Separate Rooms. Diana Hamilton

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      CHAPTER TWO

      OFFER? What offer? What had he meant?

      ‘Sorry?’ Honey had to drag her mind away from that strange conversation with Ben and forcibly concentrate on what her mother was saying. For the second time, obviously.

      ‘I was asking you, if you can be bothered to show an interest, whether you thought I’d enjoy a Mediterranean cruise more than my usual quiet three weeks in Bournemouth this year.’ Said with barbed patience.

      Avril Ballantyne, a well preserved fifty, her expensively tinted pale brown hair worn in the style favoured by the older members of the royal family, clad in a well pedigreed lightweight tweed skirt topped by an oyster silk shirt, looked completely at home in her conventionally furnished luxury bungalow on the outskirts of town, the only jarring notes being the faint frown line between the hazel eyes, the permanently petulant droop of her mouth. Brought on, Honey guessed, by having a daughter who insisted upon being unsatisfactory.

      ‘Why not try the cruise?’ she suggested, feeling guilty and hating it. The least she could do while she was here was give her mother her undivided attention, forget Ben Claremont and his supposed solution to her problems and the offer that, apparently, was part of it. ‘It would make a change; you’ve been to Bournemouth for the last five years running.’

      ‘Well—’ the droop of the mouth became more pronounced ‘—it would be nice to have a change. But I’ve grown used to the permanent staff at my hotel in Bournemouth and I know the town like the back of my hand—all the decent shops and so forth. Little things like that are important when one is on one’s own.’

      Honey swallowed a sigh and offered brightly, ‘Why don’t you ask Henry to go on the cruise with you? You’ve always got on well together and he hasn’t had a holiday since Moira died—and that was four years ago.’

      ‘Oh—’ Avril fluttered her beautifully manicured hands ‘—I don’t know whether I feel up to organising such a venture...’ and let her voice tail off into vague confusion.

      Honey stared at her, her eyes wide. Her mother had a talent for organising everything and everyone around her that was almost unbelievable. She had turned it into an art form. The only thing she hadn’t been able to organise was the way Honey chose to run her life. And her mother picked herself out of her apparent distressed confusion, saying, ‘I don’t know why you should think Henry, not to mention myself, could begin to think about taking a holiday when your behaviour recently is hurting and worrying us so much,’ and Honey decided cynically that all roads led to Rome, didn’t they just, her mouth tightening as Avril ploughed on, ‘Henry simply can’t understand why you’re treating his son so badly. And frankly, my dear, neither can I. Any normal young woman would jump at the chance of marrying into the Trent family,’ she stated, her voice beginning to rise. ‘Graham has so much to offer. I can’t think what you’ve got against him. He’s exceedingly good-looking and very steady. He’d make a wonderful husband and father, and—’

      ‘I’m sure he would,’ Honey cut in, sick to death of the topic. ‘Only I don’t want him. Call me abnormal if it makes you feel any better. But I don’t love him.’ She was trying hard not to lose her temper, an exercise that was probably good for her soul, she tried to tell herself, and forced a bland smile as she rose to her feet, offering, ‘I’ll clear away the lunch things while you relax.’ Escaping to the kitchen to do the dishes would be easier to bear than listening to her mother going on and on about Graham, wouldn’t it just? ‘And then how about we go for a drive in the country? We could finish up with a meal out somewhere, my treat.’

      Recalling the way Ben had said he’d pick her up at seven, she gave a tiny sigh. He had sounded so definite about it, so sure of her compliance. He’d have a long wait, but that wasn’t her fault. If he chose to disregard the way she’d explained about her regular Sunday visits to her mother then he couldn’t blame her if he had a wasted evening, could he?

      Even so, there was an emptiness in her she couldn’t quite define as she tackled her usual Sunday afternoon chore but she plastered a warm smile on her face as she stowed the last of the dishes away and headed back to the lounge.

      ‘Ready? Where would you like to go?’ It was a lovely spring afternoon and anything would be better than sitting here enduring the inevitable disapproving monologues. A pootle round the countryside might take her mother’s mind off the way her only daughter chose to ‘work in a shop’, the way she obstinately refused to ‘settle down decently with Graham and do the right thing by her dear dead father’s company’. As if her father would have scorned her chosen career! He had always advised her to decide what she wanted and then go out and get it. And it was he who had taught her to love and respect the world of antiques, taught her to identify the excellent from the merely good, the acceptable from the dross.

      ‘I don’t feel like going anywhere.’ Avril laid aside her glossy magazine and put a plump hand on her bosom. ‘As you know, I haven’t been feeling well just lately—all this worry over the business...’ Her voice tailed off pathetically and Honey sighed and sank down on to the end of the over-stuffed settee.

      ‘The business is fine, as you very well know,’ she pointed out. ‘Henry and Graham see to that. Henry’s brainwashed you into thinking that the only thing that can hold it together is a marriage between your sole offspring. And the only thing that’s worrying you is my refusal to do as I’m told. That, and your desire to have a daughter who sits quietly at home, properly married to her husband’s career, bearing his children and entertaining his business colleagues and golfing cronies and ironing his bloody shirts!’ Her voice had risen and she made an effort to rein in her temper, explaining more quietly, ‘And the only thing that’s worrying Henry is the shares Dad left me. Henry himself holds fifty per cent and you and I the other fifty between us. And, at the moment, you never question any of his decisions and neither do I because I don’t know a component from a carpet sweeper. Your loyalty to his management will never be in any question, he knows that. But mine? Who knows? I might decide to sell my shares, mightn’t I? The premises next to my shop will be going on the market within the next month or so. I would like to expand. I need to expand—’

      ‘You wouldn’t!’ The powerfully indignant protest gave lie to the earlier excuses of ill health and Honey bit back a smile, shaking her head.

      ‘Only if I could find the right buyer, someone with BallanTrent’s best interests at heart. And admit it—’ she fixed her parent with a level look ‘—that’s what Henry’s so afraid of, isn’t it? He wants BallanTrent kept entirely under his control, in the family. That’s why he’s been bleating on about marriage for the last twelve months. Don’t forget, he told me himself that when—when, mind you, not if—Graham and I married the shares I own would come under his control because, as he piously pointed out, I had no knowledge of the business. And that,’ she ground out, aware that her volatile temper was threatening to explode, ‘would have been enough to make me dig my heels in and refuse to do any such thing—even if I had been head over heels in love with his dull son!’

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