Unwelcome Invader. Angela Devine

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СКАЧАТЬ mean…you could buy this place any time you want to in the next three months?’

      ‘Exactly,’ agreed Marc.

      For a moment Jane was shocked speechless.

      ‘The house? The vineyards? The outhouses…everything?’ she stammered at last.

      ‘Everything,’ he agreed gravely.

      Suddenly Jane’s disbelief was replaced by anger-hot and rich and murderous.

      ‘But that’s ridiculous!’ she cried wildly, jumping to her feet. ‘This has been my home ever since I was born. And the vineyards, the winemaking plant…’ Her voice broke. ‘What happens to those?’

      Marc’s face was inscrutable. With the firelight leaping over his features he looked uncannily like some stage demon.

      ‘All fixed property is included in the sale,’ he said in measured tones. ‘Naturally that means all of the vineyards and most of the winemaking plant. Movable property may be taken with you, but that won’t be much. Only the wine collection, the empty barrels, the ladders, buckets, a few pruning shears. The rest will all be mine if I decide to go ahead with the purchase.’

      Jane stumbled desperately across the room, hot tears stinging behind her eyes, then she turned on him like an animal at bay.

      ‘That’s impossible! I was the one who put up the money for most of this. I had a legacy from my grandmother and I spent every cent of it on this place. My father can’t just sell it behind my back without my approval!’

      Marc shrugged. His voice was very calm and cool and seemed to come from a great distance.

      ‘I checked the legal details very carefully before I entered into this contract. I always do. There is no doubt that your father is the legal owner of this property, nor that it is unencumbered by any mortgages. These payments you say you made on the vineyards, the wine plant…have you any proof of this?’

      Jane was furious at his sceptical tone.

      ‘I don’t just say I made the payments!’ she shouted. ‘I did make them!’

      Marc’s voice continued relentlessly, as if he had scarcely heard her impassioned interruption.

      ‘No doubt you have documents to prove this?’

      Jane’s head swam with exhaustion and disbelief.

      ‘Yes. No. Not exactly. After I inherited the money from my grandmother my father persuaded me to form a company. It was all terribly complicated.’

      ‘Not Saddler’s Vineyards Limited, by any chance?’ asked Marc in a hushed voice.

      ‘Yes,’ said Jane uneasily.

      ‘Parbleu!’ exclaimed Marc, leaving his place by the mantelpiece and crossing the room to her. ‘I’m extremely sorry for you, Jane. It seems to me that your father has…what’s the expression you Australians use?…sold you down the river. I’ve seen the documents governing the formation of that company. Your father is chief managing director and has a controlling interest in it. You were a very foolish girl to hand over control of your assets to another person in such a manner. What possessed you to do such a thing?’

      Jane’s head came up and her eyes blazed. Her blonde hair seemed to crackle around her shoulders with a life of its own.

      ‘Because I trusted him!’ she cried. ‘OK? I trusted him! He’s my father, for heaven’s sake. He wouldn’t do a thing like this to me.’

      ‘Wouldn’t he?’ asked Marc quietly.

      With a low groan Jane crossed to the fireplace and stood staring unseeingly into the leaping flames. Certain bitter memories of her mother came back to her.

      ‘Maybe he would,’ she admitted at last in a defeated voice. ‘Oh, not deliberately, I suppose. He’d feel certain that he was doing the right thing and he’d excuse it to himself somehow. Tell himself that he was going to make huge profits for me by putting it into some harebrained scheme of his own. My mother always complained that he ran through all her money before they split up. I used to think it was just bitterness, but now I’m not sure…Are you telling me that I’m financially ruined?’

      ‘Only if I go ahead with the purchase of this property,’ said Marc. ‘If I don’t, there’s a chance you might regain control of your assets.’

      Jane swung round.

      ‘Then don’t do it!’ she cried passionately. ‘Please, please don’t do it! You said yourself it’s an impressive little vineyard and I’ve worked hard on it. Don’t make me give it up.’

      Marc shook his head fastidiously.

      ‘Why should it matter to me?’ he asked.

       CHAPTER TWO

      ‘BECAUSE it’s a question of simple decency!’ cried Jane.

      Marc gave her a baffled look, as if he had never heard the word in his life.

      ‘I still don’t see what it has to do with me,’ he said dismissively. ‘Obviously, the first thing we need to do is phone your father tomorrow morning in New Zealand and find out exactly what the legal position is.’

      ‘Legal position!’ protested Jane. ‘That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it? The legal position! Don’t you have any feelings at all?’

      Marc’s face remained completely impassive. Only the eyes seemed alive—dark, brooding, thoughtful. But his face might have been carved out of granite for all the encouragement it gave her.

      ‘This is nothing but a business transaction to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve made an extremely generous payment to your father for the option to purchase this property. I’ve also had to make extensive arrangements in France to cover my absence in Australia for three months. Why should I throw away all that when there’s no certainty that I could even help you by doing so?’

      Jane gave a defeated sigh. He was quite right. Why should he? After all, it was her own stupid fault she was in this position, although that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Quite the reverse, in fact. She felt shaken, humiliated, betrayed. And instead of making some attempt to comfort her this unfeeling stranger simply stood there, staring at her as impassively as a judge.

      ‘What are you going to do with the place if you do buy it?’ she demanded accusingly. ‘Winemaking here is a lot different from in France.’

      He smiled with unexpected charm.

      ‘That’s half the attraction for me,’ he said. ‘I want to be one of the flying winemakers. It’s tremendous good luck that the seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres. By spending half the year in Europe and half the year in Australia I can have two vintages. Twice the chance to make superb wine, plus the best of French tradition and Australian innovation. It seems ideal to me.’

      ‘And you’re prepared to ruin me to do it?’ СКАЧАТЬ