Priceless

by Olivia Darling

  CHAPTER 5

  Nat Wilde was delighted to hear from his old prep school chum Mark Trebarwen.

  “Chubby!” he exclaimed, using a nickname that had been hard lost. “How the devil are you? How’s your dear old mother?”

  “She’s dead,” said Mark shortly.

  “Whoops. Sorry about that, old chap. Can’t believe I missed the announcement in the Telegraph.”

  Nat had his staff scan the death notices and obits every day. He had a file full of extremely tasteful condolence cards ready to be sent out to newly bereaved relatives at the drop of a hat.

  “We didn’t put an announcement in,” said Mark, aware it was bad form to have forgotten. Still, his mother wasn’t such a stickler for form in her latter years, as that bloody painting of the dogs had proved.

  “Oh, well. In that case I don’t feel quite such a chump,” said Nat. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure? Want to arrange some work experience for one of your children?” he suggested disingenuously. They both knew why Mark was calling.

  “No. Not yet. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming down to Cornwall and having a look over the house. There are a few things that might be worth something. I really don’t know. I haven’t been able to look that closely. Mother’s death is still too, too fresh.”

  “I understand,” said Nat, voice dripping with concern. “Well, don’t trouble yourself about it. You’ve come to exactly the right man. I’ll take care of everything. When would you like me to stop by?”

  Nat was unusually accommodating. He and Chubby Trebarwen hadn’t been the best of chums at school, but Nat had sensed from very early on that the Trebarwen family had a bob or two. Mark Trebarwen senior had sent his driver and a Bentley to pick his two sons up at the end of each term. And when Louisa Trebarwen had graced her boys with her presence on speech and sports days, she had usually been wearing fur and been dripping in diamonds. Nat was almost salivating at the thought of what her house might contain.

  “I can come down tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve always been of the opinion that when you suffer the loss of a beloved parent, you should deal with the grief by keeping on the move. It’s once you stop that the unhappiness hits you. But if they get straight on with sorting out their affairs, people usually find that by the time they’ve stopped moving, the pain has lessened a good deal.”

  Nat didn’t mention that he’d also found that the more quickly you pushed bereaved families into putting up their loved one’s estates for auction, the more likely they were to agree with whatever you told them. Grief. Befuddlement. Despair. They all worked in Nat’s favor. Of the three Ds that kept the auction business going—divorce, debt, and death—death was definitely Nat’s favorite. And by far the easiest since the deceased couldn’t quibble about the sale of their treasured possessions. The pressure of inheritance tax was also a great joy to the auctioneer.

  “I will drive straight there. I know it’s a terrible thing that has brought us back into contact, Mark, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing you and catching up.”

  “I won’t be there,” said Mark. “I’ve got to go back to Singapore. You’ll be dealing with my little brother.”

  “Wonderful,” he said through gritted teeth. Mark Trebarwen was a known quantity, but Nat didn’t know Julian Trebarwen except by reputation. Hadn’t he been expelled from Radley for knocking another boy’s teeth out? “I’ll look forward to meeting him.”

  Nat Wilde needn’t have worried about Julian Trebarwen foiling his plans to get Louisa Trebarwen’s estate into the salesroom at Ludbrook’s. When Nat talked to him on the phone, Julian Trebarwen was much friendlier than his brother had been. And he was obviously in need of money, Nat surmised the very next day, as he pulled his Range Rover into the grand drive of Trebarwen House and clocked the ancient BMW that was parked there.

  This was to be a perfunctory visit. As well as making sure that he was in the running to sell the contents of the house, Nat wanted to be equally sure it was worth bothering with. As he followed Julian from room to room, ostensibly making small talk about their memories of prep school and friends in common, Nat was ruthlessly totting up the potential worth of the house’s contents. He may have appeared blasé, but in his head he was making a detailed valuation worthy of an insurance broker. There was much to salivate over, but like a real estate agent, Nat knew that it was important not to raise his potential client’s hopes too high. That way you could more easily exceed them. That was how reputations were built.

  “I think we’ll be able to do something for you,” said Nat. He handed Julian a glossy brochure detailing Ludbrook’s terms and conditions. “If you and your brother think that Ludbrook’s is the house for you, I’ll send somebody down to make a proper inventory at your earliest convenience.”

  “Thank you,” said Julian. They shook hands cordialy on the steps to the house, but Julian had felt an instant distrust of Nat Wilde upon meeting him, and the feeling was absolutely mutual.

  The next afternoon—Sunday—as he lay in bed in the green room, as the main guest suite at Trebarwen was called, Julian guiltily recalled the last time he had seen his mother, and how, having failed to extract any cash from the old girl that time, he had wished that the day when she finally shuffled off the mortal coil might come quickly.

  Julian knew he had been his mother’s favorite, but for the past couple of years even she had refused to fund any more of his get-rich-quick schemes. General opinion was that everything Julian touched went belly-up. That wasn’t entirely fair. He had made a paper fortune before the dotcom crash. Likewise, his decision to open an estate agency just before the credit crunch took hold had been based on very sound accounting. And if his mother had shown more faith in him, perhaps Julian wouldn’t have felt compelled to commit the insurance fraud that had landed him in prison for three months.

  No, Julian would not stand in the way of any sale of his mother’s stuff. He needed the money.

  A twenty-minute nap turned into a three-hour snooze. It was hunger that eventually forced Julian to get up. He wandered down to the vast kitchen where once upon a time three cooks had turned out dinners for a hundred, but there was absolutely nothing in the fridge and nothing in his mother’s cocktail cabinet either. It was a Sunday, it was Cornwall, and it was after four o’clock. There was scant chance he would find anywhere open and serving lunch. Perhaps it was time to pay his mother’s neighbor a visit.

  “Oh, hello,” said Serena when she opened the door to Julian Trebarwen. “I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she added by way of excusing the shabbiness of her dress. Not that she would have looked much smarter had she been expecting visitors. Serena’s wardrobe contained clothes she could no longer fit into, and jeans. She’d not had the money or time to shop for anything since Tom had walked out.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Julian. “We’re in the country. Here, I brought you these.” He thrust toward her a fistful of flowers, pulled together from the floral tributes that had been left for his mother.

  “Oh, thank you. That’s very kind.” Still Serena remained on the doorstep, blocking Julian’s entrance. “What can I do for you?” she asked eventually. “Oh, God. I can’t believe I said that. I mean, I’m sure you just popped round to be neighborly.”

  “Actually,” said Julian, “I did have an ulterior motive. I’m afraid you’ll think me a rather hopeless bachelor, but I find myself without a thing in the house. I drove down to the village but …”

  “Everything is shut. I know. You can’t get anything after midday unless you want to drive to Truro. Takes some getting used to after London.”

  “I wonder if I could possibly borrow a little milk and a few slices of bread to tide me over?”

  Serena smiled.

  “I think we can do a little better than that. Katie and I were just about to have a little supper. Why don’t you join us?”

  Bingo.

  “Really,” said Julian. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

>   “Oh, no,” said Serena. “Please do. I haven’t had an adult conversation since your mother died.”

  Serena Macdonald was not quite who Julian had expected her to be. He had thought she would be like all the other women in the village, dull and slightly desperate. But she was much more interesting than that.

  Julian guessed that the shabby clothes concealed a not-too-shabby figure. Her hair was untidy, but it was a nice color and she had a pretty face. Even prettier when she smiled, which was often.

  The supper she’d prepared was delicious. Possibly all the more so because Julian had fully expected to spend the next twenty-four hours subsisting on toast and Marmite. Serena had cooked lamb with rosemary. Her roast potatoes rivaled those Julian’s nanny used to make.

  “This is really wonderful,” he said, meaning every word.

  “I prefer chicken,” said Katie.

  “Then, I’ll have yours,” said Julian, spearing some of Katie’s lamb, to her delighted surprise.

  Over supper, Julian did a bit of digging about Serena’s marital status.

  “A husband!” She laughed. “Barely. He’s on his way out. What about you?”

  “Confirmed bachelor,” he said, puffing out his chest in comedic pride. “Much to my mother’s annoyance.”

  “I know.” Serena smiled.

  “Ah, well,” said Julian. “Just haven’t found the right girl.”

  Serena nodded. “Your mother said that too.”

  • • •

  It was one of those lovely Sunday suppers that just don’t seem to want to end. Katie, of course, got down from the table as soon as Serena said she could and went to play with the Trebarwen dollhouse that Louisa had given her for her sixth birthday. Serena and Julian remained at the table—Serena only getting up to put a tired Katie to bed—until they’d finished almost two bottles of red wine between them. They were starting to feel as though they had known each other for years.

  Still, Serena was a little surprised when Julian made his move, slipping his arm around her waist while she was running water over the roasting tin in the kitchen sink. He lifted her ponytail out of the way, and she knew at once he was about to kiss the back of her neck.

  “I can’t,” said Serena, gently pushing him off. “It’s been … you know. It’s been a long time.”

  Julian dutifully stepped back.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “But thank you. I suppose …”

  “I’d better go?”

  “It is almost one in the morning.”

  “And I only dropped by to cadge a few slices of toast. Thank you. You’ve looked after me very well.”

  “It’s what your mum would have wanted, I’m sure.”

  “Well, I’ll be able to return the favor,” said Julian. “I’m going to be around for a bit longer. Getting the estate sorted out. It would be nice to see you again.”

  Serena nodded. “I’d like that too.”

  After Serena closed the door behind him, she leaned heavily against it, her heart beating fast. A silly grin spread across her face. Julian Trebarwen had made a pass at her. It was the first time anyone had made a pass at her since the day she’d gotten pregnant with Katie (and that included her own husband). The knowledge that someone had found her worthy of a quick feel, even if it was largely driven by alcohol, had a better effect on Serena’s face than a shot of BOTOX. She sneaked a look at herself as she passed the mirror in the hallway and, for once, was quite pleased with what she saw.

  “You’ve still got it, Serena Macdonald,” she said, and winked at her reflection.

  CHAPTER 6

  Carrie Klein was fighting hard to hang on to her assets. She was just thirty-nine years old. There was no danger that her chin was going to slide into her neck like melting ice cream the moment she hit forty, but Carrie was still putting in the work. Prevention being better than any cure and all that. She had been having BOTOX for years. Just a little to ward off the frown lines she’d seen appearing on the faces of most of her peers. It had the added bonus of seeming to stop the migraines that had bugged her since graduate school.

  But it wasn’t just the face that needed maintenance. Every morning Carrie could be found running around Central Park. Not just jogging but running, like her life depended on it. Forty-five minutes every day without fail, before she got into the office and put in a ten-hour day (if her work load wasn’t too heavy—more usually she pulled twelve or thirteen).

  • • •

  Carrie’s heart had only just recovered from that morning’s run when she got a call that set it thumping again. It was her boss.

  “Carrie, I need to see you in my office right away,” Andrew said.

  It sounded serious. It had been months, but ever since the debacle over the fake Constable, Carrie had been waiting to receive her marching orders. The painting had been withdrawn from the sale with little fuss, but still Carrie felt humiliated. She’d been such an idiot. It wasn’t as though she had been so certain that the painting was real in the first place. Since then she had been even more assiduous, even more driven, spurred on by the fear that her competitors would see this chink in her armor as a way of bringing her down. She prepared her best argument as to why she should be allowed to stay on. Andrew would take her seriously, she was sure. But when she walked into his office and saw that the chairman of the house, eighty-six-year-old Frank Ehrenpreis, was sitting in the third chair, Carrie’s composure deserted her. She was finished, for sure. Why else would Andrew have called Frank in?

  “Gentlemen, I feel that I need to explain once more how that painting came to be in my sale,” she said, jumping the gun.

  “Carrie, hold it right there,” Andrew said. “You think you’re getting fired, right?”

  What could Carrie do except nod?

  “This isn’t about the Constable. That’s dealt with. You’re not getting the sack. You’re much too valuable for that.”

  Then, what, Carrie wondered.

  “We want you to go to London.”

  “Why?”

  “What I’m about to tell you is highly confidential. For some time the board has been discussing the expansion of Ehrenpreis overseas. The world has shifted on its axis. New York is no longer the center of the world. For the past decade, the power and the money have been moving steadily east. Russia, China, India. The new money isn’t coming to the States right now. They want to do their business closer to home. London is where it’s at. And Ehrenpreis needs to be there too. We’ve made an offer on the lease to premises in New Bond Street.”

  Carrie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Right across the street from our old friends at Sotheby’s. We want you to fly there tonight and check the place out tomorrow morning. You are going to head up Ehrenpreis London. Assuming that you want to.”

  “I … I …” Carrie was flabbergasted. “Why me?”

  “Because we know that we’ll get our money’s worth. Sure, you made a mistake with the Constable, but if Ehrenpreis gave out a star for employee of the month, it wouldn’t have left your shirt since the first month you got here. You’ve got what it takes. You’re brilliant, professional, and ambitious. You’re prepared to live your work, which is what would be required of you if you took this offer up. So whaddya think? Do you want a while to consider what I’ve told you? Ask your significant others?”

  Carrie shook her head. She didn’t need any time to think. And there weren’t any significant others she needed to ask. The thought of what Jed would say flashed through her mind, but she put it to one side. “I would be delighted to accept your offer.”

  “Great. I already had your assistant book the flight.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Carrie was booked into first class on the red-eye flight from JFK to London. She left a message for Jed, canceling their date for that evening, saying that she had to go to London on business but without elaborating. When she got back to New York, she would take him out to dinner. They would, she hoped, be drinking champa
gne.

  London. How Carrie loved that city. It was so exciting. She loved the history. The pace. The manners. As she settled into her seat for the flight, an English guy in his forties was being shown to his place. The sound of his accent as he thanked the stewardess for her help filled Carrie with delicious expectation. Such class. At least, he sounded like he had class. Carrie was well aware that such things could be deceptive, but still it gave her a thrill.

  Her assistant, Jessica, had, as usual, made an excellent job of arranging the trip. A limousine was waiting at the airport to whisk her straight to her hotel, Claridge’s, the most convenient for the proposed offices of the new Ehrenpreis endeavor, and for easy visits to Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Ludbrook’s. She was especially excited to visit Ludbrook’s. There was an old friend she wanted to see there.

  Carrie’s excitement was only slightly dimmed by the angry message from Jed that greeted her when she turned her phone on upon landing at Heathrow.

  “Is there nothing more important in your life than work?” he asked.