Mistress On Loan. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ soon be demanding their money, and she had no means of paying them.

      She looked around her at the pleasant sitting room, with its familiar furniture and ornaments. They’d always been part of her life, but soon all of them could be lost for ever, along with the cottage, and the business.

      She was without illusions about what she could be facing. Bankruptcy was staring her in the face, and it would touch everyone around her too. Zelda and Smudge could end up homeless. And there were the women in the workroom as well, who thought they were in secure employment and had taken on extra obligations as a result.

      And all because she’d fallen in love.

      A sob rose in her throat.

      She’d trusted Piers and he’d defaulted, crudely and cruelly. Her name was on the empty account and the chequebook, and she was responsible. She had no contract or written guarantees. Nothing that could support her in law, even if Piers could be found.

      He’d arranged it that way, quite deliberately, and because she loved him she’d agreed. And her naivety could cost her everything.

      And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. Zelda had been openly unhappy about taking on such a big project that would absorb all Adrien’s time and energy.

      ‘People aren’t going to wait while you sort out the Grange,’ she’d argued. ‘They’ll go elsewhere. Tell people we’re never available. And word soon gets round. We shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket like this.’

      But she’d wanted to be totally involved in the Grange’s restoration, she thought achingly, because it was going to be her home, and she didn’t want anyone else imposing their ideas. Intruding on the idyll she was creating.

      Moving like an automaton, she went through to the kitchen, filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil. She needed some strong black coffee to clear her head while she made a list. She needed to know the entire extent of her obligations and also what work A to Z had in the pipeline.

      She would also have to go back and face Mr Davidson, as well as her own bank manager. Try and arrange an overdraft facility or a further loan. And then work her way out of trouble.

      She swallowed, aware that she had a hard furrow to plough.

      But she had to start somewhere. See if she could pull some of the irons out of the fire before Zelda and the others got to hear the rumours that would already be flying…

      They depend on me, and I can’t let them down, she thought, catching her breath convulsively. I can’t…

      She fetched a notepad and a pencil and began to write.

      In spite of her brave front, backed up by business suit and briefcase, all her worst fears had been confirmed by mid-afternoon.

      Her own bank manager, while sympathetic, had told her that her borrowing limit was already fully extended, and he couldn’t agree another loan. And Mr Davidson had sighed heavily, looking down his nose, and had asked how she proposed to pay off her present unauthorised overdraft.

      Even more dauntingly, both of them had recommended her to consult an insolvency expert ‘without delay’.

      She had also been reminded that, as the Grange now belonged to Haddon Developments, she was in effect squatting, and should remove her personal effects immediately and hand over her keys to Mr Haddon’s lawyers, Frencham and Co, in the High Street.

      So there was no reprieve, Adrien thought as she climbed wearily back into her Jeep. And the execution would take place as scheduled. She was shaking inwardly, and her facial muscles ached from the effort of hanging on to her self-control.

      In a few short hours she had been transformed from a girl happily in charge of her own life, with a successful business and a future with the man she loved, into some kind of grotesque puppet, capable of movement only when someone else jerked the strings.

      And the worst part of it all—the realisation that flayed her skin and made her stomach quiver with nausea—was that Chay Haddon was the one holding the strings.

      And each time she’d encountered him he’d brought trauma with him, she thought shivering.

      What in the world could have brought him back? That was what she couldn’t understand. Because his own memories of the Grange could hardly be happy ones. The housekeeper’s son, she thought, who’d been sent off to boarding school for marooning her in a tree, then banished from the house for ever for stealing her garnet pendant.

      Was he seeking some kind of posthumous revenge on Angus Stretton, who’d been responsible for exiling him from the house and had also, in the aftermath, sacked his mother, who’d given such quiet and faithful service for so many years.

      If so, there was a real sickness there, she thought, wrapping her arms protectively around her body.

      But it was a comprehensive and sweeping retribution that he was exacting. Piers had lost his inheritance, and she—she was facing financial ruin.

      As he was already well aware, she realised, recalling his jibe about her creditors. He knew exactly what he was doing. The thief had returned as a robber baron, and this time he’d stolen her whole life.

      She wanted to run and hide. Seek some dark corner where no one would ever find her. But she couldn’t do that. She had to be strong—to stand her ground and fight back with whatever weapons she could get.

      But first she had to say farewell to the Grange. She still couldn’t deal with the more personal loss, although she’d have to do so soon. She’d have to admit that Piers had deserted her and married someone else. Endure the inevitable gossip and speculation. Local people were kind, but only human, and her downfall would be sensational stuff. Plus, there would be resentment from those who’d worked on the Grange, and were owed money as a result.

      When businesses went bust there was often a knock-on effect, and the local economy couldn’t afford it, she thought worriedly.

      Gordon and his sub-contractors would be the main victims.

      I’ll pay them back somehow, she vowed silently. Even it takes the rest of my life.

      A life that stretched before her as bleak and empty as a desert—and, she realised, with a pang, just as dangerous.

      The Grange looked beautiful in the late-afternoon sun, the mellow brickwork glowing.

      Adrien swallowed past the sudden constriction in her throat and drove round to the side of the house.

      To her limitless relief, there were no other vehicles around.

      Don’t look too closely at anything, she adjured herself, as she left the Jeep. You can’t afford to be emotional. Not yet. Just grab your things and get out while the going’s good.

      Usually when she walked across the wide entrance hall, and up the sweep of oak staircase, she felt all the pride of ownership glowing inside her. Today she couldn’t even afford a glimmer of satisfaction in a job well done.

      Because Chay Haddon wasn’t just getting a house. He was getting all the heart and soul that she’d poured into it. All the love.

      And she was СКАЧАТЬ