Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

  Hostile Engagement - Jessica steele

  The beautiful antique ring was all Lucy had left to remind her of her beloved mother, and she was horrified when she discovered that it had come —albeit legitimately — into the possession of the imperious Jud Hemmings. But there was a way in which she could get it back, he told her: if she pretended to be engaged to him, to discourage the unwanted affection of his old friend Carol Stanfield. Reluctantly, because she liked Carol, Lucy was forced to agree — and then found her feelings for Jud developing into love. But he was no more anxious to return her feelings than he had been with Carol ...

  printed in Great Britain

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this con dition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published 1979

  Australian copyright 1979

  Philippine copyright 1982

  This edition 1982

  © Jessica Steele 1979

  ISBN 0263 73983 0

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lucy looked away, keeping her features impassive. She had seen the look that man had sent her way many times before. To give him his due his glance hadn't been as obvious as some of the 'You and I could make sweet music together' looks she had previously received, but it had been there, she was sure of it.

  She had learned how to deal with such glances, had learned not to give encouragement when she had no intention of playing the game through to its ultimate end. She had been avoiding such glances ever since the promise of beauty had broken through before she had left her teens behind. But there was something about the man, she had no idea what; he didn't look very different from anyone else in the room, but something about him had her by now veiled eyes returning to him.

  He wasn't looking at her—and that surprised her slightly because having expected him to seize on the opportunity to catch her eye and move on to the next surface gambit of the smile, the edging over to where she was to introduce himself, she saw that he was in conversation with an elegantly turned out older woman, a blonde girl about her own age, and Joyce Appleby, the only person in the group she knew. Lucy turned her attention away from him and listened to what Philippa Browne at the side of her was saying.

  `Is your brother here?' Pippa asked. 'When I spotted you I thought Rupert might be here too.'

  They were at a 'Strawberries and Champagne Morning', another of Joyce Appleby's mad ideas for raising money for charity. It was being held in the village hall and Lucy had

  thought the time of the venue as much as the pricey tickets would have kept a lot of people away, but the room was crowded, so perhaps to hold it on a Bank Holiday Monday hadn't been such a mad idea—and on second thoughts, Lucy reconsidered, money would be no object to any of the people here anyway.

  `Rupert couldn't make it,' Lucy told the mousy-haired girl by her side.

  `Out with that Sandra Weaver, I expect,' said Pippa, looking downcast for a moment. I wish he was out with Sandra, Lucy thought; she would far rather he was out with the gay divorcee Sandra than the company he was mixed up with at the moment. 'Oh, there's Justin Arbuthnot with his parents,' said Pippa, her spirits brightening. For all she was the same age as herself Lucy thought Pippa a little immature at times, here whole thinking seeming to revolve around men. Will you excuse me, Lucy? I'll just go and have a word ...'

  Left by herself, Lucy took a small sip from the champagne glass in her hand. It was her first glass and she didn't intend having another; she was only here anyway because Rupert had insisted they must keep up appearances. She dragged her mind away from that thought and looked round the room. There were plenty of people she could have gone to join, but she wasn't interested in idle chitchat. Having put in the appearance Rupert was so keen on she'd just finish her drink and go home.

  She felt her eyes drawn to the man whose glance she had caught earlier and though hating not being able to resist let her gaze rove casually round the room till they rested on the group he was with. Joyce Appleby was still with them and Lucy wondered, since Joyce was well known for extending her love of humanity further than required, if she had him lined up for her next paramour. She reckoned Joyce would have her work cut out, for though he seemed to be listening with interest to what Joyce was saying, Lucy

  thought she detected a sign of polite tolerance on his face that otherwise looked particularly expressionless.

  Not once did he glance over to where Lucy was standing, but she was convinced she had read that first look correctly—that he hadn't looked at her again meant only that his approach was different. Since he seemed now to be captivated by what Joyce was saying, Lucy felt free to give him close scrutiny. He was taller than average, but it wasn't that that made him stand out from everyone else in the room, for stand out he did. She tried to pinpoint what it was about him that had eyes other than her own on him, but she couldn't pin it down. She hadn't seen him before—perhaps he was visiting someone in the area; she paused to wonder if he was already Joyce Appleby's lover, though she couldn't quite see him in that role. He looked the sort of man who would want more from a relationship than the surface prattle Joyce could churn out unceasingly from dawn to dusk ...

  Damn, she swore silently as the subject of her thoughts raised his eyes from the women around him and caught her looking at him. Hurriedly she dropped her eyes, but not before she had seen his glance pass over her without halting—without seeming to be aware that she was in the room, causing her to wonder for the first time if she had imagined that look after all. She had been so sure ...

  `Hello, Lucy—haven't seen you in an age.'

  Lucy turned to find Donald Bridges at her elbow, and although she'd had cause at one time to give Donald short shrift she was suddenly glad to have someone to talk to. If the man who had just looked through her as though she didn't exist flicked his glance her way once more he would know she wasn't invisible to everybody.

  `Nice to see you, Donald,' she replied with more warmth than had been in her voice the last time she had seen him.

  Donald's long-toothed smile was much in evidence as he beamed at the 'no hard feelings' note in her voice. 'Sorry

  I got carried away the last time you came out with me, Lucy,' he apologised, the suggestion of a smile on her face giving him the courage to bring the matter out into the open. 'You're so beautiful !. rather lost my head ...'

  `Let's forget it, shall we?' Lucy said quickly. She knew she was letting him off lightly—he had been a veritable octopus when he'd taken her home from dinner that night, seeming to have at least four pairs of hands all going in different directions, and if there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was being pawed about by over-amorous young men.

  Donald seemed as pleased as she was to let the subject drop. Sad to hear about your parents,' he said, his smile disappearing making his face solemn. 'I wanted to write to you after the accident, but I thought after the way we parted that night you wouldn't want the unpleasant reminder of me while gri
eving for your mother and father.'

  Lucy's face was as solemn as his as she recalled the dreadful shock she and her brother had received when they had learned that their adored parents had been drowned 'in a sailing accident. She and Rupert had received other shocks since then, but nothing that had followed had been as great for her as that of knowing she would never see her beloved parents again.

  `I didn't expect to see you here today,' Donald was going on. Half of her mind registered what he was saying and she made the correct rejoinder, she thought, but the other half of her mind was taking a line of its own as it progressed from Donald's innocent statement that he hadn't expected to see her at the charity function.

  She hadn't wanted to come, had only given in to Rupert's persuasions because he was going through such a very bad time. She had got ready knowing she was going to hate every minute of it, had dressed in her silk jump suit, donning with it her own share of pride that decreed she would attend and show the people they had always considered

  their friends, but who Rupert had said probably wouldn't want to know them once the news was out that the Careys were penniless that the Careys were still as good as any of them. Perhaps penniless was a bit of an exaggeration, she thought, since Rupert had an allowance doled out to him quarterly under Grandfather's will—though his allowance would barely keep them ticking over. Rupert didn't come into the whole of his inheritance from Grandfather until he was thirty and he had another five years to go before he reached that age—how they were going to manage until that time was anybody's guess. Already they had parted· with several good pieces of furniture, having found a mountain of unpaid bills and no money to settle them when their parents had died. There was little else to sell that wouldn't make it obvious to anyone who called at Brook House that it was not so well furnished as it had once been. Brook House was much larger than they needed, she mused, but Rupert refused to sell the house and move into something smaller. She couldn't blame him really, she supposed; the house meant the same to him as the antique ring that had been her mother's had meant to her—Lucy forced down the tears that rushed to her eyes as she recalled the day Rupert had told her he had lost it. He knew how much she valued it and it had been weeks before he had confessed that, he had lost it when taking it to the jewellers to have it polished and cleaned.

  Hiding the sorrow of her thoughts, Lucy realised Donald had been talking to her for some minutes and she hadn't heard a word he said; ,he must have been unaware she wasn't listening, but now apparently he had said something that required an answer.

  `I'm sorry,' she apologised, 'with all this racket going on I missed what you were saying.' She accompanied her words with a smile just in case he saw through her lie.

  `I know you'll think I've got a bit of a cheek, but I was asking if you would come out with me some time?'

  Lucy looked at him and decided that with or without the change in their fortunes she wouldn't have accepted his offer anyway, for all he would know better than to come over all amorous another time—but if what Rupert said was true, that she and her brother would soon be out of this set, then for pride's sake she was glad to be in the position to turn down an invitation rather than wait for invitations to stop altogether. Coming here this morning had been a final farewell in a way to all the people she had known for so long, though none of them here would know it.

  She could have left Donald's offer hanging in the air, all she had to do was say 'Give me a ring some time', but she didn't 'I don't think so, Donald,' she said, and watched the expectant smile disappear from his face and almost weakened as she felt an unexpected sadness at that moment Then knowing it was the way it had to be, she smiled gently, regretfully, 'Would you excuse me Donald, I told Rupert I wouldn't be too long.'

  She hadn't told Rupert anything of the sort, she mused as she left Donald and went into the short hall and from there into the small cloakroom. For all it was late May it was cold outside and she had slipped a jacket over her shoulders before she left Brook House. Almost everybody there must have been feeling the cold too, she thought as she saw coats, wraps and scarves covering every available surface, the half dozen or so hooks on the coat rack overburdened until it was impossible to hang anything else there. Lucy had just spotted part of her white bouclé wool jacket beneath a pile of others, when the blonde girl she had seen in the group with the man whose look she had mistaken came in.

  `Just off ?' the blonde asked, seeing Lucy endeavouring to extract the white boucle without dropping the ones on top on to the floor. Not a bad do, was it?'

  `Not bad,' Lucy agreed, liking the girl's open friendliness for all they hadn't got around to being introduced.

  The blonde rectified that omission with the same ease she had struck up the conversation. `I'm Carol Stanfield, by the way—I came with Jud and his mother.' She took it for granted Lucy knew who Jud and his mother were.

  As she was about to introduce herself, the top coat of the pile Lucy was wrestling with began to slip, taking her mind off telling the other girl her name as she grabbed at the coat before it hit the ground. So the man who had looked through her was called Jud, she thought as she replaced the coats, deciding to tug at the flash of white and hope for the best. She doubted she would ever find out his surname—she had never seen him in Priors Channing before, so he must, she concluded, be visiting someone in the district. Quite what made her ask the question she didn't know, because she just wasn't interested in where the man lived, but as the girl who had introduced herself as Carol Stanfield saw the wrap she had come in for on the top of a pile near the door, the words left Lucy's lips before she could stop them.

  `You don't come from around here, do you?'

  `Lord no ! I live in London—you never know, though ...' she smiled a friendly smile. `I'm staying with Jud up at the Hall,' she said, and held up crossed fingers. 'Here's hoping,' she added impishly, and not noticing Lucy was staring at the hand, fingers now uncrossed, Carol Stanfield placed the wrap over her arm and turned to go. 'See you around, I expect,' she said, and was through the door before Lucy answered her.

  All Carol Stanfield's talk and what exactly it was she was hoping for passed Lucy by. She was too stunned to do little more than realise she was now in the cloakroom by herself. That was my mother's ring, she thought, stupefied, when at last her brain began to function again. Carol Stanfield had been wearing the antique ring Rupert had lost that day he had been taking it to the jewellers in Dinton.

  Galvanised into action, Lucy went to hurry after the

  other girl, her jacket forgotten, it was of prime importance to stop her before she left. But before Lucy could reach the door the pile of coats from which Carol Stanfield had taken her wrap slipped, and Lucy was ankle-deep in outer garments of all colours. Unable to open the door, she had to first pick up the jumbled heap of furs and fabrics. It didn't take very long and with an unspoken apology to their owners she plonked the bundled assortment on the small table all anyhow and dashed through the door.

  She reached the open front door in time to see a smooth-looking Bentley pulling away with the blonde head of Carol Stanfield sitting in the back. Wild visions of sprinting to her Mini and chasing after the Bentley sprang to Lucy's mind, only to be halted by Joyce Appleby's tinny tones.

  `Ah, Lucy, just off, are you? So pleased to see you—you didn't bring Rupert with you? He's a naughty boy—but tell him we'll forgive him.'

  Lucy had forgotten Joyce was on the organising committee. She was just the right person to do the job, she thought, but she was more anxious to get away than to stand listening to Joyce—she knew of more than one person who had given a donation to one of Joyce's charities purely in order to be rid of her.

  At last Lucy made her escape and went to retrieve her jacket and put the bundle she had tossed so unceremoniously down by the door into some sort of order. It was too much to hope that the Bentley would still be around and, her mind busy, Lucy got into her Mini and followed the route the genteel Bentley had taken down the ro
ad.

  Carol Stanfield had said she was staying up at the Hall with Jud. The only Hall Lucy knew of in the district' was Rockford Hall. It had been up for sale for ages, as had the estate and farms that went with it. No one knew the exact asking price, but common sense said it must go into seven figures. The man Carol had called Jud must be rolling if he had bought it, Lucy considered, and surely anyone con-

  nected with him wouldn't have come by her ring by any underhand means.

  Undecided whether to make straight for the Hall or go home with the hope that Rupert would be there—he had gone a bit wild just lately, understandable really, she excused him with sisterly blindness—Rupert would know what best to do. Something, she didn't know what, stopped her from turning the Mini on to the road that would take her to the Hall when normally there would have been no decision to make. At any other time there would have been no arguments. She would have sailed straight up to the door of Rockford Hall and demanded to see the wearer of her ring.

  She didn't want to see the owner of the Hall, though. A feeling of unease spread through her at the very thought of seeing him and stating baldly that his guest was wearing her most treasured possession. She had a feeling he wouldn't like it—not that she was frightened of him, he might well be very understanding about it, though she wasn't very convinced about that.

  Trying hard to remember on which hand the girl had worn the ring, Lucy turned the Mini in the direction of her home, Brook House. Had Carol Stanfield been wearing the ring on her engagement finger? Perhaps she was this Jud person's fiancée-that made it even blacker, for if Carol was engaged to him, and good luck to her if she was, she would need all the luck she could get if first impressions were anything to go by—then wasn't it likely that if the girl had grown attached to the ring she would be most unlikely to want to give it up? Try as she might Lucy could not remember on which hand or even which finger the girl had worn her mother's ring. All she knew was that it was the same ring and she wanted it back at all costs. What was more, she was going to have it back—regardless of whatever Jud whoever he was had to say.