A Real Engagement. Marjorie Lewty

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ as he added, almost under his breath, ‘And I mean to have it.’

      Josie stared at him, and a wriggle of fear twisted in her stomach. She was going to have a fight on her hands, for she certainly wasn’t going to be bullied into parting with her house, not on any terms.

      ‘Why do you want the house anyway?’ he went on. ‘What do you propose to do with it?’

      ‘Live in it.’

      ‘Just as it is?’

      ‘Of course not. I intend to refurbish it to my own designs.’

      ‘You’re an interior designer?’

      ‘That’s what I want to be.’

      He looked back at her, and his tone was reasonable now as he said, ‘Will you explain your claim to the house?’

      Stormy hazel-green eyes looked straight into his. ‘I don’t have to answer that question. But as it’s such a simple answer I’ll tell you. It was left to me in my mother’s will. If you don’t believe me you can have it confirmed by my solicitor, Sebastian Cross of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I have his phone number. Satisfied?’ she added defiantly.

      He had been frowning as he listened. Now his frown deepened. ‘I must get in touch with my own solicitor before I answer that question,’ he said. ‘There’s something very funny going on and I mean to get to the bottom of it.’

      Josie thought of her conversation with Uncle Seb and remembered uncomfortably that she, too, had wondered if there had been some mistake. She said, ‘May I ask the name of the person who promised to sell the house to you? Was it by any chance Charles Dunn?’

      Dark brows rose. ‘Yes, it was, although I can’t imagine how you could have guessed. He’s an old colleague; I’ve worked with him for some time. You’re not suggesting that he has been conning me to get a better price for the house?’

      ‘Certainly not,’ Josie said indignantly. ‘Charles would never knowingly let a friend down.’

      There was a silence, and his eyes narrowed as they watched her face. Then he said, his eyes still on her face, ‘You seem to know him very well.’

      ‘I should,’ Josie said. ‘He’s my father.’

      Leon’s dark brows shot up. His eyes opened wide. She saw that she had really amazed him. Then, with a hint of suspicion in his voice, he asked, ‘Why didn’t I know you before, then, when I visited Charles at his home?’

      She was tempted to throw her coffee cup at him. ‘Are you accusing me of being a liar?’ She was shaking with rage.

      ‘Calm down, Josie. I was merely asking a reasonable question. You needn’t answer if you don’t want to.’

      She drew in a long breath. The beastly man. He always won an argument. She said, in what she hoped was a dignified voice, ‘I seldom see my father these days, although we get along very well when one or other of my stepmothers is out of the way.’ Her lips curled expressively.

      ‘I see,’ Leon said slowly. ‘When you told me your mother had died recently, I thought...’ He left the words in the air.

      Josie shook her head. ‘Oh, no, my parents were divorced years ago. Charles has married and divorced again twice since then.’ She smiled tolerantly. ‘One side of Charles is a born romantic, always seeking the right woman, although the other side is a keen business man.’

      ‘Well, I hope he was in his business mode when he sold me Mon Abri, but I’ll have to have some further information. There must have been some slipup somewhere.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and phone my solicitors now, and then we shall know for sure which of us is the owner of the house.’

      As Josie began to stand up he said, ‘No, don’t go away. This concerns both of us.’

      He went into the sitting-room through the open French window and Josie listened to him dialling, her hands clenched tightly together.

      If he came back and insisted that he was right and she was wrong, she would—What would she do?

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE call to London seemed to take a long time, and Leon’s side of it consisted mainly of, ‘Yes,’ and, ‘No, I see,’ and ‘Yes, I understand.’ But finally he said goodbye, and Josie heard the click of the receiver being replaced. There was a long silence after that, until she felt like screaming. But at last he came back on to the terrace and sank into his chair.

      ‘Well?’ she asked impatiently.

      ‘Not very satisfactory,’ he said. ‘The three lots of solicitors are all trying to trace what happened about twenty years ago, and it seems that until Charles comes back there is no way they can finalise anything. He is not expected for several more days, and apparently he’s gone to ground in America and can’t be contacted. So,’ he said, summing up, ‘it seems that we have to wait until he arrives.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking—how would you like to move to a hotel until things are straightened out? Mon Abri isn’t fit to live in at present.’

      ‘I shouldn’t like it at all,’ Josie said flatly.

      He nodded. ‘Somehow I didn’t think you would. Well, here’s another idea. I took a fortnight off to come down here and get my builders started, but I’m happy to treat this next week as a holiday. How about you? Shall we call off the fight about Mon Abri for a week? I intend to make contingency plans for putting the two houses together again. You can help me with ideas, and you might also amuse yourself by thinking up schemes for interior decoration. It might be a waste of effort, if my plans come to nothing, but at least it would be good practice for you. What do you think?’

      Josie was torn between making an angry refusal and a sneaking feeling that what he suggested would be rather wonderful. And he was right. It would be good practice for her to have the opportunity of watching a top architect at work. She smiled to herself. It was funny how you could always find arguments for doing what you wanted to do.

      ‘Well?’ Leon was watching her from lowered lids.

      She sighed. ‘I suppose if I don’t want to be awkward I’d better agree. But it doesn’t mean that I give up my claim to Mon Abri,’ she added.

      He said piously, ‘Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t. Neither do I give up the expectation that it will soon be mine.’

      She looked at him curiously. ‘Why are you so keen to get it? Are you going to lose a fat fee from a rich client if you don’t?’ Perhaps he wanted to bring his wife and family here. Surely he would tell her if that were so.

      He shook his head. ‘No, no rich client involved.’

      ‘You want it for yourself, then, not professionally?’ She looked away, holding her breath.

      She was remembering a time at college, when she had fallen passionately in love with Roger Ward, one of the lecturers. It had never amounted to much on his side—merely an occasional lunch and a kiss that thrilled her when he gave her a lift home in his car—but when he told her he was leaving at the end of term—the next week—she had had wild hopes that he would write to her and ask her to СКАЧАТЬ