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The unlovely tracksuit had been swapped for a grey skirt and a white blouse, the trainers replaced with sturdy lace-up flats, but her hair was still caught back in a style-less bush, and the spectacles were still perched on her nose. She made her way heavily into the room, looking decidedly awkward, Max could see.
‘Ah, Ellen, there you are!’ exclaimed Pauline Mountford as the coffee tray was set down on the low table by the fireside. Then his hostess was addressing him directly. ‘Mr Vasilikos, this is my stepdaughter, Ellen.’
Max found his assumptions that the hefty female was some kind of maid rearranging themselves. Stepdaughter? He’d been unaware of that—but then, of course, knowing the details of the family who owned Haughton was hardly relevant to his decision whether to purchase it or not.
‘How do you do?’ he murmured as he politely got to his feet.
He saw her face redden as she sat herself down heavily on the sofa beside Chloe Mountford. Max’s glance, as he seated himself again, went between the two young women sitting on the same sofa, took in the difference between the two females graphically. They could hardly be a greater contrast to each other—one so petite and beautifully groomed, the other so large and badly presented. Clearly nothing more than stepsisters, indeed.
‘Mr Vasilikos,’ the stepdaughter returned briefly, with the slightest nod of her head. Then she looked across at her stepmother. ‘Would you like me to pour? Or do you want to be mother?’ she said.
Max heard the bite in her voice as she addressed the owner of the house and found himself sharpening his scrutiny.
‘Please do pour, Ellen, dear,’ said Mrs Mountford, ignoring the distinctly baiting note in her stepdaughter’s tone of voice.
‘Cream and sugar, Mr Vasilikos?’ she asked, looking straight at him.
There was a gritty quality to her voice, as if she found the exchange difficult. Her colour was still heightened, but subsiding. Her skin tone, distinctly less pale than her stepsister’s carefully made up features, definitely looked better when she wasn’t colouring up, Max decided. In fact, now he came to realise it, she had what might almost be described as a healthy glow about her—as if she spent most of her time outside. Not like the delicate hothouse plant her stepsister looked to be.
‘Just black, please,’ he answered. He didn’t particularly want coffee, let alone polite chit-chat, but it was a ritual to be got through, he acknowledged, before he could expect a tour of the property that he was interested in.
He watched Pauline Mountford’s sadly unlovely stepdaughter pour the coffee from a silver jug into a porcelain cup and hand it to him. He took it with a murmur of thanks, his fingers inadvertently making contact with hers, and she grabbed her hand back as if the slight touch had been an unpleasant electric shock. Then she ferociously busied herself pouring the other three cups of coffee, handing them to her stepmother and sister, before sitting back with her own and stirring it rapidly.
Max sat back, crossing one leg over the other, and took a contemplative sip of his coffee. Time to get the conversation going where he wanted it to go.
‘So,’ he opened, with a courteous smile of interest at Pauline Mountford, ‘what makes you wish to part with such a beautiful property?’
Personally, he might think the decor too overdone, but it was obviously to his hostess’s taste, and there was no point in alienating her. Decor could easily be changed—it was the house itself he was interested in.
And he was interested—most decidedly so. That same feeling that had struck him from the first was strengthening all the time. Again, he wondered why.
Maybe it’s coming from the house itself?
The fanciful idea was in his head before he could stop it, making its mark.
As he’d spoken he’d seen Pauline Mountford’s stepdaughter’s coffee cup jerk in her grip and her expression darken. But his hostess was replying.
‘Oh, sadly there are too many memories here! Since my husband died I find them too painful. I know I must be brave and make a new life for myself now.’ She gave a resigned sigh, a catch audible in her voice. ‘It will be a wrench, though...’ She shook her head sadly.
‘Poor Mummy.’ Her daughter reached her hand across and patted her mother’s arm, her voice warm with sympathy. Chloe Mountford looked at him. ‘This last year’s been just dreadful,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Max murmured. ‘But I can understand your reasons for wishing to sell.’
A sharp clunk came from the sofa opposite, and his eyes flicked to see his hostess’s stepdaughter had dropped her coffee cup on to its saucer. Her expression, he could tell, was tight. His focus sharpened. Beneath his swift glance in her direction he saw her cheeks redden again. Then she reached for the silver coffee pot and busied herself pouring another cup. She did not speak, but the tightness in her face was unabated, even as the colour started to ebb. She took a single gulp from the refilled cup, then abruptly got to her feet.
‘I must go and see about lunch,’ she said brusquely, pushing past the furniture to get to the service door.
As she left Pauline Mountford leant towards him slightly. ‘Poor Ellen took my husband’s death very hard,’ she confided in a low voice. ‘She was quite devoted to him.’ A little frown formed on her well-preserved and, he suspected, well-Botoxed forehead. ‘Possibly too much so...’ She sighed.
Then her expression changed and she brightened.
‘I’m sure you would like to see the rest of the house before lunch. Chloe will be delighted to take you on the grand tour!’ she gave a light laugh.
Her daughter got to her feet and Max did likewise. He was keen to see the house—and not keen to hear any more about the personal circumstances of the Mountford family, which were of no interest to him whatsoever. Chloe Mountford might be too thin, and her stepsister just the opposite, but he found neither attractive. All that attracted him here was the house itself.
It was an attraction that the ‘grand tour’ only intensified. By the time he reached the upper floor, with its array of bedrooms opening off a long, spacious landing, and stood in the window embrasure of the master bedroom, gazing with satisfaction over the gardens to let his gaze rest on the reed-edged lake beyond, its glassy waters flanked by sheltering woodland, his mind was made up.
Haughton Court would be his. He was determined on it.
CHAPTER TWO
ELLEN MADE IT to the kitchen, her heart knocking. Having anyone arrive to look over her home, thinking he was going to buy it, was bad enough—but...oh, dear Lord...that it was such a man as Max Vasilikos! She felt her cheeks flame again, just as they’d flamed—horribly, hideously—in that first punishingly embarrassing moment of all but sending him flying at the back door.
She had been gawping like an idiot at the devastating male standing in front of her. Six foot plus, broad-shouldered, muscled, and just ludicrously good-looking, with classic ‘tall dark stranger’ looks and olive skin tones. Sable hair and charcoal eyes, a sculpted mouth, incised cheekbones and a jaw cut from the smoothest marble...
The impact he’d made had hit her all over again when she’d taken in the coffee. At least by then she’d been a fraction more prepared—prepared, too, for what she’d known would be the inevitable pitying glance he’d cast at her as she took her place beside Chloe.
She felt her throat tighten painfully. She knew exactly what he’d seen, and why he’d pitied her. She and Chloe couldn’t have made a bigger contrast, sitting beside each other. Hadn’t she seen that same expression countless times over the years, whenever male eyes had looked between the two of them? Chloe the svelte, lovely blonde—she the heavy, ungainly frump.
She wrenched her mind away from the image. She had more to concern her than her lack of looks. Somehow she was going to have to find an opportunity to lay it on the line for Max Vasilikos about his buying her home. Oh, Pauline and Chloe might trot out all that sickeningly hypocritical garbage about ‘painful memories’, but the truth was they couldn’t wait to cash in on the sale of the last asset they could get their greedy hands on.
Well, she would defy them to the last.
They’ll have to force it from me in a court of law, and I’ll fight them every inch of the way. I’ll make it the most protracted and expensive legal wrangle I can.
A man like Max Vasilikos—an investment purchaser who just wanted a quick sale and a quick profit—wouldn’t want that kind of delay. So long as she insisted that she wouldn’t sell, that he’d have to wait out a legal battle with Pauline and Chloe, she would be able to fend him off. He’d find somewhere else to buy—leave Haughton alone.
As she checked the chicken that was roasting, and started to chop up vegetables, that was the only hope she could hang on to.
He’ll never persuade me to agree to sell to him. Never!
There was nothing Max could say or do that would make her change her mind. Oh, he might be the kind of man who could turn females to jelly with a single glance of his dark, dark eyes, but—her mouth twisted—with looks like hers she knew only too painfully she was the last female on the planet that a man like Max Vasilikos would bother to turn the charm on for.
* * *
‘Sherry, Mr Vasilikos? Or would you prefer something stronger?’ Pauline’s light voice enquired.
‘Dry sherry, thank you,’ he replied.
He was back in the drawing room, his tour of the house complete, his mind made up. This was a house he wanted to own.
And to keep for his own use.
That was the most insistent aspect of his decision to purchase this place. Its prominence in his mind still surprised him, but he was increasingly getting used to its presence. The idea of having this place for himself—to himself. Mentally he let the prospect play inside his head, and it continued to play as he sipped at the proffered sherry, his eyes working around the elegant drawing room.
All the other rooms that Chloe had shown him bore the same mark of a top interior designer. Beautiful, but to his mind not authentic. Only the masculine preserve of the library had given any sense of the house as it must once have been, before it had been expensively made over. The worn leather chairs, the old-fashioned patterned carpets and the book-lined walls had a charm that the oh-so-tasteful other rooms lacked. Clearly the late Edward Mountford had prevented his wife from letting the designer into his domain, and Max could not but agree with that decision.
He realised his hostess was murmuring something to him and forced his attention back from the pleasurable meanderings of the way he would decorate this room, and all the others, once the house was his to do with as he pleased.
He was not kept making anodyne conversation with his hostess and her daughter for long, however. After a few minutes the service door opened again and Pauline Mountford’s stepdaughter walked in with her solid tread.
‘Lunch is ready,’ she announced bluntly.
She crossed to the double doors, throwing them open to the hall beyond. Despite her solidity she held herself well, Max noticed—shoulders back, straight spine, as if she were strong beneath the excess weight she must be carrying, if the way the sleeves of her ill-fitting blouse were straining over her arms was anything to go by. He frowned. It seemed wrong to him that his hostess and her daughter should be so elegantly attired, and yet Ellen Mountford—presumably, he realised, the daughter of the late owner—looked so very inelegant.
But then, sadly, he knew that so many women who felt themselves to be overweight virtually gave up on trying to make anything of what looks they had.
His gaze assessed her as he followed her into the dining room, her stepsister and stepmother coming in behind him.
She’s got good legs, he found himself thinking. Shapely calves, at any rate. Well, that was something, at least! His eyes went to her thick mop of hair, whose style did nothing for her—it wouldn’t have done anything for Helen of Troy, to his mind! A decent haircut would surely improve her?
As he took his seat at the end of the table, where she indicated, his eyes flicked over her face. The glasses, he decided, were too small for her, making her jaw look big and her eyes look small. And that was a shame, he realised, because her eyes were a warm sherry colour, with amber lights. He frowned again. Her lashes might be long—what he could see of them through her spectacle lenses—but that overgrown monobrow was hideous! Why on earth didn’t she do something about it? Do something about the rest of her?
It wouldn’t take that much, surely, to make her look better? Plus, of course, decent clothes that concealed her excess weight as much as possible. Best of all, however, would be for her to shift that weight. She should take more exercise, maybe.
And not eat so much...
Because as they settled into lunch it was clear to Max that he and Ellen Mountford were the only ones tucking in. That was a shame, because the roast chicken was delicious—the traditional ‘Sunday lunch’ that the English loved so much and did so well. But neither Pauline Mountford nor her daughter did anything more than pick at their food.
Max found himself annoyed. Didn’t they realise that being too thin was as undesirable as the opposite? His eyes flickered to Ellen Mountford again. Was she overweight? Her blouse might be straining over her arms, but her jawline was firm, and there was no jowliness or softening under the chin.
She must have noticed him glancing at her, for suddenly he saw again that tide of unlovely colour washing up into her face. That most certainly did nothing for her. He drew his glance away. Why was he thinking about how to improve the appearance of Ellen Mountford? She was of no interest to him—how could she possibly be?
‘What are your plans for the contents of the house?’ he asked his hostess. ‘Will you take the paintings with you when you sell?’
A sound that might have been a choke came from Ellen Mountford, and Max’s eyes flicked back to her. The red tide had vanished, and now there was the same tightness in her face as he’d seen when her stepmother had mentioned her bereavement.
‘Very possibly not,’ Pauline Mountford was answering him. ‘They do rather go with the house, do you not think? Of course,’ she added pointedly, ‘they would all need to be independently valued.’
Max’s eyes swept the walls. He had no objection to having the artwork—or, indeed, any of the original furniture. The pieces that had been acquired via the interior designer were, however, dispensable. His gaze rested on an empty space on the wall behind Chloe Mountford, where the wallpaper was slightly darker.
‘Sold,’ said Ellen Mountford tersely. The look on her face had tightened some more.
Chloe Mountford gave a little laugh. ‘It was a gruesome still life of a dead stag. Mummy and I hated it!’
Max gave a polite smile, but his gaze was on Chloe’s stepsister. She didn’t seem pleased about the loss of the dead stag painting. Then his attention was recalled by his hostess.
‘Do tell us, Mr Vasilikos, where will you be off to next? Your work must take you all over the world, I imagine.’ She smiled encouragingly at him as she sipped at her wine.
‘The Caribbean,’ he replied. ‘I am developing a resort there on one of the lesser known islands.’
Chloe’s pale blue eyes lit up. ‘I adore the Caribbean!’ she exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘Mummy and I spent Christmas in Barbados last winter. We stayed at Sunset Bay, of course. There really isn’t anything to compare, is there?’ she invited, after naming the most prestigious resort on the island.
‘It’s superb in what it does,’ Max agreed. The famous high-profile hotel was nothing like the resort he was developing, and the remote island was nothing like fashionable Barbados.
‘Do tell us more,’ invited Chloe. ‘When will the grand opening be? I’m sure Mummy and I would love to be amongst the very first guests.’
Max could see Ellen Mountford’s expression hardening yet again with clear displeasure. He wondered at it. Out of nowhere, memory shafted like an arrow. His stepfather had been perpetually displeased by anything he’d ever said—so much that he’d learnt to keep his mouth shut when his stepfather was around.
He dragged his mind away from the unhappy memory, back to the present. ‘Its style will be very different from Sunset Bay,’ he said. ‘The idea is for it to be highly eco-friendly, focussing on being self-sustaining. Rainwater showers and no air conditioning,’ he elucidated, with a slight smile.
‘Oh, dear...’ Pauline shook her head regretfully. ‘I don’t think that would suit me. Too much heat is very trying, I find.’
‘It won’t be for everyone, I agree,’ Max acknowledged tactfully. He turned towards Ellen. ‘What do you think—would it attract you? Wood-built lodges open to the fresh air and meals cooked on open fires in the evenings?’ He found himself unexpectedly wanting to draw her into the conversation, to hear her views. They would be different from her hothouse stepsister’s, he was sure.
‘Sounds like glamping,’ she blurted in her abrupt manner.
Max’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Glamping?’ he echoed, mystified.
‘Glamorous camping. I believe that’s the contraction it’s for,’ she elucidated shortly. ‘Upmarket camping for people who like the idea of going back to nature but not the primitive reality of it.’
Max gave a wry smile. ‘Hmm...that might be a good description for my resort,’ he acknowledged.
A tinkling laugh came from Chloe. ‘I’d say “glamorous camping” is a contradiction in terms! It would be luxury for Ellen, though—she runs camps for London kids. A million miles from upmarket. Totally basic.’
She gave a dramatic shudder, and Max heard the note of dismissal in her voice.
‘Adventure breaks,’ Ellen said shortly. ‘The children enjoy it. They think it’s exciting. Some of them have never been into the countryside.’
‘Ellen’s “good works”!’ Pauline said lightly. ‘I’m sure it’s very uplifting.’
‘And muddy!’ trilled Chloe with a little laugh, and sought to catch Max’s eye to get his agreement.
But Max’s attention was on Ellen. It was unexpected to hear that she ran such breaks for deprived inner-city children, given her own privileged background. He realised that he was paying her more attention.
‘Do you hold them here?’ he asked interestedly.
If so, it was something he might keep on with—adding it to the extensive list of charitable enterprises that were his personal payback for the good fortune that had enabled him to attain the wealth he had.
‘They’re held at my school, nearby. We set up camp on the playing fields,’ came the answer. ‘That way the children can use the sports pavilion, including the showers, and have use of the swimming pool as well. So they get the fun of camping, plus the run of the facilities of a private school.’
As she spoke for the first time Max saw something light up in Ellen Mountford’s eyes, changing her expression. Instead of the stony, closed look that alternated only with the tomato-red flaring of her cheeks when he paid her attention there was actually some animation, some enthusiasm. It made a significant difference to her features, he realised with surprise. They seemed lighter, somehow, less heavy, and not even those wretched spectacles could hide that.
Then, as if aware of his regard, he saw her face close down again and she grabbed at her wine glass, that telltale colour washing up into her face, destroying the transformation he’d started to glimpse. For some reason it annoyed him. He opened his mouth to make a reply, to ask another question, see whether he could get back that momentary animation, draw her out again. But his hostess was speaking now, and he had to turn his attention to her.
‘After lunch,’ said Pauline Mountford, ‘I’m sure you would like to see the gardens here. It’s a little early in the season as yet, but in a week or two the rhododendrons along the drive will start their annual show,’ she told him smilingly. ‘They are a blaze of colour!’
‘Rhododendrons...’ Max mused, more for something to say than anything else. ‘Rose tree—that’s the literal translation from the Greek.’
‘How fascinating!’ said Chloe. ‘Do they come from Greece, then?’
‘No. They come from the Himalayas.’ Her stepsister’s contradiction was immediate. ‘The Victorians introduced them to England. Unfortunately they’ve taken over in some places, where they are invasive pests. ‘
Max saw her eyes flicker to Pauline and her daughter, her expression back to stony again.
Chloe, though, continued as if her stepsister had not spoken. ‘And then a little later on in early summer we have the azaleas—they are absolutely gorgeous when they are fully out in May. Masses and masses of them! Mummy had the most beautiful walk created, that winds right through their midst—’
There was an abrupt clatter of silverware from her stepsister.
‘No, she did not. The azalea walk has been there far longer. It was my mother who created it!’
The glare from behind Ellen Mountford’s spectacle lenses was like a dagger, skewering the hapless Chloe as Max turned his head abruptly at the brusque interjection. Then his hostess’s stepdaughter scraped back her chair and got to her feet.
‘If you’ve all finished—?’ she said, and started to grab at the plates and pile them on the tray on the sideboard. She marched out with them.
As she disappeared Pauline Mountford gave a resigned sigh. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘I do apologise for that.’ She glanced at her daughter, who promptly took up the cue.
‘Ellen can be so very...sensitive,’ she murmured sadly. ‘I should have known better.’ She gave a little sigh of regret.
‘We do our best,’ her mother confirmed with another sad sigh. ‘But, well...’ She trailed off and gave a little shake of her head.
It was tricky, Max allowed, for his hostess and her daughter to have to smooth over the prickly behaviour of their step-relation, in which he was not interested, so he moved the conversation back to the topic he was interested in, asking how far Haughton was from the sea.
Chloe Mountford was just telling him that it would make an ideal base for Cowes Week, if sailing was an interest of his, when her stepsister made another entrance, bearing another tray weighed down with a large apple pie, a jug of custard and a bowl of cream, which she set down on the table heavily. She did not resume her place.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she announced shortly. ‘Coffee will be in the drawing room.’
Then she was gone, disappearing back through the service door.
* * *
‘So, Mr Vasilikos, what do you make of Haughton?’
Pauline Mountford’s enquiry was perfectly phrased, and accompanied by a charming smile. She was sitting in a graceful pose on the sofa in the drawing room, where they had repaired for the coffee that Ellen Mountford had so tersely informed them would be awaiting them.
Max had been the only one to partake of the apple pie—no surprise—but he was glad he had. It had been delicious—sweet pastry made with a very light touch indeed, and juicy apples spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. Whoever had made it could certainly cook.
Had the graceless Ellen made it? If so, then whatever her lack of beauty she could certainly boast of one key asset to draw a man to her side. His thoughts ran on. But perhaps being a good cook was not to her personal advantage—not if she overindulged in her own creations.
He gave a little shake of his head. There he was, thinking about that woman again. Why? She was nothing to him, and would remain so. He relaxed back a fraction in his seat. His hostess was clearly fishing for whether he wanted to buy this place or not. Well, why not give her his good news right now? He’d made his decision—and every passing moment only confirmed it. It might have been a decision made on impulse, but it was a strong impulse—the strongest he’d ever had—and he was used to making decisions on the spot. His instinct had never failed him yet—and it would not fail him now.