A Paper Marriage

by Jessica Steele

  Having thought she had her head more together, Lydie wasn't with him for a moment or two. `Um...' she mumbled, then realised what he was asking. 'I'm not married,' she answered, and, with a quick glance to his ringless left hand, `It doesn't look as if anybody's caught you either.'

  His rather splendid mouth quirked upwards at the corners slightly. `I have very long legs,' he confided.

  `You sprint pretty fast at the word marriage?'

  He did not answer. He didn't need to. `So, how's the world treating you?' he asked.

  Lydie looked away from his fantastic blue eyes and over to his laden desk. He had not been expecting this visit and from the look of his desk was extremely busy catching up on a backlog of work. Yet he seemed to have all the time in the world to idly converse with someone he barely knew, someone he had only ever clapped eyes on once-and that was seven years ago.

  'Er-this isn't a social call,' Lydie stated abruptly.

  `It isn't?' he questioned mildly-when she was sure he must know that it wasn't.

  She experienced an unexpected urge to thump him that surprised her. She swallowed down that small burst of anger, but only when she felt marginally calmer was she able to coldly state, `My father seems not to have fared as well, financially, over the last seven years as you yourself appear to have done.'

  Jonah nodded, every bit as if he already knew that-and that annoyed her-before he coolly commented, `That's what comes from constantly bailing out that brother of yours.'

  How dared he blame Oliver? `Oliver no longer has his own business!'

  `That should make things easier for your father,' Jonah Marriott shot back at her, cool still.

  Honestly! Again she wanted to hit him. `My father's own business has gone too!' she retorted pithily, and saw that at last Jonah Marriott was taking her seriously.

  `I'm very sorry to hear that. Wilmot is a firstclass-'

  `So you should be sorry!' she interrupted hotly. `If you'd had the decency to honour that debt...'

  `Honour that debt?' Jonah queried toughly, just as if he had not the first clue what she was talking about.

  `You're trying to say that you have totally forgotten coming to my home seven years ago and borrowing fifty thousand pounds from my father?"

  'I'm hardly likely to do that. If it wasn't for your father-'

  `Then it's about time you paid that loan back!' she interrupted his flow hotly. And, suddenly too het-up to sit still, she jumped to her feet-to find Jonah Marriott was on his feet too, and was standing looking down on her. She saw him swiftly masking a look of surprise-at her nerve, no doubt. But she cared not if he thought she had an outrageous sauce to burst in on his busy morning without so much as a by your leave and demand the return of her father's money. Her father's peace of mind was at stake here. `If my father doesn't have that fifty thousand pounds by the end of today's banking,' she hurtled on, `we, that is my mother and father, will lose Beamhurst Court!'

  'Lose...'

  But Lydie was too angry to let him in. 'Beamhurst Court has been in my family for hundreds of years and my father has until only today to see that it stays in the family!' she charged on.

  `You're exaggerating, surely?' Jonah Marriott managed to get in evenly, his eyes on her angry face, her sparking green eyes.

  `I love Beamhurst! Does it look as if I'm exaggerating?' she erupted. But calmed down a little to concur, `It's true my father invested heavily in Oliver's company, but my father didn't know his own firm was going to suffer a downturn.'

  `So he borrowed as much as he could from the banks, putting Beamhurst Court up as collateral,' Jonah took up. `And when your brother's firm went belly-up, and your father settled his son's creditors, there was nothing left in the kitty to settle his own debts.'

  `You know this?' she asked, starting to feel her anger on the rise again that he should be aware of the situation and still refuse to repay her father.

  `I didn't,' Jonah replied, defusing her anger somewhat. `From what you've said, that seems the most likely way it went.' And disconcertingly he asked, And what's your brother doing in all of this?'

  Lydie did not care for his question. It weakened her argument. Her father was distraught-while Oliver did nothing. 'He... I haven't seen Oliver. I only came home on Tuesday,' she excused, and defended her elder brother. `Oliver's getting married a week tomorrow. There's a lot to arrange. He's staying with his fiancee's people to help with any last-minute problems they...' Her voice trailed away.

  `Let's hope he makes a better job of it than he made of his business,' Jonah commented, but, before she could take exception, `Big do, is it?'

  Lydie could have done without that remark too. In the instance of her family being on their uppers-and she was coming to realise more and more that her father constantly financing her brother's business was largely responsible for that-it did seem a bit over the top to have such a pomp of a wedding.

  `The bride's parents are paying for everything,' she felt obligated to admit, her pride taking something of a hammering here. `Look, we're getting away from the point!' she said snappily. `You owe my father money. Money he needs, now, if he is to remain in the only home he has ever known, the home he loves.'

  `Fifty thousand pounds will assure that?' Jonah asked, doubting it.

  `My father has sold everything he can possibly sell in order to meet his debts. All that remains is an overdraft of fifty thousand pounds at the bank that he knows, and they know, he cannot find-nor has any likelihood of finding. They have given him until today to try to find that money anyway. He cannot,' she ended, and her voice started to fracture. `A-and he looks t-terrible.'

  Abruptly she turned away from Jonah, knowing that her emotions as she thought of her dear distracted father had brought her close to tears. She went to stare unseeing out of the window and swallowed hard as she fought for control. Her pride would never survive if she broke down in front of this hard man.

  When she felt she had control she turned towards the door, knowing instinctively that she had pleaded her father's cause in vain. It had been a long shot anyway, she realised. Had Jonah Marriott the smallest intention of repaying that money, he would have done so long before this.

  She took a step to the door-but was halted when Jonah, having not moved from where she had left him, stated, `Obviously your father doesn't know you've come here.'

  Lydie turned. `He's a proud man,' she replied with a tilt of her head.

  `His daughter's pretty much the same,' Jonah said quietly, his eyes on her proud beauty.

  She wished she could agree. Albeit she had not come to the Marriott building for herself, she had not been too proud to come here today-even if that money was still owing. `Should you ever bump into my father, I'd be obliged if you did not tell him I came here,' she requested coldly.

  For answer Jonah Marriott went round to his desk. `I won't-but I think he'll know,' he drawled, to her alarm. And, even while she was instantly ready to go for Jonah Marriott's jugular, he was opening a drawer in his desk, taking out a chequebook, and asking, `Who do you want the cheque made out to, Lydie?"

  'Y-you'll pay?' she asked, shaken rigid, but in no mind to refuse-no matter how little he offered. He did not answer but picked up his pen. She went over to stand at the other side of his desk. `My father. Would you make it out to my father, please?' she said quickly, before he could change his mind.

  It was done. In next to no time the cheque was written and Jonah was handing it to her across the desk. Hardly daring to breathe, lest this be some sort of evil game he was playing, Lydie inspected the cheque. It was made out to Wilmot Pearson. The date was right. The cheque was signed. But the amount was wrong. Jonah had made it out for fifty-five thousand pounds!

  'Fifty-five thousand... ?"

  'The bank will be adding interest-daily, I don't doubt. Call it interest on the debt.'

  He meant his debt, of course. Feeling stunned, then beginning to feel little short of elated, Lydie looked up and across at him. She was about to thank
him when she looked at the cheque again and noticed that it was not a company cheque, as she would have thought, but a personal chequeand a large chunk of her elation fell away. Anybody could write a personal cheque for fiftyfive thousand pounds, but that did not necessarily mean there was any money in that bank account. Was this some kind of sick joke Jonah Marriott was playing, to pay her back for her impertinence in daring to walk unannounced into his office and demand he paid what he owed?

  `There's money in this account to meet this amount?' she questioned.

  `Not yet,' he admitted. Though, before her last ray of hope should disappear, `But there will be...' he paused '...by the time you get to your father's bank.'

  `You're-sure?' she asked hesitantly.

  Jonah Marriott eyed her steadily. `Trust me, Lydie,' he said quietly-and, strangely, she did.

  `Thank you,' she said, and held out her right hand.

  `Goodbye,' he said, and, with that wonderful smile she had remembered all these years, `Let's hope it's not another seven years before we meet again.'

  She smiled too, and could still feel the warm firm pressure of his right hand on hers as she waltzed out of the Marriott building and into the street. She remembered his blue eyes and...

  She pushed him from her mind and concentrated on what to do first. She had half a notion to ring her mother and tell her the outcome of her visit to Jonah Marriott. Lydie then thought of the cheque that was burning a hole in her bag. She had been going to take it straight to her father, to tell him everything was all right now. To tell him that Jonah Marriott had paid in full, with interest, the money he had owed him for so long. But, with Jonah saying that the funds would be there by the time she got to her father's bank-presumably all that was needed was for Jonah to pick up a phone and give his instructions-would it not be far better for her to bank the money now and tell her father afterwards?

  Lydie decided there and then-thanking Jonah for the suggestion-that she would bank the money before she went home. Yes, that was much the better idea. As things stood she had plenty of time to get home, hand the cheque over to her father and for him to take the cheque personally to his bank. But who knew what traffic hold-ups there might be on the road. Much better-thank you, Jonah-to bank the cheque first and then go home.

  Having found a branch of the bank which her father used, it was a small matter to have her father's account located, the money paid in, and to receive the bank's receipt in return.

  Oh, Jonah. Her head said she should be cross with him for his tardiness in paying what was owed. But she couldn't be cross. In fact, on that drive back to Beamhurst Court, she was hard put to it not to smile the whole time.

  The house was secure and, although with not so much land as they had once owned, it was still in the hands of the Pearsons. While her father was unlikely to start in business on his own account again, he no longer, as Jonah had put it, needed to bail her brother out ever again either. Her mother had hinted that her father had been looking into the possibility of some consultancy work.

  Surely all his years of expertise were not to be wasted.

  Optimistically certain that everything would be all right from now on, Lydie drew up outside the home she so loved and almost danced inside as she went looking for her parents. Had today turned out well or hadn't it? She understood now why, when she'd asked Jonah not to tell her father she had been to see him, Jonah had replied, `I won't-but I think he'll know.' Of course her father would know. The minute she told her proud father that his overdraft was cleared he would want to know where the money had come from. Jonah would not have to tell her father-she would. She could hardly wait to see his joy.

  `Here you both are!' she said on opening the drawing room door and seeing her parents thereher father looking a shadow of his former self.

  Her mother gave her a quick expectant look, but it was her father who asked, `How was your great-aunt Alice?T

  'Actually, Dad, I lied,' Lydie confessed. `I haven't been to see Aunt Alice.'

  He gave her a severe look. `For someone who has lied to her father you're looking tremendously pleased with yourself,' he remarked. `I trust it was a lie for the good of mankind?'

  `Not exactly,' she replied, and quickly opening her bag she took out the receipt for the money she had paid into his bank account. `I went to see Jonah Marriott.'

  `You went-to see Jonah Marriott?' he asked in surprise. He took the folded receipt she held out, opened it out, read the very little that was written there, but which meant so much, andhis face darkened ominously. `What is this?' he demanded, as though unable to believe that an amount of fifty-five thousand pounds had been paid into his account.

  `Your overdraft is cleared, Dad.' She explained that which he seemed to have difficulty in taking in.

  `Cleared!' he echoed, it passing him by completely just then that she knew about his financial problems, and his tone of voice such that, had she not known better, Lydie would have thought it was the calm before the storm.

  `I went to see Jonah Marriott, as I said. He gave me a cheque for the money he owed you. I paid it into your bank on my-' She didn't get to finish.

  `You did what?' her father roared, and Lydie stared at him in astonishment. Her mild-mannered father never roared!

  `You n-needed the money,' she mumbled anxiously-this wasn't at all how she had imagined it. `Jonah Marriott owed you fifty thousand pounds-I went and asked him for it. He added five...'

  `You went and asked him for fifty thousand pounds?' her father shouted. `Have you no pride?"

  'He owed it to you. He...'

  `He did not,' her father cut her off furiously.

  `He-didn't?' Lydie gasped, looking over to her mother, who had told her that he did, but who was now more interested in looking at the curtains than in meeting her eyes.

  `He does not owe me anything!' her father bellowed. `Not a penny!' Lydie flinched as she turned her head to stare uncomprehendingly at the man who, prior to that moment, had never raised his voice to her in his life. `Oh, what have you done, Lydie?' he asked, suddenly defeated, and she felt then that she would rather he shouted at her than that he should sound so utterly beaten. `Any money Jonah Marriott borrowed from me was paid back, with good interest, more than three years ago.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  `HE PAID you back!' Lydie gasped. And, reeling from what her father had just revealed, `But Mother said-' Lydie broke off, her stricken gaze going from her mortified father to her mother.

  This time her mother did meet her eyes, defiantly. But it was Wilmot Pearson who found his voice first, and, transferring his look to his wife, `What did you tell her?' he demanded angrily.

  `Somebody had to do something!' she returned hostilely, entirely unrepentant.

  `But you knew Jonah Marriott had repaid that loan-repaid it ahead of time. I told you. I clearly remember telling-'

  `Mother! You knew?' Lydie chipped in, horrified. `You knew all the time that that money had been repaid-yet you let me go and ask Jonah for money!' Oh, how she had asked him. No, Please will you lend us some money? but `This isn't a social call' she had told him shortly, and had gone from there to suggest he didn't have any decency and that it was about time he paid that loan back-when all the time he already had. And she had thought he looked a bit surprised! No wonder! `Mother, how could you?'

  Her mother did not care to be taken to task, and was at her arrogant worst when she retorted,

  `Far better to owe Jonah Marriott money than the bank. At least this way we get to keep the house.'

  `Don't be so sure about that!' Wilmot Pearson chipped in heavily-and uproar broke out between her parents for several minutes; he determined he would sell the house to pay Jonah Marriott and her mother said her father would be living elsewhere on his own if he did, and that Beamhurst was to be preserved to be passed down to Oliver. It was painful to Lydie to hear them, but when her mother, retorting that at least they wouldn't be opening the doors to the bailiffs come Monday morning, seemed to be getting the better
of the argument, her father turned and vented his frustration out on his daughter.

  'He-Jonah-he gave you a cheque, just like that, did he? You told him you wanted that "loan" I made him back-and he paid up without a murmur?"

  'He-um-said he had never forgotten how you helped him out that time. He was grateful to you, I think,' Lydie answered, starting to wish that her mother had never phoned her last Tuesday.

  `So he gave you fifty-five thousand pounds out of gratitude and without a word that he had already settled that debt? How the devil do you suppose I'm going to pay him back?' her father exploded, and in high temper, `Why ever didn't you bring that cheque home to me first?' he demanded. `Why in the world did you bank it without first consulting me?'