Past All Forgetting (14 page)

'Fair.' Janna dropped into a chair on the opposite side of the table and smiled at them both. From childhood this had always been one of her favourite rooms, with its gleaming yellow tiles, and shining formica work surfaces. She ran her fingers lightly over the pitted surface of the big wooden table which occupied pride of place. She had made her first attempts at baking at this table, and later pored over her homework there, enjoying the busy flow of the household around her.

Now, if ever, she thought suddenly, was the time to tell her parents the truth about Rian, to confess everything and beg: for their help and understanding. She glanced across at her father, frowning darkly over something he had just read, and her mother's untroubled countenance as she adjusted heat levels and peered under the lids of saucepans, and her courage failed her. While there was still a chance that she could prevent them from knowing, then she would keep silent.

She cleared her throat. 'I—I had to take some work round to one of my pupils.'

'Yes.' Janna saw a slight shadow cross her mother's face. To the little Fleur child. Beth told me.'

'Beth was here?' Janna stared in amazement. 'Surely not just to tell you that?'

'Oh, no,' Mrs Prentiss denied vehemently. 'Poor Deirdre is laid up with bronchitis so she can't go to tomorrow night's meeting. Beth came round with the minutes book for her. She just—mentioned in passing where you were.'

'How good of her,' Janna said rather drily. Beth was a colleague, but they had never been close. There was a strain of malice in the older girl that had always caused Janna to hold her at arms' length. She had often felt that Beth was aware of this and resented it.

Mr Prentiss folded his paper and laid it down. 'So you've been up to Carrisbeck? Did Rian show you the plans for his stable conversion?'

'No.' Please, dear God, let her not blush. Her mother was watching her closely. 'He—he did mention it, of course.'

Mrs Prentiss sniffed. 'Well, Rian was always a law unto himself, even as a boy, but I cannot understand why he's bought a lovely house like, that if all he means to live in is an old stable.'

'It all depends, of course,' said her husband, 'exactly what plans he has for the house.' He sat back with a faint grin while his womenfolk regarded him.

'You know something.' Mrs Prentiss accused, pausing ,in the act of dishing-up. 'Is it in confidence, or can you tell us?'

'Nothing confidential about it. He's written to the planning committee putting all his cards on the table, and he's been talking to the
Advertiser
as well, I understand. He wants to turn the place into an adventure centre. You know,' he added impatiently when his wife looked puzzled, 'Outward Bound—that sort of thing. Canoeing on the river, and fell-walking, orienteering and rock-climbing. I can see his point. It's the ideal place for it.'

'But is there a demand for that sort of thing?' Mrs Prentiss persisted. 'I can't think of anyone round this way who'd be very interested,'

Mr Prentiss laughed. 'It's not specifically for local people, Audrey. There'll be parties of young people coming from schools and youth dubs all over the country, I daresay. If he gets permission to do it, that is. I can't see a lot of objection at district level, but if it goes to the County he could have a battle on his hands. With all due respect, Janna, I can't see Colin's father having a lot of time for the scheme. And wasn't he after Carrisbeck himself?'

Janna roused herself with an effort. Her father's news had stunned her. It was in many ways the last sort of thing she would have thought Rian to have been interested in. How little she knew, or had ever known, about him, she thought She had forgotten too, until her father had reminded her, that Sir Robert was the powerful chairman of the County planning committee.

'Yes,' she admitted quietly. 'He was going to buy it for Colin and me—for us to live in when we were married.'

Her father gave her a dry look over the top of his glasses.

'I think it could prove to have a more useful existence under its present owner. You didn't want to live in that great barn, did you, chicken?'

'What a thing to say!' Mrs Prentiss brought the serving dishes to the table. 'It's a lovely house.

'Which would cost a fortune to heat and run these days,' her husband completed for her. 'Colin and Janna don't want to start off with a millstone like that round their necks.'

'You talk as if Colin was just some ordinary lad,' Mrs Prentiss protested, as she cut into the steak and kidney pie, and laid neat portions on the waiting plates. 'He has a position to maintain, and he can afford to do it.'

'Colin draws his salary like anyone else at Travers Engineering,' said Mr Prentiss, helping himself to potatoes. 'It's his father who has the real money and Janna and Colin don't intend to live out of his pocket, I trust.' He cocked an eye at Janna who smiled uncomfortably and shook her head. She did not want to admit to her parents that, she was pretty sure that was precisely what Colin had in mind. She had often tried to find out from him exactly what their financial position would be when they were married, but he was curiously reticent on the subject, preferring to insist on her giving up her job rather than providing any facts and figures himself. Even the car he drove, she had discovered fairly recently, belonged to the company and not to him. Colin himself seemed to regard the situation as normal, so she told herself that she had no reason to be concerned if he was satisfied. Now her father's words had struck some depressingly familiar chords.

She ate her supper, lending a rather absent ear to her parents' conversation. She would have to talk to Colin again, she thought, and find out precisely how much they would have to live on. It occurred to her that next Tuesday's dinner party could be an ideal time to do some probing. Perhaps she could get Mrs Masham on one side and find out just how much it cost to stage one of those intimate but lavish dinners which Sir Robert regarded as the norm in hospitality. She would need some figures to arm herself with when she talked to Colin, She would have to find out, for one thing, if she was expected to do all the entertaining for Travers Engineering out of her ordinary housekeeping allowance, or whether some kind of expense account would be provided. Otherwise, she thought, the bowls of hothouse flowers and the out-of-season foods that regularly appeared at his father's parties would be entirely beyond their reach, and she doubted whether Colin would be prepared to accept any lowering of standards.

It came to her later that night, as she lay in bed, that in many ways all Colin's standards were impossibly high, and on that note of vague dissatisfaction she fell asleep.

Janna dressed with especial care on the night of Sir Robert's dinner party. She had washed her hair as soon as she got home from school, and blown it dry so that it curved smoothly round her face. She was wearing a floor-length skirt in deep red velvet, teamed with a black jersey top with a scooped neckline. An antique garnet pendant, a legacy from her grandmother, nestled in the curve of her throat.

She looked in the mirror at the smooth, self-contained stranger with the tense mouth and eyes, and gave her a tentative smile. Suddenly a much younger Janna peeped back at her, shy and mischievously appealing. She permitted herself the luxury of a regretful sigh before she turned away to pick up her wrap from the bed.

Colin's car was just drawing up at the gate as she went downstairs. He smiled at her with warm approval as she opened the door to him, and she basked in his regard.

'Lovely Janna.' He kissed her with care, mindful of her make-up. 'A little pale, however. Are you nervous?'

'Not at all,' she replied untruthfully, knowing that it was what he wanted to hear.

She was very quiet as they drove to Thornwood Hall, but Colin did not appear to notice, chatting with obvious satisfaction about his progress with the unions at the works, and the success of the hard line he was taking. Janna murmured a brief response at the appropriate moment, and noticed with faint amusement that Colin never asked her how her day had gone. She was accustomed by now to his attitude that her teaching was just a temporary aberration on the journey from girlhood to wifehood, and could not be viewed in terms of being a career. She sometimes wondered what he would do if she told him she had changed her mind, and would not be leaving her job when they married. He had always taken this completely for granted, but Janna could recall no discussion they had ever had on the subject. Colin simply assumed that she felt as he did about it.

The car turned into the driveway of the Hall, and came to rest on the broad gravelled sweep in front of the house. Colin helped her out, and they walked into the house together. Janna glanced perfunctorily into the dining room as they went past. Everything was perfect as usual—well-polished silver shining on gleaming damask, and candles waiting to be lit in tall holders.

Sir Robert was standing with his back to the drawing room fire when they entered, a glass of his favourite sherry to hand. He gave Janna an all-encompassing stare, then nodded briskly.

As she sat down on the edge of one of the ornate sofas, and accepted the glass he handed to her with some ceremony, Janna reflected not for the first time that this was a lovely room spoiled by over-decoration and fussy furnishings. Only Sir Robert, she thought resignedly, would have considered the gracious lines of an Adam fireplace improved by assembling on it a collection of the most expensive ornaments he could find, arranged without taste, as if they were huddling together for warmth.

She found to her relief that she had met all the guests before. Tonight at least, there were no business rivals to charm, she thought, glancing round with satisfaction and noting that Mrs Masham was hovering in the hall awaiting the signal to serve dinner.

Sir Robert detained her sharply. 'Not yet, lass. We're still one short. Where the devil has the fellow got to?'

Almost before he had finished speaking, the front door bell pealed loudly, and Mrs Masham disappeared to answer it Janna set down her glass, and rose, smiling, to greet the late arrival. She halted, the blood drained from her face with shock, as she recognised the tall figure in the doorway, devastatingly elegant in his dark dinner jacket and ruffled shirt.

'Good evening, Janna.' Rian took her nerveless hand and raised it to his lips with exaggerated courtliness. 'What an unexpected pleasure.'

'For whom?' she said between her teeth. As she led him across to her future father-in-law, her brain was whirling. Whatever had prompted Sir Robert to invite him? she thought desperately. He could not still be hoping to persuade him to resell Carrisbeck House. And why had neither Colin nor his. father mentioned to her that he was to be among the guests? She had to acknowledge, to be fair, that she had never asked exactly who was to be there. She knew roughly the circles in which Sir Robert moved, and those that he aspired to, and guessed that the guest list would contain a sprinkling from both.

'Of course you know my future daughter-in-law?' Sir Robert said expansively.

'We're old friends,' Rian returned smoothly. 'An acquaintance I look forward to furthering.'

'Hold hard, young man!' Sir Robert's laugh was slightly uneasy. 'You'll have my lad to reckon with if you're not careful. What do you say, Janna?'

Her face ached with the effort to smile. 'I think Rian is simply being provocative,' she said carefully.

Rian smiled. 'A bad habit,' he said softly. 'I wonder where I could have acquired it.

She was aware that Sir Robert was eyeing them both sharply, and was never more thankful that it was now time for them to go into the dining room. But her ordeal was only just beginning. It was plain that Rian was in some sense the guest of honour, and he was placed beside her at the table. She unfolded her table napkin with numb fingers. How was she going to get through the evening? She toyed with the idea of pleading indisposition, feigning a sudden illness, but she was uneasily aware that Sir Robert's suspicions might already have been aroused. Her speedy exit might only serve to confirm that she and Rian were better acquainted than she had previously, led Sir Robert to believe.

She writhed under the memory of the way Rian had looked at her, the deliberately intimate tone of his voice. His behaviour could not have been more blatant if she had been his mistress of many years' standing, she thought despairingly.

The clear soup was delicious, but it could have been as bitter as gall as far as Janna was concerned. Her features schooled to an expression of polite interest, she joined in the utterly superficial conversations going on around her, hardly aware of what was being discussed.

It was a ploy that served her well through the fish course, but as the plates were being changed and the main course—fillet of beef baked in a light pastry case—was being served, Rian's voice said, soft with amusement, 'You are supposed to talk to me as well, you know. Sir Robert has been glaring at you for fully five minutes.

She looked at him mutely, her eyes imploring.

'Relax,' he advised drily. 'I don't intend to regale them with your past transgressions over the port, so you can enjoy your meal.'

'Why did you come here?' she whispered.

'Because I was invited,' he answered with a slight shrug. 'Home-made soup can pall, you know. Besides, Sir Robert is so obviously set on making me an offer for Carrisbeck that it seems only fair to give him the opportunity to do so.'

'But have you any intention of selling it to him?'

'None at all, but it provides me with considerable private enjoyment to see him going to all this trouble. The Travers Technique. Snare the victim, ply him with food and wine until he's helpless, and then pounce. It's crude, but I daresay he finds it effective.' He smiled lazily into her eyes. 'Is that the method Colin used when he proposed to you, or did he simply announce a merger?'

'Spare me the witticisms,' she said coldly. 'Colin loves me very much.'

'I hope you're wrong,' he said coolly. 'Otherwise he's going to be very unhappy when I take you from him.'