For One Night. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t listening, he was looking at her with a thoughtful expression on his face.

      “My dear Miss Johnson,” he exclaimed with a beam. “I think I may have the ideal solution. Only very recently, a cotrustee came to see me on behalf of a mutual friend—now deceased, alas. I was brought up near Hereford, and have retained some ties there. My client owned a small bookshop in a Herefordshire market town.

      “She died several months ago—both the property and the business are extremely run down—I am an executor of her estate, as indeed is the gentleman who came to see me.

      “Since there is no one to inherit, it has been decided that the property will be put on the market. I must warn you, though, that since both the living and shop premises constitute a listed building, certain restrictions are imposed on their alterations and development.”

      Diana listened to him in silence. A bookshop. It was something she had never thought of doing … But she had the contacts … and the knowledge … and her years with the television company had given her a keen insight into marketing and selling techniques.

      A tiny glimmer of excitement flickered to life inside her.

      “Are you suggesting that I might buy the business and the building?” she asked Mr. Soames.

      “Heppleton Magna is an extremely pretty market town, on the River Wye. None of my family live there now, but I have fond memories of the place, and I still have several clients there. If you are interested I could arrange for you to see the premises.”

      Diana thought quickly and made up her mind before her courage could desert her.

      “I’d love to see it, Mr. Soames.”

      Before she left his office, she had arranged to visit the shop with him later in the week.

      “I shall telephone you with the exact details. My coexecutor is out of the country at the moment—on business, buying bulls I believe. He is a farmer, so I shall have to accompany you myself, if that’s agreeable.”

      THREE DAYS LATER they went, and Diana fell in love almost immediately with Heppleton Magna and its surrounds.

      The town was more of a large village, with red brick Queen Anne buildings surrounding the town square, and narrow wobbly lanes leading off it, where Tudor houses with overhanging upper casements pressed closely together. The shop was down at the bottom of one of these lanes.

      Inside, the rooms showed the signs of neglect that came from having an elderly, proud owner who, according to Mr. Soames, had refused to allow her friends to help her.

      “She was in hospital for the last few months of her life, but she still refused to hand over the keys to anyone. You can see the results,” he added with a faint sigh, pointing out damp patches where water had seeped through the leaking roof.

      The kitchen and bathroom in the living quarters were apallingly basic, and the bookshop itself, so dark and dim that Diana was not surprised to see from the accounts that over the last few years its takings had dropped drastically.

      Even so she had fallen in love with the place; in a strange way it seemed to reach out to embrace and welcome her.

      They would be happy here, she and her child.

      The house was in the middle of a block of three and it had a long back garden running down to the river. Beyond the river stretched endless fields; and she had already ascertained that there were plenty of schools and other facilities in the area. She and her child could settle down here and put out firm roots. She remembered with love and gratitude her own childhood in the Yorkshire Dales. Engrossed in her own thoughts, she scarcely heard what Mr. Soames was saying to her. Not that it mattered a great deal. She had already made up her mind. Just as soon as it could be arranged she was going to move down here.

      On the way back to London she found herself wishing that Leslie could have been here to share the excitement with her. Unhappiness shadowed her eyes momentarily; and then she reflected that had it not been for Leslie’s death she would not be making these plans, because there would have been no child to plan for. This child was nature’s way of compensating her for the friend she had lost. She felt no guilt or remorse about the way her baby had been conceived. She had shut the night and the man out of her mind. They had no place in this new life she was making for herself. They had met and parted as strangers. For the first and last time in her life she had acted out of character. Indeed, sometimes she wondered, rather fancifully, if a higher authority had perhaps directed her actions that night. Certainly it was not the sort of thing she had ever previously contemplated doing; nor would do again. And equally certain was the fact that she had had no deliberate intention of conceiving—but she had. She touched her stomach gently and turned to Mr. Soames.

      “You will get everything sorted out as quickly as possible, won’t you?” she asked him.

      “Well, if you’re sure, my dear. I’ll have to have the agreement of my cotrustee, of course. He should be back within the next few days. I’ll get in touch with him just as soon as he is.”

      Diana wasn’t listening. The property would be hers; instinctively she knew it. It was just as meant to be as her conception had been ….

      The move to Heppleton Magna was accomplished smoothly and easily. In anticipation of the baby’s birth and the life she would soon lead, Diana had traded in her small nippy runabout for a much sturdier and larger estate car.

      The flat she and Leslie had shared had been sold, and with it the modern, designer furniture they had chosen together. All she had kept had been various photographs and keepsakes. She wanted her child to grow up knowing her friend.

      She had already transported most of her clothes and bits and pieces down to Herefordshire, and she paused beneath the window of the flat to say a final goodbye to it, before getting into her car.

      A shaft of sunlight caught the bright gold of the wedding ring she was wearing, and she touched it lightly, her mouth curling in a wryly amused smile.

      Perhaps it was wrong of her to pretend she was a widow, but the country wasn’t London, where single parents were almost the norm. Heppleton Magna had a predominantly elderly population, and she had no intention of allowing her child to grow up under the shadow of their disapproval.

      Of course, there would come a time when he or she would ask about its father. Quite what she would say she had no idea. It would be difficult to make anyone understand the force that had driven her that night. She wasn’t sure she understood it properly herself, and she was sometimes inclined to wonder if her behaviour hadn’t at least in part been motivated by that extremely large gin and tonic she had consumed, on top of a sleeping pill.

      It wasn’t important now, now it had happened, she told herself firmly. She was on the brink of starting a new life; it was time to put the past well and truly behind her.

      She didn’t rush the journey—after all, there was plenty of time. She stopped off for a leisurely lunch and arrived at her new home late in the afternoon. A heavy workload at the TV station had meant that she had had no time to spare to furnish or equip her new home before leaving London so she had taken the precaution of booking herself into the local pub for a couple of weeks.

      Because her new property was a listed building there were certain rules and regulations she would have to abide by in any alterations and improvements she had carried out, but luckily she had discovered a building firm locally who specialized in renovation СКАЧАТЬ