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‘The girls are—er—settling in their new school,’ Merren answered diplomatically.
She felt in much better spirits when she left than she had when she’d arrived. But anxiety started to nibble away at her as she drove back to her home. There was no putting it off. She was going to have to go and see Jarad Montgomery that afternoon.
With that visit in mind, and again finding her confidence in need of a boost, Merren changed into a smart cream linen skirt and jacket, checked what little make-up she wore was just right, also checked that she didn’t have a hair out of place, and, by using avoidance tactics, managed to get out of the house untouched by small, but inquisitive jammy fingers.
She parked near to where Jarad Montgomery lived, but owned to feeling on edge when walking to his house, she had to pass the spot where she had been set upon two days ago. Telling herself not to be silly, she was nevertheless glad to make it to Jarad Montgomery’s front door. She rang the bell, and waited.
Jarad Montgomery himself opened the door, though why her heart should pick up a beat when she saw him, she had no idea. Probably because he looked a shade surprised to see her there. Had he forgotten she was going to call today?
She thought she should remind him. ‘You said I should come and see you today,’ she began quietly, when all of a sudden she saw that two women, both carrying handbags, and clearly on their way out, were coming along the hall behind him. One of the women was touching sixty, the other was somewhere in her early thirties, Merren judged. Both were smartly and expensively dressed. ‘I’ve called at an inconvenient time,’ Merren began to apologise as the two ladies halted at his shoulder.
‘Not at all,’ Jarad was beginning smoothly, when he glanced from her to the two females who were positively beaming at him. He paused for the briefest of moments, then, glancing back to Merren, he was suddenly all smiles himself as he stated, ‘This is a delightful surprise,’ and, while she stared at him—delightful?—he was going on, ‘I hadn’t expected to see you before this evening.’
He’d thought she would call that evening to discuss the money she owed him? Well, she didn’t want to discuss it in front of these other people, that was for sure. Merren took a tiny step back, but before she could tell him that she would call later, that perhaps she should have telephoned first, he had taken a swift hold of her upper arm and was drawing her closer to his front door.
‘Don’t be shy.’ He was smiling. Shy? ‘My mother and sister are just leaving, but come and say hello to them before they go.’ And before Merren could do more than think his manners were truly outstanding, she found herself in the hall with him, the front door closed, as he made the introductions.
‘I’m so pleased to see you, Merren,’ his mother beamed; her manners, Merren swiftly realised, every bit as outstanding as her son’s.
‘Do you live in London?’ his sister, Veda Partridge, smilingly wanted to know.
‘Surrey.’
‘Do you and Jarad often get to meet?’ Mrs Montgomery enquired pleasantly.
‘Mother!’ Jarad inserted warningly. ‘We saw each other yesterday, and the day before that, but I wouldn’t have told you anything about Merren had I thought you’d give her the third degree.’ And while Merren went a pretty pink, because Jarad had obviously told his mother and sister that he’d loaned her some money, his mother suddenly seemed overjoyed by what he had just said.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Mrs Montgomery apologised earnestly. ‘I’ve made you blush,’ she added, and, to Merren’s amazement, she kissed her cheek and said hurriedly, ‘We’re going before I embarrass you further.’
‘Bye, Merren,’ Veda smiled.
‘You must come down to Hillmount as soon as you can,’ his mother invited, and while Merren stood there—it didn’t seem to her to be very polite to suggest that the Montgomery family were a touch on the strange side—mother and daughter bade Jarad goodbye and went cheerfully from his home.
Jarad closed the door after them and guided Merren into the drawing room she had barely taken in last Thursday. It was high-ceilinged, elegant, with several extremely good oil paintings adorning the walls, and yet was a comfortable room with its well-padded sofas and scattering of chairs and low tables.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said, as he invited her to take a seat.
She opted for one of the easy chairs, and he did the same. ‘I know I’m in no position to mind, but I’d have preferred it had you not told your family about the money,’ Merren responded, to what she thought was his apology for discussing the matter with his mother and sister.
She was therefore a little shaken when he denied that he had done any such thing. ‘Anything to do with that money is just between you and me,’ he asserted evenly.
Merren stared at him. ‘You didn’t mention it in any way?’ Looking steadily at her, he shook his head. She owned she was puzzled. ‘Then—what was that “I wouldn’t have told you anything about Merren” about? You must have told them something about…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Were you meaning you told them about me being mugged? Though that doesn’t…’
‘That doesn’t explain why my mother and sister would be ready to give you the third degree,’ he took over. ‘I’m afraid, Merren,’ he went on pleasantly, ‘that your timing today could have been better. Though I must say your blush was right on cue.’
‘Is everybody in your family eccentric?’ she enquired nicely, the fog getting thicker instead of clearing.
‘My father, bless his heart, keeps strictly out of it. I wish,’ he muttered, ‘that I were allowed to do the same.’
‘You mentioned explaining.’
‘I’m not doing a very good job, am I?’ He looked at her, smiled at her—it was rather a nice smile she thought—and she waited. ‘So here goes,’ Jarad continued, and went on, ‘For years now my mother—my sister holds the same view—has been of the opinion that I should marry and settle down.’
‘You’re not married?’ Merren queried, feeling oddly content that it should be so. Weird—that mugging Thursday had a lot to answer for.
‘Never felt the need,’ he replied. ‘To be frank, I very much enjoy my life just as it is.’
‘You don’t feel at all that you’re missing anything?’ He didn’t answer, but thinking about it, his home, his position on the board of Roxford Waring, and glancing at him—a good-looking, all virile male—there was no need for him to answer—he had it all. ‘That was a dumb question,’ she granted. ‘Your mother doesn’t know your views about…’
‘Oh, she knows. I’ve repeatedly told her. But that’s never stopped her from doing a trawl of her friends every now and then for likely daughters, nieces, friends of daughters, friends of nieces—it’s been hell!’
Shame. ‘There must have been one or two acceptable ones.’
‘Acceptable for what? If I’d given in and taken just one of them out, my mother would have been wondering what to give us for an engagement present!’
‘As bad as that?’
‘Believe it. Though,’ he conceded, ‘things did get a little better when Piers left university and came here to live with me.’
‘Your mother thought it better that you looked after him?’
‘That too, of course. But mainly she saw that if she was wasting her time with me, then Piers was just coming up to marriageable age. Piers is fifteen years younger than me. Love my mother though I do, I loved her more when she started to leave me alone and give Piers the treatment. Though in his case it was granddaughters of friends and great-nieces who were brought out for inspection.’
‘Is that why your brother took off abroad?’ Merren asked. It seemed logical. ‘To get away?’
‘No, nothing like that. Piers had a whale of a time. He thoroughly enjoyed not having to hunt, but finding his supper there, handed to him on a plate.’ Which wouldn’t suit you, Jarad Montgomery, Merren guessed. He’d want to hunt. He wouldn’t want conquests handed to him on a plate. Which was why, she saw, he’d been unable to find a flicker of interest for any of the women his mother had introduced. ‘Piers came out of it unscathed, and has gone abroad for a year because that’s what he always planned to do. Which, Merren Shepherd,’ Jarad said, ‘brings me round to letting you know why I’ve been confiding what is exclusively a family matter.’
Merren looked at him warily. He was serious now, unsmiling. Why, she wondered, when she felt certain he was a rather private man, with a great affection for his family, would he tell her, a person he barely knew, details about his family—as he just had?
‘It’s got something to do with the money, hasn’t it?’ was the best guess she could come up with. ‘The two thousand pounds you’re out of pocket?’
‘Got it in one,’ Jarad congratulated her. ‘When earlier I opened my door and my mother and Veda walked in, I feared the worst. Piers only left last Thursday, and already I’m back being the target!’
‘You think they’ll revert back to trying to get you to the altar?’
‘I know it!’ he stated unequivocally. ‘They’ve started already. My mother, ably abetted by Veda, came today to insist I’d be letting her down if I didn’t pay Hillmount a visit next weekend. They’re up to something.’
‘You think they’ll have someone on hand for you to—er—partner?’
‘I’d bank on it. I told them I’d got plans—and of course they wanted to know what plans.’
‘Well, if you’ve something on, surely they won’t expect…’
‘I’ve nothing on that’s so important I can’t change it. But, having had a breathing space while Piers was here, I saw at once that the year ahead was going to be pretty diabolical if I couldn’t head them off.’ He broke off for a moment, but then resumed, ‘Which was why, partly for the hell of it, partly in an attempt to knock on the head any “casual” introductions they have lined up for me in the coming twelve months, I told them that I’d met someone special and that I didn’t want to miss any chance of seeing her. That I hoped they’d understand, and not be hurt that I wouldn’t be going down to Hampshire next weekend.’
‘You’re seeing someone special?’ Merren checked.
‘I don’t know anyone that special,’ Jarad denied, with a grin. ‘But by that time both my mother and sister were quite positive I was going steady.’
‘Didn’t they want to know more about her?’
‘You’re getting to know them,’ he commented lightly. ‘I told them they’d meet her in due time—which, left in peace, would give me time to work out my next move. Happy when at last it appeared I’d been nailed, they were on the point of leaving, in fact were all at the bottom end of the hall, when you rang the bell.’
Merren looked at him, but when he held her gaze it seemed he had nothing more to say, and she played back in her mind Jarad opening his door to her, his mother and sister appearing behind him, their questions, Mrs Montgomery kissing her cheek. Merren’s eyes widened.
‘They think—th-think I’m your steady girlfriend, don’t they?’ she gasped. And, as more brain power arrived—‘This is a delightful surprise,’ he’d said!—‘That’s what you wanted them to believe, wasn’t it?’
‘Not until I glanced at my mother and saw that eager glad light in her eye. Both she and Veda were speculating like mad—Is she the one? It seemed a shame then to waste the opportunity—tailor-made—on my doorstep.’
‘Opportunity?’ Merren questioned, not certain how she felt about any of this, but striving to keep up. ‘You used me to…’
‘Don’t look at it that way,’ he cut in.
‘What other way is there to look at it?’ she bridled. ‘In that one glance to your mother you read the situation and decided to make capital out of it—using me! How else am I supposed to look at it?’
‘Are you always this fiery?’ he wanted to know, and, not giving her chance to answer, he went on, ‘If you’ll bear with me for a short while, I’m sure you’ll agree that we can work everything out to our mutual advantage.’
Merren opened her mouth. Mutual advantage! He was hinting at the money she owed him—must be. Oh, crumbs—whatever was worked out she was still left owing him two thousand pounds—which she hadn’t a hope of repaying. ‘I’m listening,’ she mumbled.
‘It’s obvious to me that you can’t manage on your salary or you’d never have got yourself into debt.’ Given that Robert and his family were in receipt of State benefits, a good part of her salary went to assist a family of five, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘Which makes it equally obvious that you’re never going to be in a position to repay the two thousand I handed you yesterday.’ Merren shifted uncomfortably in her seat, deciding she could do without this tell-the-truth-and-shame-the-devil tactic. ‘Equally obvious, too, is the fact that, while you might get yourself into debt, you have every intention of settling all those debts—which is why you’re here now.’
‘You said to come.’
‘You needn’t have.’
‘You know where I live,’ she thought to mention.
‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise?’
It didn’t take any thinking about. ‘Oh, I would,’ she answered. Pride, honesty. She’d have come. ‘It’s a pig being honest.’
‘Good,’ Jared smiled, having no doubts about her honesty, apparently—she had an idea he would never have introduced her to his mother and sister the way he had if he’d had any doubts about her. ‘It’s clearly important to you that we find some way for you to pay back that money—you wouldn’t be here at all otherwise.’
‘You’ve found some work for me?’
He smiled. ‘I’ve found a job for you—if you’re willing to do it.’
‘I’ve told you, I’m prepared to do anything legal.’
‘Oh, this is legal,’ he assured her. Then, evenly, he enquired, ‘How would you like to be my steady girlfriend for a year?’
Merren stared at him. She wasn’t sure that her jaw didn’t drop. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘I promise you I am.’
‘But—but—we don’t even know each other!’ she protested.
‘We don’t have to—it will be an in-name-only courtship.’
‘For your mother’s sake—er—or rather, yours?’
‘Don’t forget about my sister being my mother’s trusty lieutenant.’
Merren didn’t like it. ‘You’d deceive them, carry on deceiving them? For a year?’
‘Until Piers gets back and they can turn their attentions on him.’
She still didn’t like it. ‘Can’t you just explain that you don’t want their attention? That you’re happy as you are?’
‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’
‘It didn’t work?’
‘Three weeks at most is the longest they’ve backed off. You’ve a family yourself. You know the pressure that sometimes brings.’ Didn’t she just! If it wasn’t for Robert and that two thousand pounds he needed she wouldn’t be in this mess. ‘Friends, acquaintances, they understand the word “No”; families just don’t recognise it. Unfortunately, where you can tell friends or acquaintances where to go, if you’re so minded, some family members—who take liberties friends wouldn’t dream of entertaining—cannot be told.’
‘But have to be shown?’ Merren queried.
‘Exactly.’
Merren still didn’t like it any better. But she owed him. ‘What would I have to do?’ she asked reluctantly.
‘Probably nothing at all,’ Jarad answered. ‘But if for the next twelve months you could be “on call”, as it were, it should resolve matters to everyone’s satisfaction.’
‘By “on call” you mean, let you have my phone number, and be available to drive here the moment you ring—that sort of thing?’
‘I doubt very much that I’ll have to bother you,’ Jarad commented easily. ‘Though, with your permission, I’d like to drop your name into the conversation whenever I feel it appropriate. My mother seldom calls to see me—which is why today’s visit has such ominous overtones. Ye gods, my brother only left the country a couple of days ago!’
‘You—um—don’t think you’re being just a little unfair to your mother and sister—fooling them…?’
‘Unfair! Was it fair of them to poke their matrimonially-minded noses in, and then to spoil what is a very enjoyable lifestyle?’
‘Life’s a toad!’ she commiserated, though with not much sympathy. But seriously needed to recap. ‘You’re saying, Mr Montgomery, that all I have to do to repay that loan is to be ready to shoot over here to your home occasionally when the call comes?’
‘The situation may never arise, as I’ve said. But that’s about it.’
‘Two thousand pounds seems a lot of money to pay for something that may never arise,’ her innate honesty compelled her to point out.
Steady grey eyes pinned her deeply blue ones. ‘Call it a retainer,’ he suggested, and before she could comment on that, he added, ‘Just in case, you’d better recite the name “Jarad” ten times a day.’
Merren laughed. She guessed it wouldn’t look good were she to dash ‘on call’ to see him, to greet him as ‘Mr Montgomery’ in front of his mother. ‘I’ll practise,’ she promised, and, unable to think of anything else they might need to discuss, she got to her feet.
Jarad went to the front door with her. But before he opened it he looked down at her as they stood there, and told her, ‘I think you and I are going to fare very well together, Merren Shepherd.’ Then he gave a sigh, ‘Such a pity—I may never need to see you again.’
Merren laughed again. He seemed to have that effect on her—or was it just that she was relieved that she wasn’t going to have to work every night and all weekends? ‘We can only hope,’ she grinned, and went home still smiling.
When she thought over all that had been said, as she did on that drive home, Merren realised that, when it came to it, even though it was pretty obvious that she’d have to drop everything and dash if his phone call came—a two-thousand-pound retainer wasn’t half bad.
She pulled up at her home, fancying that she could see a glimmer of a silver lining behind her dark cloud.
CHAPTER THREE
SUNDAY passed with Merren unable to get Jarad Montgomery out of her head. Today it seemed incredible to her that all she had to do to earn the money he had so generously given her was to pretend, though only to his mother and sister, that she and Jarad were an ‘item’.
All she had to do in order to earn that ‘retainer’, it seemed, was to respond to a telephone call—that, according to Jarad, might never come—and rush to his home. Merren owned that she wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of having taken that money when most likely she would have to do absolutely nothing to earn it. On the other hand, she wasn’t very comfortable either with the notion of deliberately taking part in the deception of his two female relatives if called upon to do so.
Having thought that, as the days progressed, the arrangement she had agreed with Jarad would sit more comfortably with her, she found herself mistaken. She woke up on Monday—and it didn’t seem right. And on Tuesday she knew that it just wasn’t right—and that nothing would make it right. Nothing would except paying him back that two thousand. It had nothing to do with pride—they had made a bargain. But she was getting the better part of the bargain—and she should never have agreed to it, should never have taken the money.
Merren couldn’t think what else she could have done in the circumstances but have agreed to it—and have taken that money. But as she made her way home from her place of work that night—Robert had borrowed her car—she decided that as soon as her brother found himself a job and was no longer in need of her help she would start saving, and would pay Jarad Montgomery back every penny.
Perhaps it was pride after all, she mused as she turned into the avenue where she lived. In any event, it was important to her that she lost the ‘waif and stray’ label that Jarad had once stuck on her.
All thoughts of the man she had made that most unusual contract with went abruptly, though only temporarily, from her mind when, reaching the house, she saw a dilapidated old car standing on the drive.
Hoping against hope that Robert hadn’t accumulated fresh debt by purchasing the piece of scrap metal, or, worse, that he hadn’t done a part exchange deal, handing her car in for cash and that rusting heap, Merren hurried indoors and was relived on two fronts. The car wasn’t a new acquisition of her brother’s. It belonged to her father—her father had arrived.
‘When did you get here?’ she asked, after greeting him.
‘About ten minutes ago. Carol was going to make me something to eat, but…’
Carol, a tired and worn-out-looking Carol had her hands full with yelling Samuel and peevish Queenie and Kitty, who ‘didn’t want to’ whatever was suggested.
Merren automatically held out her arms for the baby. He still yelled, but at least Carol looked relieved to hand him over for a few minutes while she had a stern parental word with her daughters.
‘Can you stay for a few days?’ Merren asked her father, when the baby’s cries had lessened a few decibels.
‘I thought I might,’ he replied, and Merren relinquished the attic bedroom, to which she had so recently moved. Still, the sitting room sofa was large, and at five foot eight, she was of slender build, and it would only be for a few days.
She heard her car on the drive, and when Robert came in, and had greeted their father, she handed the baby to her brother and set about making a meal for them all. She sorely wanted to ask her father if he’d received her letter, if he’d arrived in response to it. Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if he’d come to help them out of the financial mess they were in?
Correction, the financial mess she was in. By now Robert was debt-free. But she would much prefer to owe her father two thousand than she would Jarad Montgomery.
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