Hostile engagement

by Jessica Steele

  `Rupert!' Lucy was out of her chair without being aware that she had moved and gone to put her arms around him. `Don't say that, love—don't say that.'

  `Sorry,' Rupert came round out of his self-pity aware

  that his sister had her arms around him. 'I didn't mean it—I'm much too curious about life to want to be out of it. Be a love and make me some coffee.'

  He stood up to go out when their coffee was finished, and Lucy was relieved when he said he wasn't taking the car. She wouldn't have any peace until he came back had he intended taking his car, knowing his mind wouldn't be on his driving and anything could happen. 'Going for a walk,' he told her as he left. 'I've got some thinking to do.'

  Lucy had some thinking of her own to do when he had gone. It was no good thinking 'poor Rupert' over and over again, that wasn't in any way constructive to getting them out of this mess, but where they were going to find seventeen thousand pounds from she couldn't begin to think. She was partly to blame, she could see that now; she should have enquired more closely into their finances. She had known things weren't too rosy and she had been a drain on Rupert too for all her appetite was small and looking after the big house had been a full-time job, but she resolved, regardless of what Rupert said, that as soon as she had had a talk with him she was going to see about getting herself some paid employment.

  Rupert had been gone about an hour when the answer to their money problems came to her. Her brother had refused to sell Brook House before and move into something smaller, but he must see now that it was the only way out. Would Rupert agree though? Lucy tried to think of another way, but there was no other way. No, if Rupert would agree to sell Brook House, and she didn't minimise the wrench that would be for him to sell it, but if she could get him to agree then they should have enough money after repaying the seventeen thousand to buy a smaller house, and if they both found jobs all their worries would be over.

  Feeling in a much lighter frame of mind and ready to answer every one of the `against' Rupert would have to combat her plan, she kept herself busy while looking out of

  the window every now and then for a sight of her brother returning.

  Rupert, she saw when he at last arrived home, seemed much better for his walk, and she wondered if he too had come up with the same answer as she had. But when she outlined her thoughts, Rupert it appeared had not been thinking along those lines at all, and refused point blank to even discuss the possibility of selling Brook House.

  `I know how much you love the house,' Lucy pleaded when she saw all her entreaties for him to sell were being tossed aside, 'but we have to get the money from somewhere and unless you can come up with a better idea we shall be pitched out into the street anyway.'

  `Ah, but I do have a better idea.'

  Lucy looked across at him, eager to know what he had come up with that she had missed. Then her eagerness fled as the one idea she dreaded flitted through her mind. `You're not going to try gambling again? Oh, Rupert, please ...'

  `I've finished with gambling,' Rupert told her stonily, letting her know he had learned his lesson the hard way. Then warmly he went on to tell her his idea, and Lucy listened speechless, her eyes growing wide, until he came to the end of what he obviously thought was a brilliant idea, and looked across at her to see what she thought.

  When she found her voice she left him in no doubt what she thought about his brainwave. 'No,' she said bluntly, and in case that hadn't sunk in. 'Quite definitely no, Rupert -I don't know how you could suggest such a thing ! To expect me to go to the Hall and calmly ask Jud Hemming for seventeen thousand pounds—no, Rupert,' she finished firmly, 'I will not do it.'

  Rupert seemed entirely insensitive to what he was asking her to do; she could see he saw nothing wrong in what he proposed, and he argued his point for a good five minutes till in the end she felt almpst like screaming at him.

  `No, no, no, Rupert,' she said again. 'It's out of the question. Jud Hemming and I aren't that close, for one thing.' She knew from her brother's disbelieving expression that he was remembering the way she had blushed yesterday. `And for another he already has a bee in his bonnet about gold-digging females—I have no wish to be placed in the same bracket.' She had thought that after Rupert's bombshell this morning she no longer had any pride about people locally knowing their circumstances, but she had been secretly hoping they could pack up and leave Brook House without Jud knowing either—she had thought it would take the rest of her engagement period for everything to be completed. 'Besides which,' she added on, looking away from her brother, 'besides which, I don't want Jud Hemming to know how desperately hard up we are.

  `He knows already,' Rupert scoffed.

  `He doesn't,' Lucy contradicted. 'He knows we no longer employ staff, but he's not aware how bad the situation is ...'

  `He's nobody's fool, though, is he?' Rupert inserted sulkily. 'When I saw him ...' He stopped as if he was aware he had made a slip, the look on his face guilty, Lucy thought.

  `You saw him?' she asked quietly, then suspicion sped in, though she wasn't sure what she had to be suspicious about. 'You've met him, haven't you?' she asked, and was certain as she said it that he had.

  `I didn't mean you to know,' Rupert answered, refusing to meet her eyes, and a feeling of foreboding took hold of Lucy as his statement sank in that somehow, somewhere, the two had met, but for some reason Rupert hadn't wanted her to know about it. She couldn't understand why Rupert, or Jud for that matter, should keep quiet about knowing each other, could think of no reason why she should be kept in the dark about it.

  `Why the secrecy?' She was trying hard to keep calm,

  but was experiencing a feeling that told her she hadn't heard everything Rupert had been up to yet. 'Why, Rupert?' she repeated, and Rupert looking at her saw a look of determination about her that had him seeing her as an adult woman for the first time, a woman with a right to be consulted on any matter that concerned her. 'I insist on knowing why it is I shouldn't know you and Jud Hemming have already met,' she went on when he still hadn't answered her, refusing to look away from him, and after some moments of hesitating, Rupert dropped his eyes.

  `If you must know,' he said, his own aggression rearing its head, 'I never did lose your ring—I sold it to Jud Hemming for three thousand pounds.'

  It didn't sink in straight away what he was saying and for a full five seconds Lucy stared at him in stunned disbelief, then as the furl force of what her brother had said hit her, she could only disclaim, 'No, Rupe—you couldn't have done. You're joking-you lost my ring when you took it to be polished and cleaned—you told me you had.'

  `I know what I told you,' Rupert replied, his conscience pricking him at his sister's disbelieving expression, 'but I was lying. Oh, I took your ring to be polished and cleaned all right and asked for it to be valued so that it could be insured, then I forgot all about it until the jewellers rang up and said it was ready. By that time we knew there wasn't any money in the kitty, but I went to collect it anyway and when they said how much it was worth I nearly dropped. Then this sales bloke said any time I wanted to sell it they could always find a buyer, and the idea struck me that three thousand would keep Arbuthnot quiet for a while.

  `But it was my ring,' Lucy whispered, her mind trying to take in what Rupert was saying while thinking that he was the person who had sold Jud Hemming her ring. Rupert was the person whose name Jud had known all along—Jud had even got proof of that because he had told

  her he had a bill of sale, but he had refused to tell her who ...

  `I know it's your ring,' Rupert said edgily, 'but you didn't care about my feelings when you wanted me to sell the house, did you?'

  Lucy held her tongue. It didn't seem to have dawned on her brother that what he had done was as good as stealing, and she thought better than to tell him she would never have sold the house without his knowledge even if she had been able to do so.

  `So, without thinking about how I would feel, you sold Mother's ring,' she said quiet
ly.

  `Oh, don't make a fuss about it-I needed the money and there was this chap in the jewellers saying he'd have no trouble finding a buyer, and when I asked who would want to buy a ring with such an old-fashioned setting, he told me that only that morning the new owner of the Hall had been in and enquired about such a piece ...'

  `So you went to the Hall, showed Jud the ring and he bought it?'

  `That's about the size of it,' Rupert was saying when Lucy stood up and moved to the door. 'Where are you going?' he asked, taken by surprise at her "sudden move.

  `Up to the Hall,' Lucy said flatly.

  `To ask Jud for the seventeen thousand?' Rupert asked hopefully.

  `Like hell,' Lucy retorted inelegantly.

  She went straight to her room where she took the emerald and diamond ring off her finger and looked lovingly at it for the last time. Then reaching for the box it had come in, she placed the ring inside its velvet bed. Now was too late for tears—she had told Rupert she was going to the Hall, and she had every intention of doing just that; she felt sickened to the very heart of her that her brother could do what he had done. How could he have sold some-

  thing which belonged to her and which he knew she held so dear?

  Looking at her watch she saw there would be little point in going to the Hall for an hour or so. Jud, she imagined, would not be there, would probably be at his place of work. She hoped he was not out of the country, for everything that was honest within her told her she wouldn't rest until she had delivered the ring back into his hands—to leave it in the charge of his housekeeper until he came home wouldn't do.

  She slumped down on her bed, her mind shooting off in all directions. Why hadn't Jud told her he had bought the ring from Rupert? It was for sure he knew Rupert was dishonest-she'd told him herself the tale Rupert had told her about having lost the ring. Strangely it wasn't the fact that Jud knew of Rupert's dishonesty that upset her-she had always been loyal to Rupert and would much prefer that Jtid didn't know, of course, but it sickened her to her heart that Rupert could have done such a thing, so much so that she began to wonder if she could stay living in the same house with him any longer. Oh, she still loved him—nothing would break the bond that had grown between them over the years, bnt having discovered a new side to her brother, while appreciating the worry that had necessitated his action, she found she could not accept it.

  For the next hour and a half Lucy stayed in her room, then when she thought she had given Jud enough time to have arrived home, she washed and changed into a lightweight button-through dress of pale lemon and applied a touch of make-up to her eyes and mouth. She was going to go to see Jud, hand over the property she no longer had any right to, and after that she would return to Brook House. It was in her mind to telephone her aunt in Garbury to see if she could go there for a few days. She felt she just had to get away and she had always got on well with her mother's sister. Yes, she decided, she would go

  away to Aunt Dorothy's; perhaps after a few days away from Priors Channing she might not feel so sick at what Rupert had done ... She popped the small square box in her handbag, not looking at the ring again. Then with stiff resolution she went out to her car, not saying goodbye to Rupert who as far as she knew was still in the sitting room where she had left him; his car was still on the drive at any rate.

  It wasn't that she was feeling antagonistic towards her brother-it was too late for that too—it was just that she hadn't spoken another word since she had left him earlier, and she had an idea that to get into conversation with him now would have the tears of hurt pouring down her face. When she saw Jud Hemming she had to be as cool and unemotional as she knew he would be—perhaps later in the privacy of her room she would be able to relieve her feelings.

  Mrs Weston, Jud's housekeeper, opened the door to her. They had met on the evening she had dined with Jud and his mother. Mrs Weston was a short, stocky woman whom Lucy had liked, and she opened the door wider when she saw Lucy there. 'Mr Hemming is in his study,' she said, smiling

  Mrs Weston obviously thought that as she was Jud's fiancée, Jud would have no objection to her going straight in to see him, but Lucy wasn't so sure—if he was in the middle of something it didn't augur well for this interview she was beginning to get cold feet about, for all she had every intention of going through with it. But the last thing she wanted was for the interview to start off with him snapping at her for interrupting him.

  `I'll wait in the drawing room,' she told the housekeeper, then forcing a smile, 'Perhaps you will tell Mr Hemming I'm in there.'

  She should have telephoned first, Lucy thought, as she paced about the drawing room. It had crossed her mind to

  do that, only she hadn't wanted Jud to begin asking questions over the telephone.

  She had her back to the drawing room door when it opened, and she swung round as it closed to, half expecting it to be Mrs Weston coming to tell her she had told Jud she was here. But it wasn't Mrs Weston who looked at her across the plush carpeting, but Jud himself, looking stern and remote in the dark material of his business suit. Lucy remembered the last time she had seen him, remembered all too well that he had no respect for her and felt more sick than ever as she battled to keep the tears at bay. If he said, this is an unexpected pleasure, in that sarcastic way of his, Lucy knew she would just fling his ring at him and run. But he didn't say anything of the sort, and his voice when it came held not the slightest hint of sarcasm.

  `You look serious, Lucy,' he said quietly, leaving his position by the door and coming closer to look down into her pale face. 'What's wrong?'

  `I ... I ...' His gentle tone was affecting the tight hold she was exerting on her feelings. She wanted to tell him, indeed he had a right to know, but just then she didn't trust her voice not to let her down. Dumbly, she undid the clasp of her bag, withdrew the square box and handed it to him.

  Jud reached for the box she was offering-and at the same time caught hold, of her ringless left hand. Then still holding her hand he transferred his gaze to her face, then softly asked, 'Why?'

  Just that and no more. If she had thought anything about his reaction at all, it was to think he would be mildly furious that she had thwarted his plans to keep Carol Stanfield from mooning over him, but his quietly asked 'Why?' had her wondering what exactly he was feeling-those cold grey-green eyes were telling her precisely nothing. Wrenching her hand away from his, she looked down at the small expanse of carpet between them, inconsequently noting that

  his shoes looked expensive and hand-made as he stood so near to her.

  `Why, Lucy?' Jud asked again when her answer was a long time in coming.

  `I know-I know who sold you the ring, Jud,' she said at last, unable to look at him with the shared knowledge that her brother was little better than a thief between them. 'It m-makes our bargain null and void ...'

  `Why does it?' Jud asked. 'You were fully prepared to go through with it when you didn't know from whom I purchased the ring.' His tone was still quiet, reasoning even.

  But Lucy didn't want to be reasoned with. Jud was so clever he could make black seem white, and white appear to be black, and as far as she could see there was nothing to be reasoned with. Jud had paid for the ring-it belonged to him ...

  `It's different now, Jud,' she said slowly. 'You paid a lot of money for the ring, and ... what's mine is Rupert's, so there-therefore I sold it to you and ... and I have no right to it ...'

  `So you want to back out of our bargain?'

  She wasn't sure there wasn't the faintest suggestion of an edge creeping into Jud's voice, but she still couldn't look at him—she didn't want to see the scorn in his eyes, to see the contempt there. She knew he was thinking she was as dishonest as her brother by breaking her word to be engaged to him for three months.

  `No, I'm not backing out of our agreement. If you still want Carol to think we're engaged, that's all right with me, but I can't wear your ring, Jud.' Silence followed her words and she wished she could look at
him to show him she was sincere, but she was afraid to read what might be in his expression when he looked back at her.

  She gave a startled movement when one of Jud's hands came to rest gently on her shoulder, the other coming beneath her chin to lift her face up so he could see into her

  eyes. 'If you can't wear it, Lucy, won't you take it and keep it for the three months we agreed?'

  She looked at him then and saw none of the harshness in his look she had expected to see, but an understanding she had never thought he would have for her. Oh God, she couldn't help thinking, I'm going to howl my eyes out if I don't get out of here soon.

  `I ... I can't take it, Jud,' she said huskily. 'It ... It wouldn't be right.'

  `It belonged to your mother,' Jud reminded her, which was the last thing she needed to be reminded about at that moment. 'I know how much the ring means to you.'

  For all Jud's hold on her was gentle, Lucy had a distinct feeling his grip would tighten if she followed her instinct and made to run from the room. Gallantly she stayed where she was to reiterate in a voice that was now decidedly wobbly, 'I can't take it-what's the point anyway?' and as the first tear fell and others fell in quick succession she struggled on, her face wet with tears, 'It will be just as hard to part with it in August as now.'

  She felt Jud's hand on her shoulder move in a convulsive movement, and as she looked at him saw his face unlike the face she knew, and realised he couldn't bear to see a woman in tears. And when she knew she should stop crying if only to take that look away from his face, she realised something else, that instead of his look drying her tears it had more tears raining down her face. I love him, she thought, and couldn't think how it had happened, and dipped her head so that he shouldn't see or hear if a groan of the despair she was feeling escaped her.