by Penny Jordan
Suddenly she remembered the portrait she had seen in the house and how stunned she had been on first seeing James Allingham’s resemblance to it. Just for a moment all her old hatred of the Deverils surged up inside her, but she had herself under control almost immediately.
‘Really,’ she exclaimed in a marvelling voice. ‘You do surprise me. I had heard that the solicitors made extensive enquiries and had decided that the Deveril family had completely died out.’
‘So, I believe, it has,’ James Allingham agreed, with mocking urbanity. ‘But there is a connection none the less. One of my ancestors was born here in this village. His mother was the wife of the then Sir George Deveril.’ His mouth twisted slightly as he added, ‘Unfortunately, he fell into disgrace and was packed off to the Indies. Once there he married the daughter of a wealthy sugar planter.’
Jenna froze, and as though sensing her disbelief James Allingham said coolly, ‘Oh, it’s all quite true, I can assure you, but the father of the girl whom James Deveril married insisted as part of the marriage contract that James change his surname to Allingham.’ He shrugged. ‘The story goes in our family that James wasn’t all that reluctant to part with a surname he despised.’
‘A most romantic story, Mr Allingham,’ Jenna said crisply, suddenly understanding why James Allingham would want to possess the house. No doubt like her he harboured a feeling of resentment against the Deveril family, but she must not start feeling sympathy for him, she told herself sharply. That was what he wanted…what he was angling for.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ he agreed, giving her a bland smile, the glint in his eyes telling her that he was amused rather than annoyed by the coldness in her voice.
Bright patches of colour stained her high cheekbones as she happened to glance at Lucy and saw that the younger girl was enjoying seeing her bested by James Allingham. Hard on the heels of her initial anger came pain. What had happened to her and Lucy? They had once been so close. But she knew what had happened. Lucy resented her refusal to discuss her father with her.
It was infuriating that James Allingham should so easily have got the better of her and in front of Lucy too, but what was more infuriating was that he was making it clear to her that he felt he had a greater right to the Hall than she did. Her chin went up, her eyes unknowingly flashing warning signs at him. ‘Well, it’s a most interesting story, Mr Allingham,’ she conceded graciously, ‘and I can quite understand why you should want to buy the old Hall.’
‘The auction is due to begin in half an hour,’ he commented briefly, glancing at what Jenna could easily recognise as an extremely expensive gold watch. What she could see of his wrist beneath the cuff of his woollen shirt was well muscled, covered in fine dark hairs and extremely masculine. For some reason the sight of it disturbed her, setting off tiny flurries of sensation in her stomach.
‘Why don’t I give you a lift down there?’
His arrogant assumption that she would want to travel with him infuriated Jenna, her fury fuelled by the unfamiliar sensations she had just experienced. Part of her realised, or at least suspected that he was deliberately trying to get her off balance, and yet even knowing this, another part of her still reacted to what she suspected was a deliberate encouragement of her anger. No doubt her red hair had already betrayed to him her quick temper, and perhaps he hoped to push her into some sort of hasty hot-headed reaction which would unnerve her before the auction. She had come across this sort of tactical manoeuvre before and thoroughly despised it. Her upper lip curled slightly. He was everything she most detested in the male sex, she thought furiously. Arrogant, an overweening belief in himself, a masculine air of superiority that she longed to challenge, but most of all, an amused and slightly taunting manner towards herself, as though she, like Lucy, was little more than a child. He could not be more than thirty-six or so: the seven-year age-gap between them was scarcely large enough to warrant his almost paternal mockery of her. It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse him when Nancy suddenly interrupted, ‘Oh, what an excellent idea. You know you said your car wasn’t behaving very well,’ she reminded Jenna.
‘Then it’s all settled.’ The smile James Allingham gave Nancy was pure sexual coercion, Jenna told herself distastefully, refusing to admit to the strange feeling she experienced when she saw the warmth in his eyes as they rested mischievously on the older woman’s plump face.
She had already noticed that Lucy seemed ready to hang on his every word and she was not very pleased when the girl burst out impulsively, ‘Oh, Mother, surely you aren’t going to go ahead and bid for the house now? Not when you can see how much James wants it. After all, it did once belong to his family.’
Jenna had to grit her teeth together to stop herself snapping at Lucy’s mock-virtuous tone. No doubt it would suit Lucy very well indeed if she were to back out of the auction, but she had no intention of doing so. And as for the house once belonging to James’s family…Anger and pain—both were there inside her. Oh, Lucy, if only you knew, she thought wryly. But Lucy did not and how could she tell her? Her smile for James Allingham was tight and slightly bitter. ‘Yes, I can quite see that Mr Allingham has a valid claim to the house, Lucy,’ she agreed, ‘but as I’m sure he is aware one can’t allow oneself to be clouded by emotion when it comes to business matters.’
As she swept towards the door, Jenna thought she heard Lucy mutter rebelliously, ‘Or when it comes to any matters…’ but even as she stiffened and was about to turn, she heard the inner door slam as Lucy walked into the hall.
‘A very attractive young lady, your daughter,’ James Allingham remarked a few seconds later as he settled her into his car—a Mercedes saloon, she noticed absently as she fastened her seat-belt.
‘I think so.’ Her cool voice was meant to warn him not to trespass any further, but James Allingham refused to take the hint.
‘There’s just the two of you, or so she tells me,’ he persisted. That he should ignore her warning and continue with his line of questioning angered Jenna even further.
‘That’s right,’ she agreed, knowing as she did so that her voice sounded brittle, defensive almost, and that angered her even more.
‘She also tells me that she doesn’t want to come back and live in Yorkshire.’
Impossible not to miss the amused, half-victorious sidelong glance he gave her as he put the car in motion.
‘You and Lucy seemed to have had an extremely enlightening conversation,’ Jenna said tartly. ‘At least, enlightening as far as you were concerned.’
He shrugged and met her cold glance with an easy smile. ‘I bumped into her as I came out of the Hall. We got chatting.’ He shrugged again. ‘She seemed to be in need of someone to confide in. Sometimes strangers make the best listeners. I take it you do still intend to bid?’ Another sideways glance.
Jenna was infuriated. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Because of that little sob-story you’ve just told us?’ She managed an arctic, derisive smile. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Allingham, I wasn’t born yesterday, even if Lucy was.’
‘Meaning?’ His voice was as cold as her own now, and somehow slightly intimidating, making Jenna uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was alone with him in his car. Wild thoughts of his kidnapping her…holding her captive somewhere until the auction was over, flooded into her mind, only to be dismissed as more rational reasoning took over.
It gave Jenna a brief sense of satisfaction to know that she had got under his skin and broken through that air of easy confidence at last.
‘Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe you’re telling the truth,’ she told him, her own confidence restored.
‘I’m relieved to hear it.’
The sardonic inflexion beneath the words momentarily rang warning bells but Jenna ignored them.
‘Then why the antagonism?’ he questioned, throwing her off balance by the unexpectedness of his question.
‘Surely I don’t need to spell out for you the fact that you used what you learned from my daughter in an ef
fort to dissuade me from bidding for the house?’ Jenna said by way of explanation, hoping that he would not probe any further.
‘Meaning that you don’t give a damn whether your daughter wants to move up here or not?’
The injustice of his calmly delivered comment stung. That wasn’t what she had meant at all, but she was too honest to be able to refute completely what he had said. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped, ‘but I happen to believe that at fifteen Lucy is not old enough to know where she does or does not want to live. I don’t consider that London is exactly an ideal environment for an impressionable teenager.’
‘She tells me you sent her to boarding school,’ he commented, changing tack.
Dark colour flamed in Jenna’s cheeks.
What else had Lucy told this threatening stranger? And he was threatening…every instinct Jenna possessed told her so.
‘That’s right.’ Her curt, clipped voice warned him against any further intrusion, but, as before, he ignored it.
‘Do you think that’s wise, for a mother to completely abandon the upbringing of her child to others?’
For a moment Jenna was so angry that she had to clench her hands tightly against the leather of the seat to stop herself from coming out with the first biting retort that sprang to her lips.
‘I am a single parent, Mr Allingham,’ she said at last, ‘and in common with other single parents I have to earn money to support myself and my daughter. Much as I would love to spend more time with Lucy it just hasn’t been possible.’ Inwardly she was shaking with temper. How dared he? How dared he criticise her like this?
‘Oh, come on now, I don’t believe that.’
Against her will Jenna felt her glance drawn to his. His eyes were cold and watchful where her own were hot with resentment. ‘A woman with your…assets,’ he said softly ‘would never have any problem in finding a man to support her…and her child.’
His implication stunned her. There were a thousand things she could have said: that she loathed his sex and would never, ever allow herself to be dependent on a member of it, that she preferred to be independent, that——Bottling up the violent emotion clamouring for release inside her, she gritted through her teeth, ‘But I happen to prefer paying my own way through life.’
Now he smiled at her, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘A rather masculine way of looking at things, wouldn’t you say? Most women prefer to have a husband to lean on for both emotional and financial support.’
‘Yes, no doubt,’ Jenna agreed crisply, ‘and a good many of them discover later in life just how fragile that support is when their husbands leave them for someone else. Someone younger and fresher. I have no desire to marry, Mr Allingham,’ she told him in brittle tones, too carried away by her feelings to watch what she was saying, ‘even if that means that I don’t have as much time to spend with Lucy as I would wish. She’s a teenager and at the moment, as all teenagers are wont to do, she’s apt to feel herself hard done by.’
‘Umm. Lucy told me that she didn’t have a father.’
A sensation of pain lanced through Jenna. She could feel him watching her. ‘Are you widowed, divorced?’
She longed to refuse to answer his impertinent questions, but pride would not allow her to do so. ‘Neither.’
‘So…’
The way he murmured the word made Jenna suspect that he had already known what her answer would be. ‘You must have been very young when Lucy was born.’
‘Old enough.’ She wasn’t aware of how much bitterness there was in her voice, only a profound sense of relief as the Hall lodge gates came into sight.
‘And that’s why you hate my sex so much, is it?’ he pressed. ‘Because Lucy’s father deserted you. Left you to bear the burden of parenthood alone?’
As they went up the drive, all Jenna wanted was to escape from his questions and his proximity. ‘Is that what you think?’ she snapped at him. ‘It fits neatly into all the psychiatrists’ theories, doesn’t it?’
She was conscious of the glance he gave her, but because of the other cars parked ahead of him, he had to stop, and the moment he did so, Jenna unfastened her seat-belt and got out of his car without waiting to see if he was following her.
The cool morning air soothed her flushed cheeks and. her temper. It had been foolish to let him get to her so easily. She shrugged dismissively as she walked towards the house. After today, once the Hall was hers, she would never see him again. But would it be hers? The doubts she had refused to give weight to since he had first made her aware of his intentions now surfaced.
For all that it needed a good deal of money spending on it, the old Hall was not being auctioned cheaply. James Allingham would be as aware of the reserve price as she was herself. In order to buy it, he would need to be a reasonably wealthy man. Without false modesty Jenna knew that many people would consider her to be very comfortably off, but for her to buy the Hall and restore it she would need to employ her company’s assets. Hence her decision to use it as the company headquarters.
What line of business was James Allingham in, she wondered. He had mentioned that his ancestors had included a sugar planter, but with the abolition of slavery the finances of these once-wealthy men had waned. His accent was American—but only faintly so. Shrugging impatiently she cautioned herself to put him out of her mind and to concentrate instead on the coming auction. But James Allingham and the house had become strangely intertwined, and it was becoming impossible to think of one without the other. Straightening her spine, Jenna vowed mentally that she was not going to let him best her.
There was a martial glint in her eyes that Harley would have recognised—and deplored. Normally extremely cool and level-headed when it came to business matters, Jenna could occasionally be provoked into a certain rashness—the curse of her red hair and turbulent temperament, she acknowledged as she walked into the house.
CHAPTER THREE
THE auction was being held in the large Georgian drawing-room in the newer part of the house. When Jenna made her way there, she found the room less than half full, which was reassuring. The auctioneer was already in place, studying some papers in front of him, and Jenna suspected that the small group of bystanders gathered together to one side of him were probably more curious than actively interested in bidding.
Jenna had already been in contact with the firm of estate agents, who were acting as auctioneers, on several occasions in connection with the house and up until this morning she had felt that she stood every chance of securing the property at the reserve price. She saw James Allingham come into the room and saunter across it to stand almost opposite. There was no smile in his eyes now, and Jenna felt as though they were two opponents facing one another prior to joining battle. She wondered if anyone else in the room was as aware of the animosity between them as she was herself. She was in little doubt that James Allingham had sought her out so that he could gauge the competition he might have in the bidding, and she was aware of a tiny frisson of fear running over her skin as the bidding began.
Gradually as the minutes ticked by the more halfhearted bidders dropped out. Soon it was down to Jenna, James Allingham, and one other, a bluff beefy Northerner, who, Jenna heard someone next to her whisper, was a builder.
When they reached the reserve price her stomach nerves knotted in tension. The builder dropped out, and Jenna felt herself tense as she saw James Allingham coolly raise his hand.
Dare she try to outbid him? She bit her lip worrying at it, knowing down to the last thousand pounds how high she could go, and then desire overrode caution and she raised her rolled pamphlet, forcing herself not to glance across the room at James Allingham as she did so.
She was conscious of a stir of interest around her as the bystanders began to realise they were witnessing a tense duel between the dark-haired man and the redheaded woman. Caution vanished as Jenna was urged on, both by her desire for the house and her desire to triumph over James Allingham.
The price crept inex
orably upwards and Jenna’s heart sank as she realised she could not continue bidding for much longer. Already she was way, way over her self-imposed limit and Harley would be having a fit if he was here with her.
She saw James Allingham’s brief nod to the auctioneer after her own latest bid.
‘Another thousand…am I bid another thousand?’ The auctioneer looked encouragingly at her and Jenna knew she should bow out, but she couldn’t do it…not with so many speculative pairs of eyes watching…not when she wanted the Hall so desperately that she was ready to mortgage her very soul for it…not when losing meant James Allingham winning. She raised her hand, curling her fingers into her palm to prevent them from trembling. Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of someone approaching James Allingham and touching him on his shoulder.
The auctioneer was declaring her bid. Unlike her he probably could not see the smaller man standing almost behind James Allingham and whispering urgently to him.
‘For the last time…at one hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds…going.…’
Jenna saw James Allingham frown and turn towards the dais, but his companion was still talking to him. He frowned again, very deeply, his attention distracted from the auctioneer. Jenna held her breath, waiting to hear James Allingham interrupt the auctioneer with a raised bid, but suddenly for some reason all his attention was concentrated on his companion.
‘Gone! At one hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds!’
Jenna was so engrossed in watching James Allingham that she was barely aware of what the auctioneer was saying. Across the width of the room he lifted his head and looked at her, but somehow his gaze was unfocused, as though he wasn’t really seeing her…as though he wasn’t even really aware of where he was. What on earth could his companion have said to him to take his attention so completely away from the auction? Jenna knew that whatever it was she ought to be grateful to the other man but, strangely, she felt cheated, as though somehow her victory was unfairly won—by default almost.
