A Wicked Persuasion (4 page)

O
NCE
informed of the new venture, Margaret Rogers, well aware of the difficult financial situation and most other things about the Wilde family, began on a frenzy of unnecessary cleaning. The furniture in every room was polished to an even higher gleam, and her husband was called in to wash the windows inside and out. The copper pans above the island in the kitchen were scoured to blinding glory, and Aubrey Wilde volunteered to eat out until after Saturday to keep the kitchen pristine. When Harriet got home on the Friday evening Margaret was waiting to take her on a tour of inspection. River House was looking its best from every possible point of view in the evening sunshine, the hall and drawing room fragrant with the arrangements made by Margaret from blooms and greenery Will had cut in the garden.

‘How hard you’ve worked. It all looks wonderful,’ said Harriet gratefully.

In Julia’s bedroom they stood on the balcony outside the window and looked down on the gardens, which sloped down to the river which gave the house its name.

‘Don’t you miss living up here, Harriet?’ Margaret asked. ‘It still worries me to think of you alone down in that little place.’

‘I like it there.’

‘But surely you’ll get married one day. You can’t act as clerk of the works for the house for ever. It’s not my place to say so, but it’s not natural for a girl to carry such a load on her shoulders.’

‘I promised I would,’ said Harriet.

‘I know.’ The other woman nodded sadly. ‘Your mother would want you to have a life, just the same.’ She patted Harriet’s hand. ‘No offence.’

‘Of course not,’ said Harriet affectionately. ‘Thank you for everything, Margaret. I don’t know what my father would do without you.’

‘I don’t do it for him, dear; I made a promise, too.’ Margaret smiled briskly. ‘And now I must get home and prepare supper for John.’

‘Please thank him for me. He’s been a huge help.’ And would be paid for it, no matter how much he protested.

Her father intercepted her on her way out. ‘Since this telecoms chap wants a marquee, let’s take a stroll round the garden.’

The herbaceous borders edging the lawns in front of the house were just coming into colour. Harriet breathed in the heady scent of newly cut grass as she tried to look at the gardens with the eye of a prospective client. ‘John’s done a great job with the weeding. Will says he wouldn’t have managed it all in time without him.’

‘Good man,’ said Aubrey, and gave her a sidelong look. ‘He’ll need to be paid.’

‘Of course. Now he’s retired, he can do with the money.’

They went on to walk round the four acres of garden together, a new experience to them both recently. It was years since Harriet had spent any real time alone in her father’s company. When they got back to the house he suggested a look round inside, but she told him she’d been over it earlier with Margaret.

‘She’s done even more wonders than usual, the house looks perfect.’

‘But it’s not,’ said her father heavily. ‘It would only be perfect if you came back home to live in it.’

She shook her head. ‘Not going to happen. Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Next morning Harriet woke to the feeling of a cloud hanging over her and groaned at the thought of the morning ahead. In the shower she thought, not for the first time, that the only thing likely to drive her back to live in River House was the lure of a long hot soak in the kind of tub her bathroom was too small to accommodate. She dealt with her hair, tied it back in a skein of half damp curls, dressed in white shirt and jeans and ate some breakfast to get a kick-start to this important day. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that James intended turning River House down once he’d inspected it. Thank God he still had no idea her father had once been ready to threaten him with arrest.

Harriet walked up to the house shortly before ten to find her father pacing along the terrace, smartly dressed as always, but visibly tense.

‘Good morning.’ He smiled warily. ‘You look very young and pretty today.’

‘Thank you. You look good yourself.’ Her father never stinted on his wardrobe. ‘Luckily the weather forecast was accurate for once. The gardens look fabulous in this sunshine. Will has worked incredibly hard.’ She tensed at the sound of a car engine changing gears on the bend of the steep drive. ‘Our client’s arrived.’

Harriet waited with her father at the head of the steps, very much aware that his tension equalled her own. When James got out of a black convertible, wearing clothes much
like hers, she saw her father relax and wished she could do the same.

‘Looks like a decent sort of chap—that’s an Aston Martin Volante,’ he said in an undertone, and Harriet stood rigid with apprehension as James mounted the steps towards them. ‘Good morning,’ said her father, smiling genially. ‘Welcome to River House. I’m Aubrey Wilde.’

‘James Crawford.’ James returned the smile, looking at him steadily as he shook hands. ‘I’ve already met your daughter, of course. Good morning, Miss Wilde.’

She forced her stiff lips to smile. ‘Good morning. Isn’t it a lovely day? Shall we start the tour in the garden, or would you prefer to see over the house first?’

‘The gardens, please. With luck, the weather will be good on the day and we’ll have no need to trespass in the house.’

‘We won’t look on it as trespass, Crawford,’ Aubrey assured him. ‘Come in and look around. Harriet will give you the grand tour, and then we can have coffee before going on to the gardens.’

One look at James had been reassurance enough for her father. He was obviously still in blissful ignorance about James’s identity, but it was equally obvious that he was now reconciled to letting out River House to him. ‘Is that all right with you?’ she asked James.

He smiled blandly. ‘Of course. It would be a pleasure.’

‘Splendid.’ Aubrey led the way inside. ‘Come back to the kitchen when you’re ready and I’ll have coffee waiting.’

‘If you’ll come this way, then, Mr Crawford,’ said Harriet, and led him along the right-angled hall towards the drawing room at the far end.

‘He hasn’t a clue who he’s dealing with, has he?’ murmured James as they entered a vast sunlit room furnished with comfortable modern pieces living in harmony with
the paintings and antiques handed down through Sarah Tolliver Wilde’s family.

‘Do you want me to tell him?’

‘Not if it will make things difficult for you.’ James took in the room, his smile bleak. ‘Now I see inside this place at last, I understand why you couldn’t give it up. But why the hell do you live in the Lodge now?’

‘Personal reasons. Now, if you’ll follow me back down the hall, the dining room is next on the left. Father insists on eating there every night when he’s home.’

‘Good God,’ said James, following her into a large room with a table big enough for a board meeting. ‘Do you eat here with him?’

‘No.’

He looked down into her averted face. ‘You’ve changed a lot, Harriet.’

‘After all these years, that’s hardly surprising.’ She shrugged. ‘You told me to grow up, so I did. Next along is Father’s study—’

‘We needn’t go in there,’ James said quickly.

‘Follow me upstairs, then.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s unnecessary to see more of the house. Let’s concentrate on the gardens.’

‘As you wish.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Shall we have that coffee first?’

Aubrey Wilde was in a convivial mood when they entered the kitchen. ‘I hope you don’t mind drinking your coffee in here.’

James looked at the balloon chairs ranged around a mahogany table at one end, the oak cupboards and creamy counters lining the business end, and the island with gas hobs and canopy hung with gleaming copper pans. ‘Only too pleased. Do you do much cooking, sir?’

Aubrey laughed, smiling sheepishly at his daughter.
‘Afraid not. My wonderful Mrs Rogers does that—been with the family for years.’

Harriet supplied her father with the sweetened brew of his choice, then looked at James in polite question. ‘How do you like yours?’ Though she knew from their meeting that James took his coffee black, as he’d always done. And the look he gave her said he was well aware of it.

‘As it comes, please.’

The two men chatted for a while, but after a few minutes James stood up. ‘If you’re ready for the tour now, Mr Wilde, I need to be off shortly.’

Aubrey sprang to attention. ‘Of course, of course.’

Harriet got to her feet quickly, determined not leave them alone together. ‘If you’re keen to get away, Father, I’ll take Mr Crawford over the gardens.’

‘Splendid. You know more about them than me, anyway,’ said her father. ‘Don’t forget the paddock.’

James thanked him formally and then followed Harriet down the steps to the main lawn to start the tour of the garden. She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard her father’s car start up. It seemed certain, now, that James would keep to his decision to use River House for his party. And her father had no idea who he was, probably because he had simply erased her rebellion from his mind. Not impossible. Her father was an expert at airbrushing unpleasantness from his life.

It was a strange experience to show James round the extensive gardens he had never set foot in before. During their time together in the past she had been so determined to keep their relationship a secret she had always driven to meet him and never allowed him to take her home. His visit to the Lodge to mend her computer had been his sole time spent on the property.

‘It’s a lot bigger than I thought,’ he commented as they crossed the vast lawn. ‘A marquee will be no problem here.’

‘No. My father could have given you more details about that, but—’

‘But you wanted to get him away from me as soon as you could, in case he recognised me and cancelled the whole thing. Is it that important to you, Harriet?’

‘Yes.’ Her chin lifted proudly. ‘We need a new roof.’

‘And you’re willing to take my money to pay for it.’

‘Yes.’ She led the way up the steps to the terrace, desperate now for him to leave so she could recover from the tension of the morning. As they reached the Lodge, Harriet looked up at him in query. ‘Have you seen all you need to see?’

‘Not exactly. May I come in?’

‘Of course.’ What else could she say? She opened the door and went ahead of him into her small sitting room.

‘It looks very different in here now,’ he commented, looking round.

‘I’ve stamped my personality on it over the years.’

‘Years?’ James frowned. ‘How long have you been living here?’

‘I used it to study in as a teenager, if you remember, but since I qualified the Lodge has been my permanent home.’

‘May I sit down?’

‘Of course. Take the sofa.’ Harriet curled up on the window seat.

‘You had a desk in here,’ he observed, after a silence a shade too long for comfort.

‘It lives in my bedroom these days.’ She eyed him warily. ‘Is there anything else you need?’

‘Yes, a chat.’ James leaned back, irritatingly at ease as he dominated the room just by sitting there. ‘When I introduced myself this morning I fully expected to be run
off the property. It was an anticlimax to find your father obviously didn’t know me from Adam.’

Harriet nodded. ‘I only spoke about you once in the past, when I said I was going to live with you. I just referred to you as James.’ She frowned. ‘But he must have known your full name to get your boss to fire you—or transfer you, as it turned out.’

James shrugged. ‘He just told George Lassiter to fire the techie who dared to have designs on his daughter. George knew exactly who came to River House that day, so maybe my surname never came into it.’

‘You’re probably right,’ she agreed, and smiled. ‘But I was wound a bit tight before you came.’ For more reasons than he knew.

‘I could tell.’ James eyed her thoughtfully. ‘If you won’t live up in that wonderful house with your father, why the hell do you stay here, Harriet? It can’t be filial loyalty, because even to the casual observer—which I’m not—it’s obvious that the two of you aren’t close.’

‘I love the house.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘The house you refuse to live in. Are you hoping to inherit it one day?’

‘I have two sisters,’ she reminded him. ‘The estate will be divided between us.’ She slid to her feet. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No, thanks. I’d better be on my way.’ He stood up, crowding her enough to make Harriet claustrophobic. ‘It’s been good to see you again.’

‘Has it? I thought you still harboured old resentments,’ she said lightly.

James shook his head. ‘Not any more. You were only a kid when we broke up, and now I’ve been over River House I understand why you couldn’t leave it.’

‘Actually, you don’t,’ she informed him, and moved to the door.

He stood in her way. ‘Enlighten me, then.’

‘There’s no point. It was all a long time ago.’ She smiled brightly. ‘You’ve come a very long way since then, while I’m still here where we first met.’

‘And I still want to know why.’ For the first time since meeting her again he gave her the smile which had once made her fall so helplessly in love with him.

Harriet shook her head. ‘It’s no big mystery, but still not one I intend to share.’ With anyone, least of all with a forceful, successful man like James Crawford. The truth was simple. Her father revelled in the cachet of a home like River House, but not in the responsibility of looking after it. She held the door wider as James moved to stand beside her.

She flinched as he took a strand of her hair and pulled it out straight before letting it spring back into a curl. ‘I always liked doing that. Your hair is the only thing about you that hasn’t changed.’

‘Hardly surprising. I was a teenager when we knew each other, James. Now I’m an adult and an accountant. Not a profession known for glamour—as Claudia pointed out.’

He grinned. ‘She got to you, did she?’ His smiled faded as she deliberately backed to put space between them.

‘Before you go, James, tell me the truth. Why did you hire River House?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m a businessman, Harriet. I met Charlotte Brewster, got interested in what she does for a living, and told her what I had in mind for a party. She suggested your place as the ideal location, and for obvious reasons I jumped at the chance.’ He eyed her challengingly. ‘I’ll have invitations sent to you and your father. Will you come, or will you hide away while the party’s on?’