Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

  'Would you have stopped if you hadn't heard your mother on the stairs? Would you have ignored what I wanted?' It seemed important to her to establish that she had been the one to call a halt.

  'I stopped making love to you, Lucy, out of respect for my mother,' Jud said coolly. 'We were in her house after all, and the slow rate she's forced to climb the stairs is a fair indication of her heart condition.'

  Lucy had nothing to say to that. She took in what he was saying about his mother's heart trouble—by calling a halt to the passion that had raged between them he had saved Mrs Hemming from seeing something that would have given her a shock she could well do without—but the thing that stuck, stuck and hurt, was what he had said about his respect for his mother, underlining yet again that he had little or no respect for Lucy Carey.

  'In that case,' she said stiffly, her delicate chin held firm because suddenly she was feeling decidedly weepy, 'it's just as well I got tired of your experiment and had physically said no to you anyway.'

  It appeared Jud was in no mood to argue further with her. He neither agreed nor disagreed with her, and as Lucy stole a look at him, she could see from his remote expression that he was now feeling as fed up about the whole episode

  as she was. He wasn't going to rise again to any taunt she could make—he had given her jibe about getting tired of his experiment, scant interest, and that if anything made Lucy feel worse; she felt her remark had been cheap and unworthy of her and knew she had only made it as a face-saver.

  The rest of the way to Brook House was completed without another word being said. Lucy didn't care if she never spoke to Jud again and was sure he felt the same way about her.

  She saw Rupert's car parked in front of the house, but even the joy she should have felt at seeing it and knowing that at least Rupert wasn't out somewhere with Archie Proctor was missing.

  'Rupert's home,' she said more for something to say than anything else as she got out of the car and waited for Jud to extract her case. She wondered if she should ask Jud in and introduce him to her brother, but didn't want to. And then Jud was handing her case over to her, saying without words that he had no intention of entering Brook House.

  `Thank you for ...' she began in a stiff little voice.

  `Thank me for nothing,' Jud interrupted her harshly, and she was left staring after him as he got into the high-powered Bentley and went without a single glance at her.

  Lucy entered through the front door having half expected Rupert to have seen Jud's car and come out to greet them, but there was no sound of movement anywhere in the house. Thinking that alternatively Rupert must have seen them and had nipped into the kitchen to put the kettle on ready to greet her with a cup of tea-he had always been thoughtful in the old days—she dropped her case in the hall and went along to the kitchen, but there was no sign of him there. Strongly suspecting now that he had had a heavy night and was most likely in bed catching up on his sleep, Lucy went back along the hall and pushed open the

  sitting room door, to find Rupert sitting slumped down in a chair, his face paler than ever she had seen it.

  `Rupert!' she exclaimed, shaking off her own depression at the sight of him. 'What ever's the matter? You look dreadful—are you ill? Shall I . . . ?'

  `I'm perfectly well,' Rupert assured her, flicking her a brief look and away again, the light tones she was used to hearing from him sounding dull and dejected.

  `Well, you certainly don't look it,' Lucy said candidly, trying not to let him hear her concern for him in her voice now that her initial shock was over.

  `I've told you, Lucy, I'm perfectly well—don't fuss,' he said snappishly.

  Lucy bit down a snappy retort of her own, facing squarely that she hadn't been in the brightest of moods herself when she'd come in, but the last thing she wanted to do was to nag Rupert into feeling more unhappy than he looked.

  He was refusing to look at her, and her mind took off in all directions wondering what had gone wrong to make him look so dejected. His car had been standing on the drive, so he hadn't had an accident with it, thank God.

  `I'll go and make a cup of tea,' she said, wishing she could do something more practical to help him, but until he chose to tell her what was troubling him, she would have to bottle down the half dozen wild ideas that darted in from all corners. 'Have you had anything to eat today?' she asked when her offer of tea brought forth no response.

  `Haven't felt like anything,' Rupert said sullenly, and that in itself told her something was very wrong, for miss breakfast he frequently did, but he had always had something inside him by two o'clock even if it was only a ploughman's lunch at the pub.

  `Something is wrong, Rupe—I know it is,' Lucy insisted, determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Tor God's sake stop fussing !' Rupert flared back

  nastily, and Lucy's cheeks went ashen that the brother she loved so dearly could use such a tone to her. He relented at once when he saw her stricken face. 'I'm sorry-I didn't mean to snap. Go and make a cup of tea, there's a pal.'

  Rupert came into the kitchen while she was fixing him a bacon sandwich and waiting for the tea to brew. 'Sorry about that,' he apologised again, and seemed to be making a determined effort to cheer up. 'I do have a bit of a problem,' he confessed, .`but ...' as Lucy looked at him, her eagerness to help whatever it was evident in her face, 'but I'd rather handle it on my own-all right?'

  Looking at him Lucy thought he still looked dreadful, but at least there were signs about him now of the brother she knew and not the snarling person he had been in the sitting room. It came to her then that at twenty-five Rupert was keen to assert his manhood, came to her that it offended his male pride to have his younger sister wanting to take his problems as hers.

  `All right,' she agreed quietly, while still admitting to pangs of sisterly concern, then brightly, Now come and eat this bacon sandwich, you'll handle whatever it is better with something inside your stomach.'

  Rupert made an effort to appear normal once he was sitting at the kitchen table with his tea and sandwich before him. 'How did your weekend go?' he asked.

  Since it was obvious that he had problems enough without hearing how little Jud Hemming respected her—not that she would have told him how Jud had kissed her in any case, she was determined to forget that as quickly as she could—but with Rupert still looking pale, Lucy made out that she'd had a fabulous time.

  `And is Jud Hemming still the cold brute you thought he was?' Rupert asked.

  Colour surged through Lucy's face at her brother's question-so much for forgetting about Jud's experienced kisses, she thought, as she waited for her colour to subside

  before she answered her brother.

  `Ha, ha,' jeered Rupert with a brother's lack of inhibitions and showing signs of coming to life. `That blush tells its own tale.'

  `I ... It wasn't ...' Lucy had no idea what she wanted to say, but seeing Rupert had drawn his own conclusions and in doing so was looking remarkably more cheerful, she thought to bear his teasing if in doing so it cheered him up. `Jud Hemming isn't so bad when you get to know him,' she mumbled, and went on hurriedly to describe the beautiful views that could be seen from Malvern. Then when she thought she had talked enough about the weekend to give her brother the impression that she wasn't hating her engagement as much as she had previously given him to believe, she asked, 'Are you going out tonight?' adding quickly, thinking he might be feeling a little sensitive about any questions she asked him, `I'm not prying, only if you're staying in I shall have to see about getting a meal.'

  `I'm not going out tonight,' Rupert told her, and Lucy couldn't help but be glad that for one night at least she didn't have to wonder what he was getting up to with Archie Proctor leading the way.

  Rupert was up shortly after her the next morning. Lucy had set her mind to be cheerful even though she had slept only fitfully, her mind taken over by unwanted thoughts of Jud Hemming being thoroughly fed up with her—and thoughts of how that didn't bother he
r in the slightest—chased by worried thoughts of what it was that was worrying her brother. One look at his face told her that if she had slept only fitfully, then Rupert had slept not at all.

  It was difficult to bite down her concerned enquiry and try to remember that Rupert was set on being his own man, but she just managed it, saying lightly, `The paper's come —you can read it while I cook you some bacon and eggs.'

  Not for me, thanks.' Rupert buried his face behind the paper Lucy had dropped on the kitchen table.

  Again Lucy stifled the urge to remind him that he had only picked at the meal she had prepared for him last night, and busied herself tidying up the kitchen. At nine o'clock Rupert put down the paper and stood up, looking all set to go out.

  `Early date?' Lucy tried to joke.

  `Seeing Arbuthnot at ten.'

  That was the second time in a very short while Rupert had been to see the bank manager, and Lucy's spirits hit the floor as it came to her that one of the problems uppermost in Rupert's mind was a money problem.

  `You'll be taking your bed there next,' she said, still trying to keep a surface lightness between them. Rupert went out without even answering.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT was impossible to get Rupert off her mind as she waited for his return. His face had seemed haunted somehow when he had left the house-he hadn't purposely refrained from giving her so much as a 'Cheerio' when he had gone, of that Lucy was convinced, it was just that his mind was so full of other things he had been only half aware that she was there.

  All thoughts of Jud Hemming and the way he had no respect for her ceased to occupy her mind as she worried over her brother. She was definite in her belief that his problems were financial, she was aware he had an overdraft but had no idea how much, and she wished with all her heart that their solicitor, Mr Gittings, would release some of the inheritance Rupert was due to come into when he was thirty. Mr Gittings had been adamant when they had both gone to see him shortly after their parents' death, and though sorry about the pressing financial straits they found themselves in, he insisted there was nothing that could be done to break the will.

  `I have consulted one or two specialists in this field,' he had told them, letting them know he had done everything in his power to help them, 'but your grandfather was a very shrewd gentleman and there's not a loophole anywhere that will allow so much as one penny to be released until the legatee attains the age of thirty.'

  Lucy barely remembered her grandfather, but remembered her father referring to him as a 'wily old goat' who having made his money the hard way had told her father he wasn't going to have it frittered away by any young jackanapes who hadn't learned a thing or two. Grand-

  * * *

  father's belief that it was impossible to have learned a thing or two until one was thirty was no help to them now, Lucy thought sadly as she waited for Rupert's return.

  During his absence she set about cleaning some of the upstairs rooms. Her own room was already tidy, but the bathroom needed attention and she knew without looking that Rupert's room would look as though a hurricane had hit it, but she was glad to be busy and hoped that by keeping herself occupied she would stop herself from looking at the clock every five minutes.

  She was still upstairs when she saw Rupert's car pull on to the drive, and without waiting for him to get out of the car she dropped what she was doing and raced downstairs. Half way to the front door she stopped as it came to her if Mr Arbuthnot had not been able to give Rupert any help, then her brother was hardly likely to appreciate her bounding out to ask what had happened.

  `I'm in the kitchen,' she called, when she heard the front door open and close. 'Want some coffee?' She heard Rupert's tread coming along the hall and found her hands shaking as she placed cups and saucers on a tray. All of a sudden she was afraid to turn round—afraid to read what the expression on Rupert's face would tell her.

  Rupert's voice asking, 'Have we any Scotch?' had her whipping round, and one look at his face was enough to tell her he didn't want the Scotch as a celebratory drink, but to help him over the shock he had received.

  `We haven't any,' she began, remembering that he had finished off the remains one day last week, then unable to bear looking at his haggard young face any longer without knowing what caused him to look so beaten, she said gently, 'Do tell me what's gone wrong, Rupe.'

  Rupert dragged out a chair from beneath the table and Lucy waited in an agony of suspense while he sank heavily down on to it, then without looking at her, he said brokenly, `Gone wrong? About everything, I should say,' and went

  on to further enlighten her, telling her that on top of the seven thousand pounds he already owed the bank, he had tried every way he knew to pay off the debt, but had only succeeded in being in debt for a grand total of seventeen thousand pounds. The coffee forgotten, Lucy pulled out a chair from beneath the table and sank down on to it in much the same way as Rupert had done.

  She hoped against hope she had misheard him, but knew with dreadful certainty she hadn't, and wanted to fire questions at him in rapid succession as her mind boggled under the weight of the amount of the debt. She hadn't known it was anywhere near seven thousand, and that in itself was earth-shaking enough, but seventeen thousand .. .

  `We owe the bank seventeen thousand pounds?' she asked when she thought her voice would come out without sounding shrill and frightened, but needing to make sure she had heard right the first time.

  `Not all of it's owing to the bank—Arbuthndt is asking for the recall of the money he loaned me to clear Father's debts,' he told her miserably. 'The other ten thousand I owe to Archie Proctor.'

  Still trying to recover from the news that Rupert had kept the full extent of their father's debts from her, Lucy whispered, 'Archie Proctor?' and felt her blood turn to ice. She knew this was not the time to rant and rave at Rupert about his friendship with the man whose very name sent a shudder along her spine, but she knew with the sureness that night followed day what had happened, and couldn't help the one word that fell harshly from her lips. 'Gambling,' she said, and when Rupert didn't answer her voice grew accusing. It had been her father's predilection for that questionable sport that had got them into this mess in the first place. 'You've been gambling,' she accused.

  `Yes, I have.' There was no heat in Rupert's tones, he just sounded thoroughly crushed as he asked, 'What would you have done, Lucy? I was desperate. At one stage I owed

  Arbuthnot ten thousand and he started belly-aching for his money—I managed to reduce the loan to seven, but he was soon on at me again, saying since there was nothing going into the account something would have to be done. He cheered up when I told him you were engaged to Jud Hemming.' Lucy closed her eyes at that, then opened them to force herself to think only of the point at issue. They would get nowhere if she stopped to consider how Jud Hemming would feel at being used to stave off their creditor.

  `But now he's dunning you for the money?' she asked. She would get round to Archie Proctor in a minute, for the present she was trying to take in everything in logical sequence. She had been engaged to Jud for less than a week; she would have thought since Rupert had said the bank manager had cheered up on being acquainted with that news, his good cheer would have lasted longer than a week. 'What happened to make Mr Arbuthnot so eager for his money suddenly?'

  What Rupert had to tell her did nothing to ease the panic growing within her. Apparently Rupert in company with Archie Proctor had gone to Tambridge, the other side of Dinton, where Rupert had been seen losing heavily at one of the clubs there, by none other than Charles Arbuthnot's son Justin. What Justin Arbuthnot had been doing in such a place was not clear, because according to Rupert, it was well known locally that Justin was more pious than pi. Rupert had started out on a winning streak and had thought to make enough to clear the bank and have some over, but his luck had turned and he had finally come to his senses to realise he wasn't going to win and that not only had he lost the money he
had won at the races that day, but since Archie Proctor had been urging him on, lending him more and more money to play with-he had reeled away from the tables in a daze and had bumped smack into Justin, who had been merely watching. When Justin had sat down with him, Rupert, still in a state of shock as it began to sink in

  that he owed Archie Proctor ten thousand pounds, had been too shaken to keep the information to himself and had revealed to Justin exactly how much he owed Archie.

  `So you think Justin told his father?' Lucy asked, having some idea how Rupert must have felt because she was feeling decidedly shaken herself.

  `Of course he did,' Rupert said sharply, beginning to show signs of irritation at his sister's question. 'I'll bet the little sneak couldn't wait to get home to tell his father.' Lucy didn't see it quite like that. It would have been the natural thing to do, she thought, seeing that Justin's father must have stuck his neck out to lend Rupert money in the first place, but she thought better than to say so, as Rupert was saying aggressively, 'Old Arbuthnot was on the phone to me before he could have had his breakfast on Sunday morning saying he wanted to see me.'

  `And he told you today he won't wait for his money any longer?' Lucy asked, not seeing how Mr Arbuthnot could say anything else since he was aware that her brother had blown ten thousand at the gaming tables in one night. She desperately wanted to cry but held back the tears. Rupert was feeling sick enough as it was, he would clam right up if she allowed her tears to fall, and if there was a way out of this mess—and heaven knew she couldn't think of one-it would need her and Rupert to work it out together.

  'He wants his money without delay,' Rupert confirmed, `as does my friend Archie. God, you were right about him, Lucy.' Lucy kept quiet-it was far too late for 'I told you so', even if she could be that cruel. 'I'd hardly put the phone down after Arbuthnot's call when Archie Proctor rang asking—no, demanding,' Rupert amended, 'he rang demanding his money. Oh hell, I wish I were dead!'