He leaned down to plant a rough, hard kiss on her mouth….

Lucia was lost as soon as he touched her. When, finally, he let her go, the world had changed and would never be the same again. Trembling, breathless, dizzy, amazed, Lucia stayed where she was while Grey stepped back a pace.

“I didn’t intend it to happen,” he said, his voice thick.

She could think of nothing to say. All she wanted was to be back in his arms.

“You said you wanted some tea,” he reminded her. He moved away.

Lucia was astonished he could function normally. She still felt like someone in shock. Surely it couldn’t be his intention to behave as if nothing had happened?

“Grey….” she began huskily, what she wanted to say eluding her but knowing something must be said. They couldn’t possibly go back to the way they had been before.

“Yes?”

She braced herself. “Why did you do it?”

Dear Reader,

This story is special. It marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Winter is Past, my first romance—way back in 1955.

In the 1950s I was in my twenties, a newspaper reporter. My first seven books were written in my spare time. Then, with my thirtieth birthday on the horizon, I gave up staff journalism to start a family. The heroine of A Call for Nurse Templar was a midwife, and the story was inspired by my experience of having a baby at home rather than in hospital as is more usual today. After that I became a full-time writer. But, until 1978 when my son set off on the first of his many adventures, I adapted my working hours to suit the equally important responsibilities of being a wife and mother.

Most of my stories had exotic backgrounds. Although I still love to travel, nowadays some of my most exciting journeys take place in cyberspace. At six o’clock every morning I log on to the Internet, picking up e-mails from colleagues around the world and looking for Web sites to do with my favorite relaxation—reading.

Over the years I’ve had letters from readers in Africa, America, Australia, India and all parts of Europe. Lately, however, instead of these heartwarming letters being delivered by the postman, they are starting to pop into the mailbox on my computer.

If, when you finish this story, you have any comments, I shall enjoy hearing from you.

Worthy of Marriage
Anne Weale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

ON THE morning of her release, Lucia Graham felt a mixture of exhilaration and dread.

She had been longing for freedom since the day she was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. As matters turned out she had not served the full term ‘inside’. She was being allowed an early release.

But she knew that the world she was returning to would not be the world she had left. Now she had a prison record, and little chance of supporting herself in any congenial way. Who would want to employ a convicted criminal?

After she had changed into her own clothes—they smelt musty after so long in storage—she was taken to the office of the prison’s deputy governor.

‘You are bound to feel apprehensive, Graham,’ said the older woman. ‘Try to put the past behind you and make a completely fresh start. Easier said than done, I know, but fortunately there is someone who wants to help you rebuild your life.’

‘Who?’ Lucia asked bewilderedly.

‘You will find that out shortly. A car is waiting outside. Goodbye and good luck.’

The deputy governor shook hands, making it clear she did not intend to explain her statement.

When, shortly afterwards, Lucia stepped through the wicket, an opening in one of the prison’s massive double doors, she expected the car waiting for her to be a small saloon of the kind run by social workers. She couldn’t think of anyone else who would want to help her.

There was only one car in the parking bay in front of the prison. It was an imposingly large and new-looking black limousine. As she stared at it, a uniformed driver got out and came towards her.

‘Miss Lucia Graham?’

‘Yes.’

‘This way, please, miss.’

He led her towards the limousine and opened the rear offside passenger door, holding it for her as if she were someone respectable, not a jailbird.

About an hour later, after passing through a pretty village in an area that seemed to have escaped the urban development of much of southern England, the car entered the grounds of a large old house partially covered with Virginia creeper. Near the house the drive forked, one way leading round to the back of the building, the other opening into a large oval of gravel. Slowly, in order not to splatter the gravel on the surrounding lawn, the chauffeur drove in a half circle, bringing the car to a standstill a few yards from the front door.

About five minutes earlier, Lucia had seen him make a brief call on a mobile telephone. Evidently he had been notifying someone in the house of their arrival. As he opened the door for her, the front door opened and a woman appeared.

Stepping out of the car, Lucia thought at first that the stranger was in her late forties or early fifties. She was wearing a white shirt and blue denim skirt. A braided leather belt circled her slim waist. Her fair hair was brushed back from her forehead and cut in a classic bob. Her only make-up seemed to be lipstick.

‘Miss Graham…welcome. My name is Rosemary.’ She held out her hand, taking Lucia’s in a firm clasp. ‘I’m sure you are longing for some coffee. Come in and relax and I will explain the situation. You must be curious to know why you are here.’

After releasing Lucia’s hand, she took her lightly by the elbow to usher her into the house as if she were a welcome guest.

As they entered a spacious hall dominated by a wide flight of stairs with its lowest steps gracefully curved, Lucia noticed at once that the walls were adorned with numerous paintings.

So were the walls in the large drawing room where coffee things were set out on a table near the open French windows overlooking a terrace and a large well-kept garden.

With a gesture inviting Lucia to seat herself in a comfortable armchair, Rosemary sat down in another and reached for the tall china coffee pot.

‘Miss Harris and I went to the same school,’ she said, referring to the prison governor. ‘She is much younger than I am. She was one of the new girls I had to take under my wing when I was in my last year. We’ve met and talked at several Old Girls’ reunions. If she hadn’t known me, she might not have let me persuade her to have you brought here.’

Lucia said nothing. Compared with the place she had come from, this beautiful high-ceilinged room seemed overwhelmingly luxurious. She felt as if she might be dreaming and, at any moment, would wake up to find it was all an illusion.

The other woman handed her a cup of fragrant coffee. ‘Please help yourself to cream and sugar, if you take them.’

It was then that Lucia realised Rosemary was older than she had thought. The front of the house had been in shade. Here in the south-facing drawing room, the mid-morning sunlight revealed a network of lines round her hostess’s eyes and mouth. She was at least sixty-five.

‘I won’t keep you in suspense any longer,’ said Rosemary, smiling at her. ‘When I left school, I wanted to be an artist. During my first year at art college, I met my husband. He wanted me to concentrate on being a wife and mother. To please him—I was terribly in love—I let my ambitions go.’

She paused for a moment, obviously remembering the time when she had made that decision.

‘Two years ago my husband died. Like most widows, I found it hard to adjust to living alone. I have four very dear children who are enormously supportive. But they have their own lives to lead. One of them thought I should start painting again. So I did. Now I need someone to accompany me on painting trips abroad. I don’t fancy going on my own. I thought you might like to come with me…as a combination of painting companion and private courier. How does the idea strike you?’

From her own point of view, it struck Lucia as a gift from the gods, but also as an act of madness on Rosemary’s part.

‘Why me?’ she said.

‘Because, as I understand it, you have nowhere to go, and you have the right qualifications. You’re an accomplished painter and, equally importantly, a naturally caring person, as you proved by nursing your father so devotedly.’

Lucia stared at her, baffled. ‘How can you trust me?’ she asked.

‘My dear, you were convicted of fraud…not murder. In my view it was unnecessarily harsh to send you to prison. There are situations in which any of us may be driven to acts quite foreign to our normal natures. You found yourself in one of those situations. What you did wasn’t right…but it wasn’t the kind of thing to put you beyond the pale of decent society. At least I don’t think so.’

She had scarcely finished speaking when the door opened and they were joined by a tall, dark-haired man who would have been formally dressed in a city suit had he not taken off the coat, now slung over his arm, removed his tie and opened the collar of his shirt.

As he entered the room, his face showed the smiling expectation of someone sure of finding someone he liked there. This changed to surprise as he took in Lucia’s presence. It was clear that he didn’t recognise her.

She recognised him immediately. How could she ever forget him? This was the man who had played an important part in bringing her to trial and sending her to prison. His contemptuous glances as he stood in the witness box and she sat in the dock, listening to the evidence that had led to her conviction, had haunted her during the long, often sleepless nights in her cell.

‘Oh…hello, darling…I wasn’t expecting to see you today,’ said Rosemary, looking slightly disconcerted. She turned to Lucia. ‘This is my son Grey.’ She introduced him as if they had no previous connection with each other. ‘Grey, this is Lucia Graham.’

Clearly the name didn’t ring a bell with him. At her trial, he had struck Lucia as a man with an excellent memory. But the day of their previous encounter had not been as important to him as to her. Once she had been dealt with, he had probably deleted her from his mental database.

Also she had looked different then. Her hair had been fashionably short and colour-rinsed. Now it was long and back to its natural light brown. She was thinner. Few people would recognise her as the young woman whose face had appeared in both the tabloid and broad-sheet newspapers.

He came towards her.

Instinctively Lucia stood up, bracing herself for the moment when recognition dawned.

‘How do you do?’ He offered his hand.

She felt compelled to respond and to force a smile, but being friendly didn’t feel right. So this was why Rosemary hadn’t given her surname; knowing that, if she had, Lucia would have got to hell out of here.

After releasing her hand, Grey Calderwood turned his attention to his mother, stooping to brush a kiss on her cheek.

Straightening, he said, ‘It’s been a tough week. I felt like a day in the country.’

Someone else came into the room: a grey-haired woman in a plain blouse and skirt. She was carrying a cup and saucer. ‘I saw you coming from upstairs, Mr Grey,’ she said, smiling up at him.

‘Thanks, Braddy.’ He took the cup from her. As she was leaving, he filled it with coffee. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, I hope?’ The question was directed at both his mother and her guest. Then, to Lucia, he said, ‘Mine being the only car outside, I take it you live locally, Ms Graham?’

‘I hope Lucia is going to live here,’ said Rosemary Calderwood. ‘I’ve just offered her the job of being my painting partner.’

‘Oh really?’ Leaving the cup on the table, her son moved to the back of a nearby wing chair and pushed it closer to where they were sitting. As he sat down and crossed his long legs, he looked at Lucia more closely than he had before.

Any moment now…she thought.

And a few seconds later it happened: he switched on a different part of his brain and it processed her name and came up with all the facts it had been ignoring.

His grey eyes suddenly cold, he said, ‘We’ve met before…in court. You’re the forger.’

Lucia said a silent goodbye to the gift from the gods. She ought to have known it couldn’t work out. Life just wasn’t like that.

‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

‘What the hell are you doing in this house?’ He didn’t raise his voice, but his eyes were like lasers.

‘Lucia is here at my invitation,’ said his mother. ‘I knew she was being released this morning. I sent Jackson to fetch her. As you know, I was never happy about the court’s decision, but now it’s over and done with. She needs help getting back on her feet, and I need help with my travel plans.’

‘Mother, you’re out of your mind.’

Before Mrs Calderwood could reply, a telephone on the small table beside her chair began to ring.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to Lucia. Then, ‘Hello? Mary…how nice to hear from you. Would you mind holding on for a minute? I’ll be right back.’ As she rose from her chair, she said to the others, ‘I’ll take this call in the study. Do help yourself to more coffee, Lucia.’ A moment later she had stepped outside and vanished.

With the instinctive reflex of a man brought up in a family where old-fashioned courtesies were maintained, Grey Calderwood had risen while his mother was leaving the room. Now, still on his feet, he scowled down at Lucia. ‘It isn’t a year since you were sentenced. What are you doing out of prison?’

‘I’ve been allowed early-release.’ She leaned forward to pick up the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup, Mr Calderwood?’

He shook his head. ‘Has my mother been in touch with you while you were in prison?’

‘No, never. This morning, before I was released, the governor told me there was someone willing to help me rebuild my life. A car was waiting outside the prison gates. I met Mrs Calderwood when I got here.’

‘My mother has a quixotic nature. Sometimes she allows it to overrule her common sense,’ he said coldly. ‘The governor would have done better to put you in touch with the various organisations that help released prisoners. While he’s taking you to wherever you wish to go, you can use Jackson’s mobile to call a Citizens’ Advice Bureau. They’ll put you in touch with the right people to help you.’

It took all Lucia’s concentration to keep her hand steady as she refilled her cup. Before her arrest and imprisonment, she had been a self-confident person, a good mixer. They were characteristics, once effortless and taken for granted, that she would have to relearn. She was all right with someone friendly, like Mrs Calderwood, but the son, now that he had turned hostile, was harder for her to handle. He sapped her shaky amour propre merely by looking at her.

‘I would like to accept the post your mother has offered me,’ she told him.

‘Out of the question,’ he snapped. ‘If my mother is determined to go on these trips, it’s essential she has someone with her who has impeccable references and will be absolutely reliable. Not someone fresh out of prison for a serious offence.’ His voice had the same cold ring she remembered from the court room.

‘But not the kind of offence that makes me an unsafe person to be in charge of young children or elderly people.’

‘That depends. In my judgment you are not a suitable companion for my mother.’

‘Isn’t that for her to decide?’

His mouth compressed in a hard line. The dark grey eyes flashed like steel blades.

‘Perhaps a hand-out will persuade you to see reason.’ He went to the chair where he had left his coat and took a cheque book from an inside pocket. As she watched he uncapped an expensive black fountain pen.

She watched him writing the cheque, wondering what he would consider a suitable pay-off. Although she had disliked the man from the moment he stepped into the witness box and looked across the court room as if, in his opinion, she was as despicable as a drug dealer or a child abuser, a part of her mind was forced to admire the articulation of his long strong fingers.

‘There…that should cover your overheads until they find you a job.’ He held out the cheque.

Lucia took it, curious to see what he was prepared to pay her. Her parents had not been well-off even when both were working, her father as a reporter on a provincial city’s evening newspaper, her mother as a public librarian. There had never been a time when Lucia hadn’t had to be careful with her own earnings. She couldn’t imagine being able to scrawl a cheque with three noughts as casually as people dropped spare change in a charity worker’s collecting tin.

The amount he had written in figures and numbers took her breath away. Particularly as there was no element of kindness involved. Clearly, he didn’t want to help her. She felt he wouldn’t have cared if her sentence had been ten times as long.

‘But don’t take it into your head that there might be more where that came from,’ he said cuttingly. ‘It’s a one-off payment that will never be repeated. I’m making it on condition that you vanish from our lives and don’t reappear…ever. In the circumstances, it’s exceedingly generous of me to offer you any help. If you show up again, you’ll regret it. I can make big trouble for you—and will. You had better believe that.’

‘Oh, I do. You already have,’ she said dryly, folding the cheque in two and then in four.

‘You brought that on yourself, though I dare say you’ll never admit it. You’d rather believe the sob story cooked up by your lawyer.’

There was no point in arguing with him. He was the type of man who, privileged from birth, could never understand the actions that had led to her arrest.

Mrs Calderwood rejoined them. ‘I’m sorry I had to leave you.’

‘Ms Graham has changed her mind about the job you offered her,’ said Grey. ‘She realises it wouldn’t suit her.’

His mother was not a fool. She obviously knew that her son liked to have his own way.

Looking disappointed, she said, ‘Did Grey make up your mind, or is that your own decision?’

Acting on instinct, Lucia had palmed the cheque before Mrs Calderwood saw it. Knowing that Grey would make a dangerous enemy but still impelled to defy him, she said, ‘Mr Calderwood would like it to be my decision, but it’s not. If you’re really sure I will suit you, I’d be happy to work for you.’

‘That’s splendid,’ said Rosemary Calderwood, ignoring her son’s silent but visible fury. ‘Now I’m sure you must be longing for a bath and a change of clothes. I’ve already sorted out some things left here by my daughters that you can wear till we have time to go shopping.’

‘I thought you might need some more coffee,’ said the grey-haired woman, coming back.

‘This is Mrs Bradley, my housekeeper,’ said Rosemary. ‘Miss Graham is joining us, Braddy. Would you show her where she can bath and change before lunch?’

‘One moment,’ Grey said sharply. ‘Mother, I don’t often interfere in your arrangements, but this time I must. I cannot allow you to employ this young woman.’

He looked so stern and fierce that Lucia half expected his mother to yield to the force of his authority. She had already admitted to letting her late husband quash her youthful ambitions. It seemed unlikely she would resist her son if he chose to put his foot down.

But it seemed that Rosemary’s will had strengthened not weakened with age. She said pleasantly, ‘I appreciate your concern for my welfare, my dear, but please don’t use that dictatorial tone to me. Your father laid down the law for fifty years. From now on I shall do as I think best.’ With a sweeping gesture of her hand she sent Mrs Bradley and Lucia on their way, before saying to her son, ‘You are staying to lunch, I hope, darling? I’m the cook today. We’re having lamb cutlets with tapenade.’

It was a long time since Lucia had had a leisurely wallow in a bath of warm scented water. Even then her bath accessories had not been of the quality provided for her use in this luxurious bathroom. As well as a pale blue face cloth to match the thick fluffy towels, there was a huge sponge and a two-handled strap with a strip of loofah on one side and towelling on the other. On a recessed tiled shelf in the wall behind the bath there were bottles and tubes of foams, gels and bath oils. There was nothing anyone could want in the way of toiletries that hadn’t been provided, including the pretty shower cap still hanging on its peg and the white terry robe draped over a heated towel rail at one end of the bath-cum-shower alcove as an alternative to the towels.

Seeing a hair dryer on the counter surrounding the handbasin, she had asked Mrs Bradley if there would be time to wash her hair. The housekeeper had said yes, plenty of time. Lunch would be served at one, leaving an hour to spare.

The bath, designed to accommodate a tall male house guest, was long enough for Lucia to slide down and immerse her hair. As she was doing this, there was a peremptory knock on the unlocked door and Grey Calderwood stalked in.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR some seconds she was too startled to react. Then, as a couple of strides brought him to where a bath mat protected the pale fitted carpet, she sat up in a hurry, making the water slosh dangerously close to the rim while she grabbed the sponge in an effort to cover her breasts.

‘How dare you burst in here?’ she flared at him.

‘How dare you take my cheque and then break the deal?’ he retorted, his cold eyes taking in her nakedness.

There had been times in prison when she had hated the lack of privacy and felt frighteningly vulnerable to unwelcome advances. This was different, but equally disturbing. She knew there was no possibility he would snatch the sponge or touch her. He might be a pig, but he wasn’t that kind of pig. At least she didn’t think he was. Nevertheless she felt furious at being caught with dripping hair and a lot of bare flesh on view.

‘You’ll find the cheque on the dressing table. I never had any intention of cashing it. Take it and get out,’ she snapped at him.

‘Not until I’ve made some things clear to you. My mother refuses to listen to reason. But don’t congratulate yourself on landing a cushy number here. If you step out of line by so much as a centimetre, I’ll make you regret you were born. You got off lightly last time. You won’t again. I’ll make sure of that.’

Lucia was tempted to respond with a mouthful of the hair-raising invective she had learned while she was ‘banged up’, as habitual law-breakers called being behind bars. But even after spending months among women whose language, at the beginning, had often made her flinch inwardly, she still couldn’t quite bring herself to use their vocabulary to vent her hostility towards him. Anyway swearing at him would only prove his point: that she wasn’t fit to associate with a sheltered woman like his mother.

Swallowing her resentment of his unforgiving attitude, she said, ‘I’m very grateful to your mother for extending a helping hand to me. I shan’t abuse her trust.’

‘See that you don’t.’ He walked out.

He and Mrs Calderwood were in the drawing room, chatting as if nothing untoward had happened, when Lucia joined them. From the clothes put out for her to wear, she had chosen a plain white shirt and a pair of pale khaki chinos.

As she entered, Grey rose. It was, she knew, an automatic reflex ingrained from boyhood. Actually he felt none of the chivalrous respect implied by the now-rare courtesy of standing up for her.

‘What would you like to drink, Lucia?’ Mrs Calderwood asked. ‘Grey is having a gin and tonic and my pre-lunch tipple is always Campari and soda—unless I’m alone. I never drink on my own.’

‘May I have a soft drink, please?’ After months of abstinence, Lucia didn’t want to risk her first taste of alcohol going to her head.

‘Of course. Orange juice or peach juice?’

‘Orange juice, please.’

Grey moved to an antique cupboard, the upper half containing glasses and bottles, the lower concealing a small fridge. He brought her a crystal goblet with ice cubes floating in the fruit juice. Rather than handing it to her, he placed it on the end table of the sofa which his mother had indicated her guest should share with her.

‘Thank you.’ Lucia wondered if he felt that physical contact with her, even of the most fleeting kind, might contaminate him. He had probably never had to socialise with an ex-prisoner before.

She had always known there would be people who would consider her unfit to mix in polite society. That was inevitable. She just hadn’t expected to encounter that attitude on her first day outside.

‘What were the meals like in prison?’ Rosemary Calderwood asked. ‘Like boarding school food, I imagine…lots of stodge and over-cooked vegetables.’

Lucia nodded. ‘Chips with everything and not enough salad. But then prison isn’t supposed to be like a pleasure cruise.’

‘No, but they should feed people properly. You look as if you’re several pounds under your proper weight. We’ll soon put that right. Both Braddy and I are excellent cooks and we have a big kitchen garden so our vegetables haven’t been grown under plastic and spent days being transported to a supermarket. I’m a bit of a health freak. My children tease me about it, but I do most strongly believe we are what we eat.’

Obviously aware of the antagonism between her son and her protégée, Rosemary kept a conversation going with the skill of an accomplished hostess. From time to time she forced her son to take part with a question or comment that he was obliged to respond to. Lucia was glad to pick up the cues she gave her. If it hadn’t been for Grey’s presence, she would have been in heaven.

The elegant room, with its paintings, antiques, oriental rugs and bowls of freshly-cut flowers from the garden outside was balm to her beauty-starved senses.

Presently they moved to the dining room where three places had been laid at the end of a long polished table.

Grey drew out the chair at the end for his mother. Lucia seated herself. Then Mrs Bradley came in with the first course, a dish of grilled aubergines garnished with chopped herbs and crumbled feta cheese.

‘Will you have some wine?’ Grey asked, after pouring a pale golden liquid into his mother’s glass.

Lucia decided one glass would be OK. ‘Yes, please.’

He moved round the table, standing close to her chair, making her strangely conscious of his nearness, his masculinity. Was it only because she was used to an almost exclusively female environment? The prison doctor and the chaplain were the only men she had seen during her time inside.

Compared with the fare provided since her arrest, the aubergines were almost unbearably delicious. Then came the cutlets, decorated with strips of red pepper and served with a bulghur wheat salad containing diced cucumber, chopped spring onions, toasted pine nuts and fresh mint. The tapenade mentioned earlier turned out to be the black olive paste smeared on the cutlets.

While they were eating, Grey suddenly asked her, ‘Are you wearing a PID?’

Before Lucia, startled by this abrupt return to hostilities, could answer him, his mother said, ‘What is a PID?’

‘Ms Graham will explain,’ said Grey, eyeing her with undisguised dislike.

‘PID stands for Personal Identification Device,’ Lucia said evenly. ‘It’s about the size of a diver’s watch, but it can be attached to the ankle as well as the wrist. It sends a signal to a radio receiver called a Home Monitoring Unit. If the monitor can’t detect the signal, it sends a message to the Monitoring Centre where records are kept of offenders and their curfew orders. It’s a way of keeping a check on people who, like me, have been released early.’

She had been speaking to Mrs Calderwood, but now looked directly at her son. ‘But I’m not wearing one, Mr Calderwood. They must have thought it wasn’t necessary. I haven’t been given any curfew instructions.’

‘Possibly not, but I think you will find that you’re not completely at liberty,’ he said sternly. ‘It’s unlikely the conditions of your release will permit you to leave the country. If you can’t go abroad, you’re of little use to my mother.’

This was an aspect of the situation that Lucia hadn’t considered. She had a sinking feeling he might be right.

‘That point was raised by Miss Harris when we discussed Lucia’s case,’ said Mrs Calderwood. ‘Luckily I have a friend at court, as they say. Or, rather more usefully in this instance, at the Home Office. He kindly pulled some strings for me. In view of the fact that I was a magistrate for twenty years, it was decided I was a suitable person to supervise Lucia’s life until she is free to go where she pleases. As long as she is with me, there are no restrictions on her movements.’

This announcement made Grey look even more forbidding. Clearly, he had thought he was playing a trump card and was furious to find himself trumped.

Lucia wondered if he also had friends in high places whose influence he could bring to bear. He struck her as a man who, once he had put his mind to something, would not easily be defeated. There was obstinacy, even ruthlessness, in the jut of his jaw.

The meal ended with a rhubarb compote served with whipped cream.

Forgetting for a moment the constraint imposed by the man on the other side of the table, Lucia said to her hostess, ‘I shall remember this lunch all my life. It was a lovely meal by any standards, but for me…’ She made an expressive gesture.

‘Good: I’m glad you enjoyed it. As it’s such a warm day, let’s have coffee on the terrace, shall we? Then I’ll take you round the garden. Since all the children left home, gardening has been my principal occupation,’ Rosemary told her. ‘But now I’m beginning to find that I can’t kneel and bend as comfortably as I used to. So I’m turning more and more to painting. The wheel is turning full circle.’

‘After coffee I must be off. I shouldn’t really have skived off,’ said Grey.

Just as Lucia was thinking that the slang expression for evading one’s responsibilities or duties sounded odd coming from him, he glanced at her and she knew he was thinking, But it’s fortunate that I did or I wouldn’t have known about you.

‘You work too hard,’ said his mother. ‘Don’t become like your father…a workaholic. There is more to life than doing business.’

Lucia wasn’t sure what Grey did for his living. It must be something highly profitable if he could afford to spend six-figure sums of money on paintings. At the time of the trial, the tabloids had described him as a ‘tycoon and art connoisseur’ always giving his age, thirty-six, after his name.

As almost the only people who had made vast fortunes at his age were the Internet billionaires, and somehow he didn’t look like Britain’s answer to Bill Gates, it seemed likely he had inherited the fruits of his father’s workaholicism.

The opulence of his parents’ house, and the fact that his mother had spent her life being a homemaker, indicated that Calderwood Senior had been a man of substantial means.

Grey made no comment on his mother’s admonition. Perhaps it was one he had heard many times before and didn’t take seriously. He gave the impression of being a man who would always do what he thought best, regardless of advice.

He was one of those people—Lucia had met a few others—who came over as being propelled by a strong driving force. But what form his took and where it was driving him, she didn’t yet know. Most likely it was money or power, or both. Those seemed to be the two most common motivations among the male sex. She preferred creative people…artists, musicians, poets. Grey probably looked at paintings as investments rather than food for the spirit.

The stone-flagged terrace on the south side of the house was furnished with comfortable cane chairs and loungers. As she sipped her coffee, Lucia would have liked to lie back and snooze.

It had been a taxing day: being released, then being whisked away on a magical mystery tour, then crossing swords with Grey had made it stressful as well as memorable. She had hardly slept last night. Now she was finding it hard to keep her eyes open…

Driving back to London, Grey blamed himself for not foreseeing and averting his mother’s ill-conceived plan to help the Graham girl find her feet.

His part in bringing the fraudsters to justice had worried her. He loved his mother and his sisters, but they were all the same; sentimental liberal do-gooders who could find excuses for everything except cruelty to animals and children and crimes against humanity. And even in those cases they were inclined to look for reasons why the perpetrators had done what they’d done.

Grey didn’t belong to the pity-the-victims-of-society brigade. He didn’t regard himself a hard man, but he was a realist. At the time of the trial he had felt no regret for being instrumental in exposing a scam, helping to stop it and seeing the culprits suitably punished.

Now, having met Lucia, he was a good deal less comfortable with the thought of what she had been through.

He remembered how she had looked in the bath and how, to increase his annoyance, he had found himself aroused by the sight of her breasts. At first, as she lay submerged, they had floated like two pale islands with rose-coloured crests. Then, as she sat up in a hurry, they had changed shape and, for a fleeting moment before she concealed them with her forearms and the sponge, formed two exquisite half-spheres that had instantly triggered a strong reaction in his groin.

Perversely, the fact that her body excited him had made him snarl at her even more fiercely than he had intended. Had her alluring looks made her the target for advances from the tough, amoral, sexually frustrated women who were bound to be found among any prison’s inmates and possibly among those who ran such places?

The fact that Lucia was what his mother’s peer group called ‘a lady’ would have made her even more of a target for the kind of prisoner or warder who resented people whose lives had been more privileged than theirs.

He had an unpleasant vision of Lucia being locked up in a cell with hardened and unscrupulous criminals from whom she would have no escape. The picture revolted and enraged him to the extent that, several minutes later, he realised he had unconsciously increased his pressure on the throttle to the extent that the car was streaking down the overtaking lane at well beyond the motorway limit.

Reducing speed, he switched his mind to matters that had nothing to do with the girl who, when last seen, had fallen into a deep sleep.

‘She’s exhausted, poor child. Let’s leave her and go for a stroll,’ his mother had whispered.

Later, saying goodbye to him, she had said, ‘You aren’t cross with me for putting you down before lunch, are you? Your father would have been furious, but I don’t think your ego is quite as large or as sensitive as his was, thank goodness. Although I loved him, I didn’t always like him, you know. We were never the friends and equals that married people should be…that I hope you and your wife, when you find her, will be.’

The truth, though he hadn’t admitted it, was that he had been angry when, in front of the two other women, she had told him off for being dictatorial. But he could never be angry with her for long. Many times, when he was feeling his oats and before he had learnt how to handle his domineering father, she had averted clashes between them. He knew she had paid a high price for loving a man who, though he claimed to worship her, had expected her to conform to his idea of the perfect wife and never allowed her the freedom to adapt that role to her own needs.

Grey knew she was longing for him to emulate his sisters by marrying and starting a family. He didn’t think that was going to happen. He had enjoyed a number of relationships with women, but he had never met one who tempted him to give up his freedom. He didn’t think he ever would.

When Lucia woke up she found herself alone with Rosemary who was working on a piece of needlepoint.

‘I’m sorry. How long have I been asleep?’

‘Just over an hour. No need to apologise. You needed it. Grey has gone back to London. He lives by the river which is as nice as living in a big city can ever be. I can stand it for forty-eight hours, but after that claustrophobia sets in. I need to get back to the country. I’ll tell Braddy you’re awake. We’ll have some tea and then I’ll take you on a tour.’

At seven they had a light lap supper while watching the news on TV. Then there was a gardening programme Rosemary wanted to watch, followed by a repeat of a popular comedy show.

When that was over, she said, ‘If I were you I should have an early night, or at least read in bed. You’ll find a selection of books that I thought might interest you on your bedside table.’

As they both rose, Lucia said, ‘I don’t know how to thank you for being willing to give me this chance. I’ll do my best to make sure you never regret it.’

‘I’m quite sure I shan’t,’ Rosemary said kindly. ‘Goodnight, Lucia. I hope you sleep well. Tomorrow we’ll plan our first expedition together.’

To Lucia’s astonishment, Grey’s mother placed her hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly on both cheeks.

During her time in prison she had found she could bear the bullying of some of the screws, as the prisoners called the prison officers, and the hostile behaviour of some of her fellow inmates. It was always the unexpected kindnesses that had weakened her self-control.

Now the affectionate gesture brought a lump to her throat and made her eyes fill with tears. But it wasn’t until she was alone in her room that she flung herself into an armchair and indulged in the luxury of weeping.

Later, after washing her face, brushing her hair and teeth, and putting on the hand-smocked white voile nightgown spread across the turned-down bed, she opened the curtains and turned out the lights.

Tonight she didn’t feel like reading. She just wanted to lie in the comfortable bed and watch the moon through an unbarred window and try to accustom herself to this miraculous change in her fortunes.

Whether she could ever win Grey’s good opinion seemed doubtful. In his view, and that of many other people, she would probably carry the stigma of her crime for the rest of her life. It was a lowering prospect: never, in some people’s estimation, to be re-admitted to the ranks of the honest and honourable.

Then, as her lips began to quiver and she felt another bout of crying coming on, she told herself not to be a wimp. What did it matter if Grey continued to despise her? Rich and arrogant, what did he know about ordinary people’s lives and the pressures they had to bear?

Clearly he wasn’t accustomed to anyone defying him. Most likely he would blame Lucia for his mother’s refusal to accept his embargo on her plan. It was also likely he would look for ways to enforce his will.

If he did, she would resist him, as she had this morning when he had tried to buy her off. From what she had seen of ‘Mr Grey’ as the housekeeper called him, Lucia felt it might do him a great deal of good to have someone around who would refuse to kowtow to him.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCIA was woken by birdsong.

She lay listening to what she realised must be the dawn chorus as heard in the depths of the country. Compared with the twitterings at first light of suburban and city birds, it was like someone whose only experience of choral music had been a small school choir hearing, for the first time, the chorus of a grand opera company. After a while it died down and she drifted back to sleep until something else woke her. This time the room was full of sunlight and Mrs Bradley was bringing in a breakfast tray.

‘Mrs Calderwood thinks you should take it easy for a few days,’ said the housekeeper, after they had exchanged good mornings. ‘She’ll be up to see you presently. You can eat eggs, I hope?’

‘I can eat anything,’ Lucia assured her.

After the housekeeper had gone, she nipped out of bed to brush her teeth before drinking some of the chilled orange juice. Under the silver-plated dome with a handle on the top was a perfectly poached egg, with the deep orange yolk only produced by hens who could peck where they pleased, on a thick slice of toasted brown bread. Several more slices of toast were swathed in a thick napkin inside a basket, next to a little dish filled with curls of butter and a glass pot of thick-cut marmalade that, like the bread, looked home-made.

After months of enduring the horrible breakfasts in prison, Lucia relished every mouthful. She was pouring the last of the tea into her cup when there was a tap on the door and Rosemary appeared.

‘Good morning. What sort of night did you have?’

‘Wonderful, thank you.’

‘Good. I’m told that coming out of prison is like being discharged from hospital after a major operation. It’s best to take things rather slowly…re-adapt at a leisurely pace. I thought this morning we’d take the dogs for a walk. They belong to my eldest daughter Julia and her husband. They’re visiting a game reserve in Africa. Leaving the dogs with me is preferable to boarding them in kennels.’

Later, while they were walking an elderly golden retriever and two energetic Jack Russells, she said, ‘Perhaps you’ve wondered why I didn’t visit you in prison to introduce myself before you came here?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Lucia.

‘I felt it might be an intrusion on the short time you were allowed to see people you knew,’ Rosemary explained. ‘Also I felt it would be difficult to make friends in those circumstances.’

‘It would have been,’ Lucia agreed.

She did not reveal that she had had no visitors. Some of the people who might have come to see her lived too far away. After giving up her last job to take care of her father during his long illness, she had lost touch with former colleagues. In their twenties, most people had too much going on in their own lives to bother with colleagues who had either been ‘let go’ or had dropped out for other reasons. Anyway, from what she had seen, visits from family members and friends could be more upsetting than pleasurable.

But she didn’t want to think about what she had learned in prison. She wanted to put it behind her and get to grips with the future.

‘These painting trips you mentioned yesterday…where are you thinking of going?’ she asked.

‘I thought we might start with the Channel Islands before going further afield. Years ago, when the girls were small, we shared a house on Sark with some friends who also had young children. We took it for a month. Our husbands came over to join us at the weekends. Other years we went to France. Do you speak French, Lucia?’

‘Not very much, I’m afraid.’

‘Never mind. It’s not important. I’m not a linguist myself, nor was my husband. I don’t know where Grey gets his gift of tongues from.’

‘Does he need them for his work?’

‘Not specifically, but languages are always an asset. He does travel a lot, both for business and pleasure.’

In his spacious office on the top floor of a riverside tower block in London, Grey was pacing the thick carpet and thinking about the girl who, forty-eight hours ago, had still been locked up, and today was being cosseted by his mother, an expert at pampering anyone whom she considered needed it.

There were other things that he ought to be giving his mind and, normally, he kept his life neatly compartmentalised, focussing his whole attention on the compartment he was in. Right now that was the property business started by his grandfather, developed and expanded by his father, and now directed by himself.

But instead of being able to concentrate on matters pertaining to a major expansion, he was fidgeted by a strong hunch that, unless he found a way to get rid of her, that girl was going to cause trouble.

After pressing the bell for his personal assistant, he took another turn around the room.

When, notepad in hand, she appeared in the doorway, he said, ‘Bring me the file on that court case I was involved in, would you, Alice? And I want to speak to my sister Jenny, if you can get her.’

Alice nodded and withdrew. A few moments later she reappeared with a black ring-binder and placed it on his desk.

He was leafing through the collection of press clippings, each one in a plastic pocket labelled with the date and source, when one of his telephones rang. He picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘I have Mrs Wentworth on the line, Mr Calderwood.’

‘Put her on, please. Hello, Jenny. How are you?’ He listened to her reply, then said, ‘Are you free this weekend? Splendid. Then call Mum and invite yourself to lunch on Sunday, will you? I’d like your opinion on her latest lame duck.’

The news that Rosemary’s youngest daughter was coming to lunch made Lucia a little nervous, but she knew that meeting people was something she must get used to.

It was when Mrs Calderwood added, ‘And Grey is coming too,’ that her nervousness moved up a gear, though she hoped her face didn’t show it.

‘Does he visit you often?’ she asked.

‘As often as he can…but he’s very busy,’ his mother replied. ‘Jenny’s husband, Tom, is more laid-back than Grey. He’s an architect in a partnership. That isn’t always plain sailing, but it’s nothing like as onerous as the burden on Grey. In these tough, competitive times, having to make decisions that affect a very large work-force is a massive responsibility. It’s what brought on my husband’s health problems. But Grey keeps himself fit. Robert used to play golf, but I don’t think that was as good for him as the swimming and fencing and work-outs that Grey goes in for.’

‘What is his business?’ Lucia asked.

‘His grandfather was a builder. He never made very much money from the business but he put what money he had into buying land on the outskirts of towns. You may not have heard of a Hollywood film star and comedian called Bob Hope, but he was very famous in his day. He was my father-in-law’s favourite star, and somewhere he had read that Bob Hope put most of his earnings from movies into buying up land on the outskirts of American towns. So my father-in-law did the same thing. He didn’t benefit from it but Robert, my husband, did. It enabled him to expand the business in all sorts of directions. By the time Grey left university, it was one of the largest private companies in the country.’

Lucia had already learned that the Calderwoods had almost despaired of having a son. As well as having three daughters, Rosemary had had two miscarriages. Then, aged thirty-four, she had conceived again. She had had to spend most of her sixth pregnancy in bed but, at the end of it, had produced the longed-for male child.

With doting parents and three older sisters, Grey must have been spoiled rotten from birth, was Lucia’s conclusion.

She wondered why he wasn’t married. The possibility that he might not be heterosexual had occurred to her but been dismissed. In her working life, as a commercial artist, she had met a lot of gay men. Sometimes it was difficult, on slight acquaintance, to tell their orientation. But none gave off the kind of vibes that Grey did. She was certain all his sexual relationships were with women, and that they had been and would always be the most gorgeous chicks available. With his looks and position and money, why would he ever settle for anything less than a combination of glamour and intelligence?

On Sunday morning Rosemary went to church in the nearby village. She asked if Lucia would like to go with her but did not appear to mind when she declined. Although it was unlikely that anyone attending morning service in the small parish church would recognise her from newspaper pictures published months ago, Lucia wasn’t ready to face the world yet. The family lunch party was enough of an ordeal for one day.

Since her arrival she had washed and ironed the jeans, shirt and sweater she had worn to come here. Today she was wearing her own things in preference to those that Rosemary kindly lent her. Her other clothes, like the rest of her possessions, were in storage. Not that she had a lot of stuff. Only clothes and books and her painting things.

Mrs Calderwood had not returned from church and Lucia was in the dining room, making herself useful by laying the table according to Mrs Bradley’s directions, when she saw a car in the drive. As it drew up in front of the house, she recognised it as a Jaguar, the make her father would have liked to own had he had enough money. The driver was Grey.

He got out but instead of turning towards the house, he stood facing the garden, stretching his arms and then flexing his broad shoulders. Today he was casually dressed in chinos and a blue shirt with the sleeves folded to mid-forearm.

Before he could turn and catch her watching him, she withdrew to the inner end of the room where he wouldn’t see her.

Instead of heading for the front door, he went round the side of the house and a short time later she heard him speaking to the housekeeper on the other side of the door that led to the kitchen. It was a thick door and she couldn’t hear their conversation, only the two voices, one deeper and more resonant than the other.

Then the connecting door opened and he walked into the dining room, making her spine prickle with apprehension.

Mustering her self-possession, she said politely, ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning. When you’ve finished in here, I’d like to talk to you. Braddy’s making me some coffee. I’ll be on the terrace.’

Taking her compliance for granted, he withdrew.

Wondering what she was going to hear, Lucia completed her task. She had chosen and arranged the flowers in containers from a large selection on the shelves of what had once been a scullery.

‘Small, low arrangements please, Lucia,’ Mrs Calderwood had said, before leaving for church. ‘We want to be able to see each other.’

From a variety of possibilities, Lucia had chosen hem-stitched linen place mats in a colour to tone with the flowers. Beneath them were heat-proof pads and, on three sides, mellow Georgian silver knives, forks and spoons. The side plates were antique Spode bone china, the large folded napkins linen in a colour to tone with the mats. The fine sheen of the table’s surface reflected everything on it in a way that made her long to paint it.

Grey was standing up, drinking coffee from a yellow mug, when she joined him.

‘Have you had coffee?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thank you…earlier.’

He gestured for her to sit down then seated himself in a chair at right angles to hers.

‘Where would you have gone if my mother hadn’t intervened? Presumably they don’t release you without checking that you have somewhere to go or money for food and lodging?’

‘I was planning to collect one of my suitcases and find a bed-and-breakfast place. The flat I was living in before was only rented.’

‘Where is your suitcase?’

‘There are two, but I would only have needed the one with my clothes and hair dryer and so on. I packed them and put them in storage while I was out on bail, between being arrested and sentenced. My lawyer expected a suspended sentence but I thought it was best to prepare for the worst.’

‘What does “in storage” mean?’

‘They’re in a furniture repository near where I used to live.’

He raised a dark eyebrow. ‘Why not with friends or relations?’

‘I don’t have any close relations. Both my parents were only children. Two cases aren’t the sort of thing you dump on people unless they have a lot more room than any of the people I knew did. Your living quarters are probably much more spacious than most people’s, but would you want to be encumbered by someone else’s suitcases?’

He thought about that for a moment. ‘It would depend on the strength of the friendship.’

‘My two closest friends weren’t around. One of them works in New York and the other is married to an Italian. They live in Milan.’

‘So you’re on your own?’

‘Yes, but that’s no big deal. Most people are on their own these days, Mr Calderwood. Large, close families like yours aren’t the norm any more. It’s mostly a “singles” world now.’

‘I know and I wish it weren’t,’ he said frowning. ‘The way things are going isn’t good for anyone. It’s not good for society as a whole and it plays hell with children’s lives. But it’s not my sex that’s to blame for the breakdown of family life. That’s down to your sex. It may still be a man’s world—just—but the direction it’s taking is a consequence of women’s initiatives.’

‘What do you mean?’

Before he could answer, the sound of the front bell could be heard through the open door that led from the terrace to the hall.

‘That’ll be my sister and her husband.’ He rose to go and let them in.

Wondering if Rosemary had told them her history, Lucia picked up his empty mug and took it to the kitchen. She would have liked to know what Grey would have replied if they hadn’t been interrupted, but it was unlikely he would resume the topic in the presence of the others and it wasn’t likely she would be alone with him again today.

She had rinsed out the mug and was drying it when Mrs Calderwood came through the dining room door. ‘I’m back. How are things going, Braddy?’

‘Everything’s under control.’

‘Good: I’ll get you your drink, introduce Lucia, and come back and make my special dressing for the starter.’ Beckoning Lucia to accompany her, Rosemary headed for the door leading to the rear of the hall.

As she had put on a dress to go to church, Lucia had worried that her jeans might be too informal for today’s lunch. To her relief, her benefactor’s daughter was also wearing jeans, though her top was recognisably one of a famous designer’s expensively beautiful knits and Lucia’s was a schoolboy-sized shirt she had found on the men’s rail in a charity shop.

Before Rosemary could introduce them, her daughter jumped up, put out her hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jenny…and you’re Mum’s unlikely-looking jailbird. Nice to meet you. This is my husband Tom.’

A thickset man with a receding hairline and kind blue eyes offered his hand. ‘Hello, Lucia. I’m an architect…married to a woman who prides herself on her outspokenness which is why some people cross the road when they see us coming. The first time we met she told me I stank of garlic.’

‘But I liked him so much that, despite the garlic, I kissed him goodnight…and he came back for more and here we are twenty years later,’ said Jenny, laughing. ‘What are you going to drink, Lucia? White wine?’—with a flourish of her own glass.

‘Yes, please.’

Grey was in the act of handing a Campari and soda to his mother. He glanced at Lucia. ‘Jenny likes her wine sweet. Would you rather have something dryer?’

At first she had been taken aback by Jenny’s immediate reference to her imprisonment. Now she was grateful to her for bringing it into the open so quickly, and to Tom for picking up what some would regard as his wife’s indiscretion and capping it in an amusing way. It was immediately obvious that they were very happy together.

‘What Jenny is drinking will be fine.’ Smiling at his sister, she said, ‘Drinking anything alcoholic is a major treat for me. There was some illicit alcohol available in prison—at a price—but I wasn’t desperate enough to risk it.’

‘Was there anyone like yourself in there? Anyone you could be friendly with?’

‘In prison, you’re grateful if anyone will be friendly with you,’ Lucia said quietly. But she knew it was next to impossible to make people who had never been there understand how it was ‘inside’.

Jenny started to ask something else but was stopped by her brother saying, ‘Don’t start grilling her, Jen.’ Putting a glass of wine into Lucia’s hand, he said, ‘My sister was once a journalist…more precisely a junior reporter on a small town weekly. It was going to lead to a glittering career in London, but she met Tom and changed her mind.’

‘And have never regretted it,’ said Jenny. ‘I enjoyed my three years on the Gazette, but I like being my own boss better. Now that the children are launched, I may try a spot of freelancing.’

‘Did you read the article in yesterday’s paper…?’ Tom took charge of the conversation and steered it in a more general direction.

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