesting. 'Er...' she mumbled, but found she was stumped to say more.

Jonah smiled-that insincere smile that she hated. 'I'm going to Yourk House, my home in Hertfordshire, next Friday evening. You can come with me,' he decided.

Lydie stared at him, a drumming in her ears. `W-what for?' she found the breath to ask.

That insincere smile became a twisted grin. `Use your imagination, Lydie,' he suggested charmingly.

This wasn't happening to her! It couldn't be happening to her! This sort of thing didn't happen to her! She strove valiantly to block her imagination. 'I'm not much of a cook,' she managed.

`You won't be spending much time in the kitchen,' Jonah assured her pleasantly. And when, dying a thousand deaths, she just stared at him, `Oh, by the way,' he said, getting up and going over to an antique desk where he collected up a piece of paper, `your copy of the agreement we made,' he informed her nicely, and, coming back, handed it to her.

Lydie took it from him and with a thundering heart read the part written in his hand-"The fifty-five thousand pounds to be repaid at the direction and discretion of Jonah Marriott'. She swallowed hard, and could remain seated no longer. `This is how I'm to repay you?' she charged, looking him straight in the eye. `By being your pl... ?' She faltered. `By becoming your plaything?'

`Plaything?' His innocent expression did not fool her for one minute. `For fifty- five thousand you'd be a pretty expensive plaything, wouldn't you agree?" 'What, then?' she demanded.

`Let's say that, ponder on the problem though I have-and I have to confess I'm not too enamoured of the idea of you working night and day nannying to-um-clear accounts-I have been unable, as yet, to come up with anything.'

`You think my going away with you this weekend might give you some ideas?' As soon as the words were out she blushed.

`Oh, yes,' he answered, his mouth picking up at the corners, his eyes on her crimson face. `You could say that.'

He was teasing her, tormenting her-and he held all the high cards, and she didn't like it. But she had had his money, and her father was one very worried man.

`Why?' she challenged. `Why do I have to come with you?"

'Why not?' he answered. `As of now you no longer have a boyfriend-presumably your ex boyfriend knows none of your financial business...?"

'Of course not!' she butted in. `As if I'd tell anyone of the fix my father was in!'

`So what else would you do with your weekend?"

'Begin looking for a job for a start!'

`Don't do that. Not just yet. Let's get all this settled first. You'll feel much better about everything once we've had chance to fully probe into the whys, wherefores and all the possibilities of all this.'

`You're trying to tell me that to investigate possible areas, ways of my repaying you, is what this coming weekend is all about? And don't forget we have a "complete honesty" clause,' she reminded him.

`Would I lie to you, Lydie?' he asked smoothly. And she knew that was as far as she was going to get, particularly when he said, 'I'll finish work early on Friday, and call for you around six.'

`That won't be necessary, I have the address!' she exclaimed quickly, and saw him hide a smirk that, from what she had just said, she had agreed to spend the weekend with him.

'I'll drive you...' he began, but she was shaking her head.

`Sorry to be blunt, Jonah,' she butted in, while wondering why on earth she was apologising, `but I would much prefer that you kept far away from my home.'

She had thought he might be offended, but he was more understanding than offended when he quietly replied, `I saw for myself how drawn your father is, how he's suffering in all of this, Lydie, but I shall have to see him, talk to him some time.'

She felt awkward. She did not like Jonah's suggestion for the weekend any more now than she had ten minutes ago, but the great respect Jonah had for her father was there for her to see, and mentally anyway-she had to thank him for it.

`I know,' she agreed. `But not just yet. Not until we've got something worked out.'

He accepted that, or appeared to. `Until Friday,' he said. She moved to the door, their meeting over. He walked with her. She looked at him as he opened the door for her to go through. Wonderful blue eyes met hers full on, and her heart seemed to go into overdrive. Then he grinned, a grin full of devilment. `Try not to fret, Lydie,' he bade her. `Who knows? You might have a fun weekend.' `Did I tell you the one about flying pigs?' she snapped, and went quickly from him.

Her thoughts were intensely agitated on her drive home. She remembered thinking on the outward drive about how her father was hurting inside, and how she knew that, whatever it cost, she could not regret any of what she had done. That thought haunted her all the way back to Beamhurst Court-she'd had no idea then just how much it was going to cost. She was spending the weekend with Jonah at his home in Hertfordshire-he was not expecting her to cook.

Lydie was still in mental torment when she awakened on Monday morning. She swung first one way and then the other. Perhaps Jonah did not have in mind what she thought he had in mind. Wishful thinking? He had never made a pass at her, had he? And apart from shaking hands and giving her that kiss on the cheek in church on Saturday-and she rather thought she had asked for that, telling him he was her boyfriend he had never touched her. Certainly he had not given her the smallest hint that he might be thinking in terms of her being his bed companion.

Oh, grief! Even thinking about it made her go hot all over. By the sound of it Jonah had wearied of the chase, but it had to be faced-he was still one all very virile male. And, while she had no evidence that he even fancied her-and surely she would have picked up some clue somewhere along the line-was she so naive as to believe that this weekend had nothing to do with-bed?

Oh, heavens, she was having kittens just thinking about it, and found that the only way she could cope was by trying to believe that nothing of a sexual nature was going to take place between them that weekend. Jonah had said that, in the absence of him being able to come up with a plan of how she should repay him, they could spend time this weekend probing possible ways in which she could start making repayments.

Well, she couldn't think of anything, and if he wasn't enamored of her nannying night and day in order to repay him she had no idea what his superior business brain might come up with even if this coming weekend should stretch on to Christmas.

Lydie went down to breakfast and found her parents already in the breakfast room. But there was such a strained atmosphere that, coupled with guilt and fear, plus apprehension in case one of her parents should ask a question which might call for an embroidered answer, she just grabbed up a banana and, uttering something about washing her car, left them.

Jonah was on her mind the whole of the time while she washed and wax-polished her car. She should start looking for another job. Jonah didn't want her to do that, not just yet, he had said, when to her mind the sooner she started earning, the sooner she would start to repay him.

She went indoors and decided to ring Donna, her friend and ex-employer. Donna had been nervous of coping without her, but, while Donna had her phone number, Lydie had felt it better to leave it a while before ringing her.

`How is everybody?' Lydie asked when Donna answered.

`We're fine. Though I almost rang you several times."

`I knew you'd cope beautifully,' Lydie said confidently.

`Which is more than I did. But we seem to have settled into something of a routine. How did the wedding go?'

Guiltily Lydie realised that she'd had so much else on her mind she had almost forgotten about Oliver's wedding-was it only two days ago? `It was super,' she told Donna. 'Madeline looked lovely.' Unbidden, the memory winged in of Jonah saying yesterday, `I should have known you wouldn't be bridesmaid. You're much too beautiful' . '...job yet?"

'Sorry?"

'I was asking if you've got any work lined up yet. Only Elvira Sykes is back-you remember her? Well, she's home from Bahrain, and is desperate to have you if you're interested. She's constantly asking me for your phone number, which I keep telling her I've mislaid.'

`I haven't any work plans at the moment,' Lydie hedged.

`I'll tell her you're taking a long vacation and that if she isn't fixed up by the time you get back you'll give her a ring.'

They chatted on comfortably until one of the children started yelling, then said goodbye. Lydie wandered over to her bedroom window and, glancing out, saw that her father was mowing one of the lawns. Her heart went out to him-they had always employed a gardener, but apparently her father had had to let him go.

She saw her mother come out of the house, then spotted her mother's car on the drive; she was obviously off to some coffee morning, good works, or shopping. She got into her car without attracting Wilmot Pearson's attention. Lydie saw none of the affection between them that had been there on Saturday, when her father had taken a hold of her mother's hand.

Lydie consoled her disquieted feelings by musing that they had probably discussed their plans for the morning over breakfast, and, anyway, had her mother called to him her father would never have heard with the engine of the sit-on mower going at full pelt.

Then the phone rang and Lydie came away from the window. On the basis that her mother was out, her father was out of hearing and Mrs Ross was probably busy, Lydie, though assuming the call would not be for her, went and answered it.

The call was not for her, but that did not stop her heart from picking up its beat when she heard Jonah Marriott's voice. `Hello, Lydie,' he opened. `Is your father there?"

'You want to speak to him?' she asked sharply.