Return Match

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘BUT why do we have to move out of the Manor and into the Dower House?’ six-year-old Tara protested stubbornly, the full lower lip so like their father’s trembling ominously.

Across the tousled fair head Fanny gazed despairingly at her stepdaughter, and Lucy automatically suppressed her own tiredness and irritation.

‘Tara, you know why,’ she said patiently. ‘Now that … Now that Daddy’s … gone, we can’t live here any longer. The house belongs to someone else now.’

It had been a long day—a long and wearying month in fact since her father’s death from a third and long-dreaded heart attack, but then he had never learned to live quietly as his doctor had advised him—but beneath Tara’s belligerence she sensed the six-year-old’s fear at the way her small world was being destroyed, and it was this fear she sought to ease.

Ironic really that Tara should turn to her and not to her own mother, Lucy’s stepmother Fanny, but then, as the late George Martin had known, Fanny was one of the weaker vessels of this life, not the stronger. Some of his last words to his elder daughter had been a warning that she was the one on whom the small family would now have to lean—not Fanny.

‘It’s not fair.’ Another voice joined the chorus, the face of Fanny’s ten-year-old son setting in lines of stubborn resentment, familiar to Lucy. ‘If you had been a boy we needn’t have lost the Manor. You could have inherited it.’

Repressing a sigh Lucy shook her head.

‘The Manor has always been entailed to the closest male heir, Oliver,’ she reminded her half-brother. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes.’ The boy’s gruff admission wrung her heart. Unwittingly her eyes met Fanny’s and, reading the guilt and misery in them, slid quickly away. She felt like a conspirator involved in some dark and unseemly crime, and Fanny’s attitude of guilty misery only served to heighten her feelings.

She wished more than she had wished anything in her life that her father had not chosen to burden her with his death-bed confessions; but he had, and in doing so had put on her shoulders a responsibility she was not sure she was able to carry.

The promise he had extracted from her to look after Fanny and the children, she could accept; but this other burden, this ‘secret’ that only she and Fanny shared …

Her mouth compressed slightly as she looked across the packing-case strewn room at Oliver. Up until just over a month ago she had believed Oliver to be Fanny’s son from her first marriage to a local MP, but now she had been told that Oliver was in fact her father’s child, conceived during an affair with Fanny which had begun while she was still married.

Her father had been quite free to marry Fanny, but it seemed that Fanny had been unwilling to risk the shame of a divorce from her husband who at the time had been newly elected to Parliament.

In the event, Henry Willis had been the one to do the divorcing when his affair with his secretary became public knowledge, leaving her father and Fanny to marry after a decent interval of time had elapsed.

However, by then Oliver had been four years old, and once again rather than risk any scandal Fanny had insisted that he should continue to be thought Henry’s child.

In a surge of bitterness during his last hours, her father had confided to her that it was a damn shame that Tara had not been the child to be born outside the marriage and Oliver within it, because then he would not have been put to the necessity of realising as many of his assets as possible to ensure that very little more than the Manor House itself should pass out of his family’s hands.

Privately Lucy had been appalled when she learned what her father had done and if he had not been so dreadfully ill, she would have been tempted to point out to him that it was Fanny, rather than Saul Bradford, who had deprived Oliver of his birthright.

After the funeral, Fanny had come to her weeping copiously to plead with her never, ever to reveal the truth about Oliver. She could not endure the trauma of the scandal there would be if the truth were to come out, she had said tearfully, and Lucy had weakly agreed.

Privately, having had a long talk with her father’s solicitor, she felt that, even if Oliver had inherited, within a very short space of time the Manor would have had to be sold. The roof was in need of repair, some of the windows needed attention, and it grieved her to walk through the once elegant rooms and see how shabby they had become.

It was far too large to be maintained as a private home, unless of course one was a millionaire, which her father had been far from being.

By anyone else’s standards, the Georgian Dower House was a very elegant and spacious dwelling, and much, much more manageable. She herself, the eldest of her father’s three children and the one who had lived in the Manor the longest, was the least reluctant to leave it. Perhaps because she had long ago outgrown childhood, and could see all too clearly the headaches attached to owning the Manor.

The oldest part of the house was Elizabethan, its pretty black and white frontage hiding a warren of passages and dark, tiny rooms with sloping floors.

A Stuart Martin had added the panelling and more imposing entrance hall with its Grinling Gibbons staircase, but it had been left to a Georgian ancestor to completely overshadow the original building by adding a complete wing and restructuring the grounds so that a fine carriageway swept round to an impressive portico in the centre of this new wing, leaving the Elizabethan part of the house as no more than a mere annexe to this fine new development.

Now damp, seeping in through the damaged roof, was causing mould to darken the fine plasterwork in the ballroom on the second floor, the creeping tide of deterioration so slow that it was not until quite recently, looking at the place through the eyes of her cousin Saul Bradford, that Lucy realised just how bad it was.

Really the house was more suitable for a hotel or conference centre than a private home, and she privately had little doubt that Saul would sell it just as soon as possible.

She remembered quite well from his one visit to the Manor how derogatory and contemptuous he had been of her home. They had met only once—over twelve years ago now, and the meeting had not been a success.

She had found him brash and alien, and no doubt he had found her equally alien and unappealing. They had neither of them made allowances for the other. She had still been getting over the shock of her mother’s death in a riding accident—she had always been closer to her mother than her father—and Saul, although she hadn’t known it, had been sent to them by his mother so that he would be out of the way while she and his father fought out a particularly acrimonious divorce.

She sighed faintly, grimacing inwardly. It was too late now to regret the various snubs and slights she had inflicted on a raw and unfriendly American boy all those years ago, but she did regret them and had for quite some time—not because Saul was her father’s heir, but simply because with maturity had come the realisation that Saul had been as hurt and in need of comfort as she had herself and it grieved her to acknowledge that she had allowed herself to be influenced in her manner towards him by someone who she now recognised as a vindictive cruel human being.

At twelve she had not been able to see this, and in fact had been held fast in the toils of a mammoth crush on her cousin Neville.

Still, it was too late for regrets now, but not too late hopefully to make amends. Despite the antipathy her father had felt towards Saul, and which he seemed to have passed on to his son and widow, Lucy was determined to make life as uncomplicated as she possibly could for her American cousin and to give him whatever help he needed.

It was not as though, by inheriting, he had deprived her of anything after all—she had known very early on in life that the Manor was entailed; but Oliver, whom her father had spoilt dreadfully, seemed to be finding it difficult to adjust.

Privately Lucy thought the adjustment would do him no harm at all. In the last couple of years she had begun to detect signs in him that her father’s spoiling and his mother’s complete inability to institute any form of discipline were changing him from a pleasingly self-confident little boy into an unpleasant, self-centred preteenager.

Fortunately she was fond enough of her half-brother and sister for her father’s charge that she look after them not to be too onerous a burden. Fanny, however, was another matter. Although they got on well enough, there were times when Lucy found it exasperating to have a stepmother who behaved more like a dependent child.

‘I don’t want to go to the Dower House.’

Tara’s bottom lip wobbled again, tears glistening in the dark brown eyes.

Physically both Tara and herself took after their father’s family, Lucy thought, eyeing her half-sister sympathetically. Both of them had the deep brown Martin eyes and strikingly contrasting blonde hair. And the elegant profile, which family rumour said had led to an eighteenth-century Amelia Martin being propositioned by the Prince Regent. It was because she had turned him down that the family had never received a title, or so the family story went, but how much truth there was in it, Lucy did not know. Perhaps, when she had researched a little more of the family’s history, she might find out.

Eighteen months ago she had started to sift through the family papers, trying to make some order of them, and it was then that she had first conceived the idea of writing a novel based loosely on her family’s history. Now, that one novel was threatening to develop into three or four, and next week in fact she was due to go to London to talk about this possibility with the publishers who had expressed an interest in her initial manuscript.

She had been lucky there—there was no doubt about that; her mother’s family had connections in the publishing world. Her cousin Neville was a partner in a firm of publishers—not the one she was dealing with, but his father had made the recommendation for her, much to Neville’s disgust; he was no doubt hoping she would fall flat on her face, if she knew Neville, Lucy thought wryly.

She had got over her crush on her cousin many years ago, and all that was left was a healthy wariness of the man he had become. Occasionally he indulged himself in light-hearted flirtatiousness with her—more to see exactly how vulnerable she might be to him than for any other reason. Neville was extremely conceited and never liked losing an admirer. His father and her mother had been brother and sister, and Lucy retained a deep fondness for her uncle and his wife.

‘Tara, please stop that noise … My head …’

Fanny’s protest broke through her reverie, making her realise that Tara was crying in earnest now, while Oliver scowled and kicked disconsolately at one of the packing cases and Fanny pressed a fragile hand to her forehead.

‘Lucy, I must go and lie down … My poor head …’

Knowing that she would make faster progress with her stepmother out of the way Lucy made no demur, summoning a smile and a few words of sympathy, while at the same time producing a handkerchief for Tara’s tears and warning Oliver not to ruin his shoes.

‘Come on, it won’t be that bad,’ she comforted Tara when Fanny had gone to her room. ‘You’ll like the Dower House.’

‘Yes, but what about Harriet?’

Harriet was Tara’s exceedingly plump little pony, and for a moment Lucy frowned, not following the thread of her half-sister’s conversation.

‘Well I’m sure Harriet will like it, too,’ she told her. ‘She will have that lovely paddock all to herself.’

‘But Richard says that we won’t be able to keep her. That you won’t be able to afford it …’

Richard was the junior partner in her father’s firm of solicitors and Lucy frowned at the mention of his name. For several months now he had been making it plain that he wanted more from her than the casual relationship they presently enjoyed.

Only the other week he had mentioned marriage, adding that the fact that her father had left the Dower House to Lucy in her sole name would mean that on marriage she would have a very comfortable home to share with her husband.

The reason her father had left the house to her was that he didn’t want any gossip to arise from the fact that he was leaving the bulk of the money he had realised, from selling everything that wasn’t entailed, in trust for Oliver and Tara, with the income to go to Fanny until the children reached their majority. Lucy had been less than impressed that Richard should choose to mention marriage only when he realised what her father had left her.

She wondered if Richard was also aware that she had as good as promised her father that both children and Fanny would have a home with her as long as they needed it. Richard did not like children, and neither Oliver nor Tara liked him. Anyway there was not the remotest possibility of her marrying him. To put it bluntly, sexually he left her stone-cold. As did most men. So much so that she had reached the grand old age of twenty-five without a single passionate affair to look back on. Was that the fault of her lifestyle or her genes?

There had been a time, just before her father married Fanny, when she had made a bid for freedom, suggesting that she leave the newly married couple alone and move to London, but Fanny had pleaded with her to stay.

Almost from the moment of her mother’s death Lucy had run the house—not through choice but through necessity—and Fanny had claimed that the thought of taking over from her totally overwhelmed her. And so, despite her misgivings, she had stayed, trying not to feel too guilty about the waste of a perfectly good degree and the loss of her personal independence.

Since then her life had been busy rather than fulfilling. There were certain responsibilities incumbent on living in the Manor, certain local charities her mother had taken an interest in and helped, and this mantle had now fallen to her.

Her decision to try and write had been born of the mental starvation she suffered from, Lucy suspected, and certainly the hours she spent alone in the library on her research had been among the most fulfilling she had experienced since leaving university.

Now, though, she was likely to lose all that, unless Saul allowed her to use the library.

He was such an unknown quantity, she wasn’t really sure what to expect. Her memories of him were clouded by the animosity which had sprung up between them almost from the word go and when she pictured him mentally, it was with a truculent scowl on his face.

In looks he didn’t resemble the Martins at all, being very dark, almost swarthily so, his eyes grey and not brown, his transatlantic accent adding to his alienness.

Looking back on that disastrous summer, Lucy felt a twinge of sympathy towards him.

Poor boy, it couldn’t have been easy for him—thrown upon relatives he did not know, who moreover spoke differently and had a different set of rules to live by. That scowl, that stubborn indifference to all that the Manor had to offer, must have been defensive rather than aggressive, but of course at twelve she could not see that, and had only seen that he mocked everything that she held dear, while all the time reinforcing his own Americanness. The brash superiority had just increased her own dislike of him, so that she had willingly joined Neville in his tormenting of him.

Neville … so smooth and sophisticated to her then, so excitingly male and aloof, and yet undeniably a part of her world in a way that the American intruder was not. When Neville spoke, it was in the same way as her father, his accent public school and clipped, unlike Saul’s American drawl.

Even the way he dressed was different … alien … And how she and Neville had tormented him when they watched the way he rode! She had been unkind almost to the point of being cruel and had since regretted it deeply because it was not part of her nature to inflict hurt on others.

Poor Saul. How did he remember her? she wondered wryly. Well, she would have ample opportunity to make restitution for her sins once he arrived. Neville might speak slightingly of the Manor passing into American hands, but now she did not encourage him.

Tara had stopped crying and was watching her hopefully. ‘We won’t be too poor to keep Harriet,’ she told her firmly. ‘Richard was quite wrong.’

‘Are you going to marry him?’

That was Oliver, eyeing her truculently.

‘No.’

Relief showed briefly in the brown eyes before he turned away. Oliver had been closer to their father than any of them, something she had not really thought about before she knew the truth, and Oliver was the one who would miss his male influence the most. Perhaps Saul might be induced to take an interest in him. Perhaps he was married now with children of his own.

It was a shock to realise how little she knew about him. In all the anxiety and tumult of her father’s death, she had had little time to spare to wonder about Saul; little time to give to him at all apart from overseeing the sending of a telegram to advise him of what had happened.

She had half hoped he would attend the funeral and had been almost hurt when he had not. Towards the end her father had complained that Saul had never made the slightest attempt to learn anything about his heritage, but fair-mindedly Lucy had pointed out that he had scarcely been given much chance.

Certainly her own memories of Saul weren’t happy ones, but like her he had no doubt matured and mellowed, and probably also, like her, knowing the close proximity to one another in which they would be living, he would want their relationship to be an amicable one.

Despite all these sensible thoughts Lucy could not quite stifle the apprehension burgeoning to life inside her. As yet they had no idea when Saul would arrive, but she was being meticulous about vacating the Manor just as quickly as she could. She was also being meticulous about what she took with her—only the furniture which had been her mother’s and nothing more.

Fortunately the Dower House was furnished, although somewhat haphazardly as up until quite recently it had been tenanted, but no doubt the furniture that had been her mother’s would make it seem more like home.

With the help of Mrs Isaacs, their daily, Lucy had already cleaned the house from top to bottom. Nearly all the rooms needed redecorating and she had promised herself that this was a task she would tackle just as soon as she had time. With the income from the trust funds her father had established for Oliver and Tara they would be able to manage financially—just about. Oliver’s school fees would take a large slice of these funds, but Fanny had been adamant that her son must go to prep school at the start of the new term, as had been planned.

The school which had been chosen was George Martin’s old school, and even though privately Lucy thought it was almost an extravagance to pay out such a large sum of money annually just so that Oliver could be educated at her father’s old school, she had not had the heart to oppose Fanny.

It was her opinion that of the two of them Tara was the cleverer and inwardly she was determined that when the time came Tara would somehow be given the same opportunities as her brother. Fortunately at the moment that was one problem which could be shelved, unlike the jumble of packing cases now littering the ballroom floor.

She and Mrs Isaacs had brought them here mainly because of the large area of empty floor space, and tomorrow morning Mr Isaacs and his two large sons were going to drive up from the village with their van and spend the day transporting the cases over to the Dower House.

From the ballroom window it was possible to look right across the park that surrounded the house and Lucy caught her lip between her teeth as she glanced at the view. They had almost the same view from the Dower House, which was surrounded by a very pleasant garden.

With hindsight Lucy could recognise that her father’s decision to divorce the Dower House and a certain amount of land from the main house had probably originated with Oliver’s birth; even then he must have been planning to do everything he could for his illegitimate child, she thought wryly. But, in doing so, there was no getting away from the fact that he had stripped the Manor of anything that might usefully have been sold to provide its new owner with funds. The farmlands had now all gone, the last few acres having been sold just prior to her father’s death.

Those paintings which had not been sold previously to cover death duties had been auctioned at Sotheby’s eighteen months ago, along with the few good antiques they had left.

Now the house had a forlorn, neglected air, almost an air of desolation and desertion. What on earth Saul would do with the place she had no idea. Sell it most likely; she could not see how he could do anything else.

Sighing faintly she turned away from the view and surveyed the packing cases. She had written in chalk on each one what it contained, meticulously refusing to pack the Meissen dinner service or what was left of the family silver. Those went with the house and she was determined that they would stay with it.

Whatever wealth the Martin family had once possessed from trade and a sugar planation in the West Indies had been dissipated by the time of the First World War, and since then the family had survived by gradually selling off its assets. It was true that her father had held several directorships which had brought in a reasonable income, but the house simply devoured money.

The same Martin who had added the Georgian frontage to the house had also commissioned the Dower House, and its Georgian elegance had always appealed to Lucy. She knew their solicitor found it strange that it had been left to her and not to Fanny, but Lucy understood the reason why.

Her father had thought that the security of the family would be safer in her hands than Fanny’s and indeed her stepmother was, in some ways, very much another child. She had leaned on George Martin during their marriage and Lucy suspected that now she would lean on her.

Fanny didn’t really care for the country and spent as much time as she could in London, staying with friends. Neither was she particularly maternal, allowing Lucy to take day-to-day charge of her half-brother and sister. Fortunately the three of them got on well together, but it was typical of Fanny’s nature that she should not consider that a single woman of twenty-five might not want the responsibility for a stepmother and two children.

The one thing she would miss about the Manor was the library, Lucy reflected half an hour later as she went downstairs. Her book, although fiction, relied heavily on information she had discovered among the family papers and diaries and she was hoping that Saul would allow her to use these for her work. She could of course simply take them and he would be none the wiser, but her own strict code of ethics would not allow her to do that. The unhappy, shy teenager, who had allowed her older male cousin to bully her into being unkind to their colonial relative, had long since been superseded by a woman who knew her own mind and how to stick to her own decisions and assessments.