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The Trouble with Trent!
Jessica Steele


Separate bedrooms?When Trent de Havilland waltzed into Alethea's life, it was a relief to have some adult male company for a change. Her mother, sister and three young nieces were driving her mad and she was desperate to leave home. Then Trent suggested she move in with him….No way! She hardly knew him and any man who made her feel like he did was bound to be trouble! But it was part of the deal if Trent was to help her sister out, and soon Alethea had no option–she couldn't let her family down. Yet Alethea knew she couldn't live with Trent for long–or else their temporary houseshare would become a permanent bedshare!







“I want you to come and live with me.” (#uc7ffe4fe-c171-57e2-97f4-8305c10c3cb3)About the Author (#u20c219a4-c5d0-5db0-ac5d-7d5beb55ddc9)Title Page (#u317fe4f2-2640-5c28-9abd-0600f5fa6bb2)CHAPTER ONE (#u2fa23141-5e8e-59d9-bf9e-deb0372349e7)CHAPTER TWO (#u8f7f5223-00b0-5249-b5cc-5ff8a253c561)CHAPTER THREE (#uf1dbc0a8-20db-58e3-8dd2-31783fa0b521)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


“I want you to come and live with me.”

Alethea stared at him. “You’re not serious?” she managed.

“Don’t you know that you’re a very desirable woman?” he asked.

She swallowed. “You mean—er—live with you, with—er—bed, and everything?”

Trent eyed her steadily. “Everything,” he confirmed.

“But I don’t want to go to bed with you!” she cried in panic.

“You don’t have to.” Her heart leapt in relief, until he added two ghastly words: “Straight away.”


Jessica Steele lives in a friendly English village with her husband, Peter, and a boisterous, manic but adorable bull terrier dog called Florence. It was Peter who first prompted Jessica to try writing and, after the first rejection, encouraged her to keep on trying. Luckity—with the exception of Uruguay—she has so far managed to research inside all the countries in which she has set her books. Her thanks go to Peter for his help and encouragement.




The Trouble With Trent!

Jessica Steele







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


CHAPTER ONE

ALETHEA was in her bedroom, unsure that she wanted to go to the party. She was not a party animal. A shrill, high-pitched scream rent the air—she changed her mind. Perhaps a party would be preferable to staying home and listening to her niece’s temper tantrums. It had all been so peaceful—once!

Up until a month ago life had meandered along at a fairly routine pace. Then, without so much as a warning phone call, her sister Maxine had left her husband.

Alethea had been twelve years old when her sister, her senior by six years, had married Keith Lawrence. ‘It won’t last!’ her mother had proclaimed, not at all in favour of the match. But it had—for ten years.

Then Maxine was back home, and her mother was triumphant. After the children had been tucked up into hurriedly made beds, Maxine had revealed how her husband had confessed that he had been stealing from the firm he worked for.

‘I’m not a bit surprised!’ her mother had stated bluntly. ‘I always knew he was shiftless! That he’s a crook as well is all part and parcel of the man!’

At which Maxine had started crying, and then her two-year-old, Polly, who should have been fast asleep, started screaming. Before they knew it, seven-year-old Sadie and five-year-old Georgia were out of bed and coming downstairs, in tears, crying that they wanted to go home.

‘Your home is here with Nanna now, darlings.’ Their grandmother poured oil on troubled waters, and it took all of an hour to get the children settled again.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Maxine fretted when the three of them were in the drawing room again. ‘Keith’s hoping to pay the money back before the theft is discovered. He’s putting the house up for sale and...’

‘He’s selling the house!’ Eleanor Pemberton exclaimed. ‘He’s stolen as much as that?’

‘We don’t own the house yet. There’s a heavy mortgage on it. But there should still be enough in the difference to repay what he took.’

‘Why did he take the money in the first place? He knew it wasn’t his to take. He was in a trusted position at SEC. He...’

It then transpired that Keith selling their home to discharge his criminal activity was not the sole reason for Maxine leaving him.

‘He’s having an affair...’

‘Typical! And you the mother of his three children!’ Mrs Pemberton steamrollered in before Maxine could finish. ‘Men!’ she scorned—and went off on her favourite theme of males, their fickleness and how there was not one to be trusted.

Alethea’s father had left home when she was ten to go and live with someone else. Alethea had grown up having the evils of men being drummed into her daily.

‘It’s not the first time,’ Maxine went on. She had a right, Alethea supposed, to sound as bitter as her mother.

‘Are you listening to this, Alethea?’ Eleanor Pemberton demanded.

‘Every word,’ Alethea replied quietly. Her mother’s warning about men was there in every look and every sentence. ‘Which is why I decided on a career.’

Later that night, the house was, for the moment, silent, and Alethea had space to consider how best she might help her sister. Maxine was a lovely person and it just wasn’t right that any man should use her so.

But sympathy on its own would not be much help. It was fortunate that the house had four bedrooms so, with two-year-old Polly sleeping in Maxine’s room, and Sadie and Georgia—protesting loudly—sharing another, they were still fairly comfortable.

Alethea was up early the next morning. They lived on the outskirts of London and it was an hour’s drive to her office. As usual she took her mother a cup of tea before she left. She contemplated taking Maxine one too. But remembering toddler Polly’s screams of the night before—the tot seemed incapable of doing anything at low decibels—she thought that, on balance, Maxine might prefer her not to enter her room and so disturb the sleeping child.

‘Is there anything you need?’ she had asked her mother.

‘I expect Maxine and I will take the girls out for an airing. We’ll get anything we need then,’ her mother replied. Then her disapproval of men surfaced again. ‘I would hope Maxine’s learned her lesson after this. My g—’

Alethea could see that her mother was coiling herself up, ready to give forth on the iniquities of the male species. ‘I shall have to go—we’re very busy at the office just now.’

They had been too. Alethea worked for Gale Drilling International, a huge company. And, at twenty-two, after two years’ training and two years as a secretary, she had recently been promoted to Assistant to Hector Chapman’s PA, Carol Robinson.

Hector Chapman, for all he was in charge of the whole concern, had a human side to him and was a pleasure to work for. He and Ursula, his wife, were celebrating their silver wedding anniversary in a month’s time.

Alethea and Carol, as well as sending out invitations to the dance and buffet, to which they were also invited, were busy in the background dealing with the hotel where the event was to be held, making bookings for long-lost aunts and uncles and dealing with florists. In addition to their other work, they were making sure that nothing could go wrong.

Alethea went home after another exhausting but stimulating day to find that the house, which last night she had considered ‘fairly comfortable’ for the six of them, had undergone something of a change. Maxine’s furniture had arrived.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Maxine asked anxiously as she followed Alethea into her bedroom.

Alethea stared at her once roomy bedroom, which now housed an extra wardrobe, a couple of easy chairs and a sofa. Sympathy, she recalled thinking less than twenty-four hours ago, would not be of much help.

‘Of course I don’t,’ she answered stoutly. ‘I’m—er—just a bit surprised. I had an idea furniture removers took an age to organise.’

‘You know Mother. She hired a van, and got the chap who comes to do the garden to bring his pal and do some heavy carrying. Sadie droned on endlessly at breakfast about having to share a bed with Georgia, so Mother said it was common sense to go and fetch their two beds and anything else I might need, before Keith sold the furniture as well as the house.’

‘I didn’t see why he should let his other woman have any of the stuff that Maxine’s cared for all these years.’ Eleanor Pemberton joined them in the bedroom.

Alethea could just see it: no doubt her mother had gone to Maxine’s house, taken a look around—and taken charge!

A month later, they could barely move for furniture. Because in their own adequately furnished house they now had what Alethea was sure must be the entire contents of Maxine’s home. Barking one’s shins against something or other became an everyday hazard.

And still Polly’s screaming went on. There was nothing wrong with the child apparently, except temper—she had the lungs of an opera singer in her prime.

Time to party! Alethea stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror. Honest violet eyes stared back at her. She skimmed her glance over her blonde hair, which fell straight to her chin and then just turned under.

Was her dress too short? She had few party clothes and had bought this dress specifically for Mr and Mrs Chapman’s anniversary party. It was a violet-blue that matched her eyes. She had good legs, long legs—but the dress had not seemed so short in the shop. Only now, in the privacy of her room, did it seem a shade on the skimpy side. Perfectly plain, with narrow shoulder straps, it was cut to flare gently from the hips.

She was just assuring herself that perhaps she had made a good choice after all when her bedroom door opened. Privacy? It was a thing of the past. Her seven-year-old niece came in.

‘Sorry,’ Sadie apologised. She was rather a nice child when she wasn’t complaining. ‘I didn’t know you were changing.’

‘I’m changed.’ Alethea smiled.

‘You’re going to your party in your petticoat?’

Oh, grief! Alethea was just about to die when her sister came in. ‘Out!’ Maxine instructed her daughter.

‘Sadie thinks this dress looks like a petticoat,’ Alethea panicked.

‘Rot! You’ll see shorter skirts there,’ Maxine told her bracingly.

To Alethea’s relief, Maxine was proved right. In fact, given that the hem was inches above her knees, her dress looked positively decorous beside the thigh-length outfits that some were wearing.

Alethea had called for Carol Robinson on her way, and both Mr and Mrs Chapman had greeted them warmly when they arrived at the hotel. ‘You’re not on duty tonight—you’re here to enjoy yourself,’ Hector Chapman had reminded them.

It was fun chatting to all and sundry, Alethea discovered. Fun being able to put faces to names on the invitation list Mrs Chapman had given her. Fun to dance without the remotest inclination to be more involved.

Carol Robinson was fun too. Alethea knew Carol was thirty-three and dedicated to her work but was amazed when, during a medley of dances that went back to before the flood, someone asked Carol to Charleston with him—and she agreed.

My giddy aunt! Alethea’s lovely violet eyes widened. Never had she suspected Carol of such expertise! She was so superbly efficient in the office, Alethea had never guessed her capable of letting her hair down to this degree.

Unbeknown to her, Alethea wore a gentle smile as she glanced away from the dancers. She looked up to her right—and her breath caught. There, about ten yards away, was one person, she discovered, who was not watching the dancing. He was tall, dark-haired, somewhere in his mid-thirties, and was staring at her!

Hurriedly Alethea looked back to where Carol was still showing no sign of flagging. But this time Carol’s flashing feet had less of an impact on Alethea. Who was he? Why was he watching her and not the dancers? And for how long had he been watching her?

Somehow, for all that she had not exchanged so much as a single word with the man, Alethea felt shaken by having met him. Rot, she admonished herself, not ready to believe it. Yet...

Just then the music ended and a breathless Carol headed her way. ‘Whew! I’m hot. I’m going for a drink. Can I get you something?’ she offered.

Alethea declined and, as if by some magnetic pull, felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to look to her right to see if the tall, dark-haired man was still there. It took a very determined effort not to.

She gave her attention to the MC, who was announcing that the next dance in the selection would be a Viennese waltz. Alethea then discovered that the man who, a few minutes earlier, had been watching her was standing right in front of her.

She was tall but she still had to look up. Her honest violet eyes met his dark ones, and her heart, for some reason, did a little somersault.

‘Are you going to dance with me?’ he asked. He had a warm, rather pleasant kind of voice.

‘I don’t...’ she began.

‘You don’t know me.’ With a hint of a smile he finished what she had not been going to say! Clearly he was a man who had no time for obstacles in his way, for he straightway rectified that omission. ‘Trent de Havilland,’ he introduced himself.

De Havilland rang a bell. She’d typed it on one of the invitation envelopes. ‘How do you do?’ she found herself murmuring.

‘And you are?’

Alethea had been brought up to be wary of men, but they were in a crowded room, for goodness’ sake. And while Trent de Havilland was sophisticated to the nth degree, he was hardly likely to carry her off to his evil lair in front of everyone.

‘Alethea Pemberton,’ she answered quickly, starting to feel she was no end of a fool for delaying so long.

That hint of a smile on his well-formed mouth grew. ‘And where do you come from, Alethea Pemberton?’ he wanted to know.

Alethea was backed up against a brick wall of caution. But she felt it was fairly safe to reveal, ‘I work in Mr Chapman’s office.’

‘There, now we know all about each other,’ he commented, when in fact all she knew about him was his name. ‘Let’s dance.’

‘I don’t dance.’ She stopped him quickly before he could guide her to the dance area.

‘How could you lie to me?’ he reproached teasingly, not moving, just standing there looking down at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised at once, realising he might have caught a glimpse of her dancing already. ‘What I meant to say...’ she went on. At work she was unflappable, at home she was unflappable, so why, all of a sudden, standing here with this man, was she getting all confused? ‘What I meant to say was, that I don’t Viennese waltz. I can’t.’

Trent de Havilland leaned back. ‘Can you count to six?’ he enquired. It seemed her apology was accepted, because, without waiting for her to reply, he caught her elbow in a firm hold and took her to the dance area.

Nervousness made Alethea fumble over the first few steps but, after less than ten seconds’ tuition, she was floating. Trent de Havilland was holding her firmly, neither too close nor too far away, his right hand steady at her back, his left hand clasping her right as he guided her elegantly over the floor.

Round and around they went, in perfect rhythm with the music. There was something magical about it. Alethea felt as if she were in another era, dressed not in some violet slip of a dress, but in some magnificent ball gown and bejewelled.

What Trent de Havilland was thinking or feeling she had not the smallest clue, because while other couples circling the floor were in occasional conversation, he didn’t say a word.

Someone almost cannoned into them. Trent pulled her closer. She caught her breath again, indeed, felt the oddest difficulty in breathing at all as he held her against him for long seconds after he had drawn her out of harm’s way.

She looked up into his dark eyes. It was as if no one else existed, as if it were just the two of them. His eyes, those warm, dark eyes, seemed to search down into her very soul.

Some small sound escaped her—she didn’t know what to say. Her lips parted and he transferred his gaze down from her eyes. She felt his hand on her back pulling her close to him, and her whole body tingled.

Then the music stopped. Alethea had been aware of it, but abruptly snapped out of her trance-like state.

She realised too that her partner was no longer holding her. He had taken a step away. She searched for something to say—a murmured ‘thank you’ would have done. But she felt too tongue-tied to say anything. A moment later she discovered that comments from her were not required. Because, without saying one word himself, Trent de Havilland once more touched a hand to her elbow and escorted her off the floor. And—still silent—went striding from her view.

‘I didn’t know you could Viennese waltz!’ Carol exclaimed, appearing from nowhere, while Alethea was still striving to come back to earth.

‘Your Charleston beat everything into a cocked hat!’ Alethea somehow found the wit to respond.

Alethea did not see Trent de Havilland again that evening. Not that she consciously looked for him—it was just that he wasn’t around. Perhaps he’d just looked in out of courtesy, stayed for one dance, and then legged it out of there to follow his more normal Saturday night pursuits. Not that she was in the least interested, anyhow!

At midnight Carol asked her how she felt about leaving. ‘Fine by me,’ Alethea replied, and, after exchanging a few pleasantries with their hosts, they said their goodbyes. Alethea dropped Carol off on the way to her own home.

‘Nice party?’ Maxine enquired the next morning. Thinking about it, Alethea realised that, yes, it had been. ‘Very nice,’ she replied.

‘Anyone special there?’ Maxine wanted to know.

Why Alethea should have a sudden picture in her mind’s eye of tall, dark, sophisticated Trent de Havilland, she couldn’t have said. But she did not have time to wonder for long, because her mother, acid in every syllable, butted in to chide, ‘If by “special” you mean some man, then I hope to Heaven that Alethea has more sense!’

‘There wasn’t anyone special there,’ Alethea denied mildly. But, ridiculously, she found she wanted to smile as a voice in her ear reproached, How could you lie...?

The rest of the day passed off noisily—with only a short period of quiet when, exhausted, Polly had a nap. Alethea’s two older nieces were quite interesting when they weren’t squabbling. But she was glad to see Monday. Somehow, for all that life in the office was most often hectic, it seemed more tranquil than home.

She drove to work musing, at first not very seriously, that perhaps she should consider moving out. Maybe find a flat somewhere. Then, staying with the notion, she realised that there seemed to be a lot going for it. Maxine had seen neither hide nor hair of her husband since she had left him. They were in telephone communication; she knew that. Maxine shed floods of tears when she rang Keith, often about the non-appearance of the maintenance money he kept promising but which never materialised.

But it was all of a month now since Maxine had left him and had she had any thoughts of going back to him, then Alethea felt she would have seen some sign of them by now.

Life at home went from her mind the moment she arrived at the office she shared with Carol. There was the usual buzz about the place and, as ever, they were busy.

Carol was closeted with Mr Chapman around mid-afternoon when Alethea looked at the ‘Celebrations’ file she had opened to check what accounts might be outstanding. She came across the guest list.

Without fully realising what she was doing, she skimmed her gaze over the names. She halted at de Havilland. Halted, and paused for some moments, for while almost every other invitation had been sent to couples, the invitation to the man who had so elegantly waltzed her around the dance floor had been sent to Trent alone. ‘Mr Trenton de Havilland,’ she read—and was back in his arms, back on the dance floor, the music was playing, the...

‘Have you time to do this for me?’ Carol, who clearly had more than enough to do, if the paperwork in her hands was anything to go by, brought Alethea quickly back to earth.

‘Of course,’ she smiled obligingly, and went home that evening a little later than normal, but satisfied with her day.

She let herself in; the house was noisy. It seemed that the children were as boundlessly energetic and as vocal as ever. She earned herself another bruise as she knocked into a chest of drawers that stood in the hall simply because there was no other place to put it—and found she was again thinking, a little more seriously this time, that perhaps it might not be such a bad idea after all to find somewhere else to live.

Despite Polly being such a bad-tempered child, there was something quite loveable about her. She had such a beam of a smile, that it had them all forgiving her every misdeed. But there was no sign of that smile about her later in the evening when, around eight-thirty, she was brought downstairs so as not to disturb Sadie and Georgia who were already asleep. Polly had decided that she wasn’t going to go to sleep. She yelled and screamed, and held her breath, and quite terrified Alethea lest she never breathed again. So that when, at last, she finally exhausted herself and did fall asleep, the adults were feeling very much frazzled.

‘You must be hating like crazy the fact that we moved in and shattered the peace and calm of your life,’ Maxine opined as she flopped in a chair and gratefully accepted the cup of coffee Alethea handed her.

‘Nonsense!’ her mother decried stoutly. Alethea knew she never had wanted Maxine to leave home in the first place and was delighted to have her back again. Her mother was impervious, it seemed, to the chaos about her.

The phone rang and Maxine went to get up. ‘I’ll get it,’ Alethea volunteered, instructing herself to be polite if it was her uncaring brother-in-law calling to tell his wife why he wasn’t able to pay her any maintenance this week either.

But the call wasn’t for Maxine, nor was it for her mother. ‘Hello,’ Alethea said, into the receiver.

She went hot all over when, after a moment’s pause, a firm voice answered pleasantly, ‘Hello, Alethea, Trent de Havilland.’

She’d known that—even though she could not believe it. She had just known that it was his voice. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said lightly, and, feeling confused and jumbled up again and totally unlike her real self, asked, ‘What can I do for you?’

Perhaps he needed Mr Chapman’s home number to ring and thank him for Saturday, or something of that sort.

That, it transpired, was not the reason for Trent’s call. Her unflappable self disappeared when he came straight to the point of his call: ‘I’d like you to have dinner with me tomorrow. Are you free?’ he asked.

Alethea opened her mouth. ‘I...’ she began. Half of her head still believed this was a business call and she almost asked, In what connection? Rapidly she got herself together. Only he jumped in before she could formulate the words she wanted—in truth she didn’t know what they were!

‘Good,’ Trent stated, and, continuing every bit as if she had just accepted his invitation, he said, ‘I’ll call for you at seven.’

Alethea came rapidly out of the confusion his call had instigated. ‘Presumably you know where I live?’ she questioned faintly.

‘Goodnight,’ he said, and the phone went dead. Alethea stared at the receiver in her hand with astonishment. Had she just agreed to go out with the man who, it had to be admitted, seemed to have a knack of disturbing her previously unflappable self?

Apparently she had. Though, from what she could remember, he had given her very little chance to refuse.


CHAPTER TWO

BY MORNING Alethea had decided that she would ring Trent de Havilland and tell him that she was not going to go to dinner with him. She would tell him that she had been so surprised by his call, she hadn’t had a chance to recall a prior engagement. Into her mind loomed the thought of another evening of Polly deciding she did not want to go to sleep and, what was more, she was never going to steep—and if she wasn’t ever going to go to sleep, the whole world was going to hear about it.

Hating herself for thinking that it would be quite nice to have a tantrum-free evening, Alethea took her mother a cup of tea and went to her office, where she found time during the day only to discover that Trenton de Havilland’s home phone number wasn’t listed. With Mr Chapman dashing to various meetings, she had no chance to ask him if he had Trent’s number. Or, failing that, if Mr Chapman knew where Trenton de Havilland worked.

‘Bye, Alethea,’ Carol said when they parted in the car park twenty minutes after five.

‘Bye,’ Alethea smiled, and drove home with her tummy all of a flutter. She had been out on dates before, but only with men she had known for some while—and never with any man like Trent!

‘Dinner will be late,’ her mother greeted her. ‘We’ve had such a day of it.’

‘Polly playing up?’ Alethea guessed.

‘She’s been as good as gold.’ Her mother purred as if the high voltage tot had never ever known a temper tantrum. ‘We went to the house—it hasn’t been sold yet—and he was there.’

‘Keith?’

‘Who else? He’s been suspended.’

‘SEC have found out about the missing money?’ Her mother nodded. ‘They’re investigating. I couldn’t resist telling him a few home truths. He called me an interfering old bat! Can you imagine?’

There was more in the same vein. Eleanor Pemberton only broke off momentarily when Maxine came into the room, looking as if she’d been crying. Alethea guessed that her sister had heard more than enough of what her mother had to say on the subject of her husband, and broke in quickly, ‘Actually, I’m going out to dinner this evening, so I won’t be needing—’

‘With Carol?’ her mother asked sharply, her thoughts swiftly taken away from the man her other daughter had married.

‘No—er—a—an acquaintance.’

‘A male acquaintance?’ her mother fired at her before she could add more. ‘You never did get round to saying who phoned last night—is it him?’

‘Yes, actually.’

‘Hrmph,’ her mother grunted. ‘Do I know him?’ was the next question. Alethea had been through the third degree on several occasions before.

‘I’ll introduce you; he’s calling for me at seven,’ she replied, and quickly made her escape to go and shower and change, and to wonder why if, as she told herself, she did not want to go out with Mr Trenton de Havilland, she should feel so churned up; somehow she was very wary, yet at the same time she was experiencing a prickle of excitement at the prospect.

Alethea found it a rush to be ready on time. Sadie and Georgia came in to help—which added another five minutes.

A high-pitched squabble broke out between the two little girls when they both wanted to use her face powder at the same time. However, having separated them and placated them with a spray of perfume behind their ears, Alethea and her two ‘helpers’ finally left her room with one minute to go before seven.

She knew that, good manners aside, there was no way in which she was going to be able to avoid introducing her escort to her family, but she was hopeful of making that introduction as brief as possible.

It was not that she was ashamed of her family in any way. It was just that Trenton de Havilland was a very sophisticated man. She wanted him out of there before her mother attempted to give him the grilling which had been the fate of her other escorts.

‘Aunt Alethea gave us a squirt with her perfume...’ The girls rushed ahead of her into the sitting room—and stopped dead.

A prickle of apprehension had already started along Alethea’s spine as she followed them. She, too, stopped dead. Trent de Havilland had already arrived! The strained atmosphere spoke volumes.

How long he had been closeted with her mother and her sister and, for once, an angelic-looking Polly, Alethea had no idea. She hadn’t heard his car, though perhaps with Sadie and Georgia squawking in her bedroom that wasn’t so surprising.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to introduce you.’ She smiled as she went into the room, trying to ignore the fact that her mother looked as if she’d been on a diet of vinegar for a week. Maxine was looking much the same—what on earth had been going on?

‘I was several minutes early.’ Trent had risen to his feet as, in a mustard-shade dress, she’d entered the room. He paused to say hello to Sadie and Georgia, and started to come over to her. ‘I introduced myself,’ he commented easily. But, for all his relaxed manner, he seemed not inclined to delay their departure. ‘Shall we go?’

They said their goodbyes, and Alethea led the way out into the hall, followed by her mother’s sharp warning, ‘Don’t forget you have to be up early for work in the morning, Alethea!’

Oh, grief! She skirted the chest of drawers and heard a thudding sound as Trent didn’t, and just knew that the evening was going to be a disaster before it began.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she apologised tensely, already guessing that her mother had asked him some pretty pertinent questions and he was probably ready to call the evening off right then and there.

‘Sorry?’ he queried, opening the passenger door of a black, extremely expensive car that suggested that whatever job he did, he was well paid for it.

Loyalty to her family, plus a sudden realisation that, whatever had passed between him, her mother and sister—Maxine had been looking on the sour side too—she did not want to know about it, made her say, ‘At a guess, I’d say you cracked your shin on that chest in the hall.’

‘Is it there as some sort of test you give to all your men friends—to see how brave they are?’

‘You didn’t cry,’ she replied—and suddenly the tension was eased, and they were both laughing.

Miraculously, though she rather knew Trent had a lot to do with it, the evening which she thought had started off badly progressed to a fine start.

He took her to a restaurant which served excellent food. But she had little recollection of what she ate, for he was an excellent dinner companion: witty, serious, knowledgable.

‘Yes, but, Trent—er—Trenton...’ She went on to put forward her point of view, but the subject went straight from her mind. It was the confusion he seemed to have a knack of arousing in her. She started to grow hot at the thought that this astute man who had introduced himself to her as Trent de Havilland might think she had been checking up on him, and had found out his name was Trenton. ‘It’s on file—your name.’ She dug a bigger hole for herself. Oh, Heavens, this was dreadful. ‘I wasn’t checking up on you!’ she blurted out.

‘That’s not very flattering of you,’ he teased.

She started to feel a bit better. Enough, anyway, to be able to explain, ‘I was checking Mr Chapman’s silver wedding celebrations file, ready to finalise everything before putting it to bed. Your name was on the guest list.’

Trent smiled and, as if realising from the gentle tide of pink that had washed her skin that she had been feeling a trifle awkward, he smoothly turned the conversation to enquire, ‘You enjoy working for Hector?’

‘Very much,’ she answered, but felt honour bound to add, ‘Though I’m not his PA. She’s Carol Robinson and I assist her.’ Alethea’s voice started to fade as it suddenly dawned on her that he probably knew that anyway. ‘Didn’t Mr Chapman want to know what you wanted my address and phone number for?’ she asked, and had to admit that she liked the way Trent de Havilland’s mouth quirked at the corners whenever she managed to amuse him.

‘You’re too sharp to be a mere assistant,’ he responded charmingly.

She enjoyed his charm, though she had sense enough to see that it wouldn’t take a genius to guess from where he had obtained the information he needed. Though Hector Chapman giving that information spoke volumes. She knew, indisputably, that Mr Chapman would never have imparted anything about her unless the enquirer was not only very well known to him, but also a man whom he knew to be trustworthy.

Given that she had been brought up to be distrustful of all men, Alethea was feeling more relaxed with Trent than with any man she’d ever known. To suddenly realise, too, that she already had all the evidence she needed, because Trent must be well known to her boss to have been invited to his anniversary celebration, only went to make her feel even more relaxed.

Relaxed, and able to ask him what she considered to be a most natural question, ‘What sort of work do you do?’

‘I’m in science engineering,’ he answered.

‘Well, that leaves me dead in the water,’ Alethea laughed, ‘Science was my worst subject at school.’

‘I’m sure you were brilliant at others,’ he commented. ‘So tell me more about you.’

For no reason, she started to feel tense again. ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she replied.

He wasn’t having that. ‘You live at home with your mother and sister—plus your sister’s children,’ he documented. How much had he guessed? Alethea started to feel wary of him. ‘Are there no men in your household?’ he asked, and Alethea, knowing she was being prickly, but somehow unable to help it, resented his questioning.

‘Are there any women in yours?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I live alone,’ he answered quite openly, adding drily, ‘though it’s true that I have a dear soul who comes in and sets the place to order three times a week.’

There were traces of a smile about his expression, but suddenly the evening was going badly for Alethea and she could not respond. ‘Have you ever been married?’ she asked abruptly.

Trent he Havilland studied her unsmiling face for some seconds, as if trying to gauge what, if anything, lay behind her question. ‘No, never,’ he stated at last. But his eyes were alert, his expression all at once unsmiling. ‘Have you?’

‘Good Heavens, no!’ Alethea exclaimed.

‘You sound as if you find the idea appalling?’ he suggested, his dark eyes steady on her violet ones.

Suddenly her tension vanished, and her sense of humour quite unexpectedly bubbled to the surface. ‘So long as you weren’t asking,’ she replied and, when his eyes remained unflinching on hers, she continued, ‘I should hate to hurt your feelings.’

‘Like hell you would,’ he rejoined.

‘I’d never hurt anyone on purpose,’ she informed him coolly.

Her coolness didn’t so much as touch him. ‘Turn them down gently—is that your motto?’ he surmised, as if he truly thought she must have received several marriage proposals by now. She wasn’t interested in marriage, for goodness’ sake! Nor did she care much for the subject under discussion, she decided. Though, before she could open her mouth to change it, she discovered that Trent had had enough of it too, and was heading in another direction himself to ask, ‘May I enquire after your father?’

Alethea was not sure that she cared for this new subject any better. ‘My father?’ she prevaricated.

‘He doesn’t live at home?’ Trent pursued, not a man to give up easily, even if her look did have a chilly edge to it.

Had her mother told him that? She did not want to think so. But, much as she loved her parent, she was not blind to the fact that her mother could be manipulative when it suited her. She remembered the sour expressions on both her mother’s and her sister’s faces when she had gone into the sitting room. And, even though she had earlier been convinced that she didn’t want to know what had gone on in that room before she had come downstairs, she found she was asking in a rush, ‘What did my mother say to you?’

‘Nothing to cause such distress in those beautiful violet eyes,’ he answered. Quite gently, she thought, but it was a non-answer just the same.

‘So tell me,’ she insisted.

He shrugged, but he was watchful as he revealed, ‘Apparently you’re more interested in your career than you are in men.’

She could cope with that. ‘Anything wrong in that?’ she asked.

‘Not a thing,’ he replied pleasantly. Only, remembering her mother’s expression, Alethea couldn’t leave it there.

‘And?’ she further insisted.

‘You’re a devil for punishment,’ he murmured lightly.

‘So?’

‘At the risk of sounding ungallant, I don’t believe it.’

‘This is like drawing teeth!’ she exclaimed frustratedly. ‘Don’t believe what?’

‘You have beautiful teeth too,’ he said, delaying a moment more. But, having flattered her, he went on to reveal the appalling truth. ‘According to your mother-though I must say she couched it in much better terms... basically what she meant to convey was that you are only going out with me in the interests of career advancement.’

Alethea, innocent of all charges, went scarlet. ‘I... You...’ she tried, but was rendered temporarily speechless. It was left to Trent, his eyes on her unhappy colour, to try to make her feel better.

‘I’m too conceited to believe that, of course.’ He attempted to coax a smile out of her.

Alethea could not have smiled had her life depended upon it. How could her mother have said such a thing? She would have liked to have believed otherwise, of course, but she knew her mother. ‘You have your own company, don’t you?’ she guessed.

‘I do,’ he owned.

‘You told my mother, and...’

‘I didn’t so much as tell her—just gave her my name.’ Her mother never ceased to amaze her. Some days she never went outside the house and yet, when Alethea arrived home from work, her mother was up to date on all the gossip. But now, local gossip aside, it seemed her mother had mental index cards on the London business world!

‘Shall we go?’ she offered bluntly. The coffee they had ordered to finish their meal had only just arrived, but her sensitivity was such that she was wondering why Trent hadn’t left her home there and then, without waiting for her to present herself downstairs. That was what her mother had wanted, of course.

‘You’re not going to let what I’ve told you spoil what has been a very pleasurable evening for me—and I hope for you too—are you?’

‘Trent—I...’ Alethea halted, and realised that, in addition to her mother not wanting her evening with Trent to start, her parent would be quite pleased, if, since start it had, it should end badly. Alethea knew her mother hadn’t wanted Maxine to leave home and thereby break her mother’s sphere of influence. Mother had done everything in her power to prevent Maxine’s marriage. But, from what Alethea could see now, her mother wasn’t waiting for her to go so far as to become involved with anyone. At the first sign that Alethea was going out with any man who might be strong-minded, her mother was out to nip in the bud any remote possibility that might lead to her other daughter leaving home. Alethea took a shaky breath, and stared across into a pair of dark eyes that were silently, steadily watching her. ‘To answer your question,’ she said, ‘my father left home when I was ten.’

Trent’s look was warm and encouraging. ‘For another woman,’ he stated, seeming to know it for a fact, though Alethea hardly thought that her mother had imparted that piece of knowledge.

Normally Alethea would have clammed up on the subject, but just then she was feeling cross enough with her mother not to care. Alethea knew full well that, should she challenge her mother tomorrow over what she had told Trent, Mrs Pemberton would tell her she was making a fuss over nothing.

‘Yes, for another woman,’ she confirmed, whether Trent needed confirmation or not.

‘And your mother thereafter set about trying to see to it that no man came near you or your sister.’ He paused a moment, then commented lightly, ‘Um—she seems to have failed miserably with your sister—I counted three children.’

‘She has only three,’ Alethea stated, Trent’s manner and his humour causing her to feel better.

‘But their father, or fathers, aren’t allowed inside the house?’ he suggested.

Alethea shook her head. ‘Maxine married. Only her marriage recently broke up.’

‘That’s a pity,’ he commented, and Alethea was unsure if he meant for the children’s sake, Maxine’s sake, or marriage’s sake. ‘It can’t be easy for her,’ he added.

‘Apparently it wasn’t the first time her husband’s eye had wandered,’ Alethea said, not wanting Trent to think that her dear sister was in any way to blame for the marriage split.

‘But this time she decided to return home?’

‘Bringing her furniture with her,’ Alethea commented, not wanting to tell him the other, more dishonest facts of it, and wondering if Trent would be nursing a bruise on his shin tomorrow.

‘So that accounts for the chest in the hall,’ he grinned.

‘We are a touch overcrowded,’ she laughed, and was suddenly feeling good again. She heard herself tack on, ‘I’ve been toying with the idea of moving out and finding a place of my own—though I don’t suppose I will.’

‘Your mother wouldn’t let you?’

Honestly! Instantly she was up in arms. ‘I’m twenty-two!’ she informed Trent crossly. ‘The decision is mine.’ She stared with hostility at him, sparks of annoyance flaring in her eyes. But, as she looked at his dark, unwavering gaze, so she glimpsed a dancing light. He, she realised, had aggravated her deliberately! ‘Provoking devil!’ she mumbled, but had to smile. ‘I think it’s time I went home,’ she stated.

Trent settled the bill and, without comment, escorted her outside. Though just when she was starting to think, in a slightly miffed way, that he’d had enough and couldn’t wait to drop her off at her door, he sent that notion clear out of her head by offering, ‘With your house so overcrowded, shall we go back to mine for coffee?’

‘I’ve just had coffee,’ she reminded him, feeling better that he seemed to want to prolong the evening. But he was the sophisticated type and she was not green; coffee could well be another word for what he was actually offering!

‘I thought we might talk, get to know each other,’ he answered, as he saw her into his car.

I’ll bet! Alethea waited until he joined her in the car. ‘We’ve been talking all night,’ she thought to mention.

‘All I’ve learned about you, apart from my observations on your sensitivity and sincerity, is that you live in an overcrowded household of women, that you may or may not be intending to find somewhere less overcrowded, and might I suggest—if the high-pitched squealing that was going on when I arrived is anything to go by—you need somewhere a little more peaceful to live. I’ve also discovered that you work as an assistant PA.’

‘That isn’t enough?’

Her words had sounded sharp, she realised, when Trent looked at her long and hard. But whatever he was thinking, his manner remained mild. ‘Should we row on our first date?’ he asked.

First date! She liked him; she must do, or she would not be here now. But at his hint of a second date she felt wary. ‘I’ll take you to your home,’ he said before she could make up her mind how she felt about going out with him again.

Trent drove easily, effortlessly, and in no time at all it seemed that they were pulling up outside her home. When he got out of the car and came round to her door, Alethea got out feeling nervous and unsure.

She wouldn’t ask him in. Lord knew what surprises awaited them—her embittered mother had had hours in which to build up a fine head of vitriol. Or perhaps Maxine was walking the downstairs rooms trying to pacify a wailing Polly.

At the door she turned. ‘Thank you for a pleasant evening,’ she trotted out, and was all jittery inside. Silently, unspeaking, he stared down at her in the porch light. She didn’t know if he would try to kiss her, nor how she would react if he did. As yet she had formulated no answer, should he ask for the second date he had hinted at.

But Alethea was totally mystified when Trent neither attempted to kiss her nor to ask her out again. But, his tone even—he could have been discussing the weather-he replied civilly, ‘The pleasure was mine. Goodnight, Alethea.’ And with that he went back to his car.

Alethea did not want to see him drive off. Motivated by pride that insisted he should not go away with any idiotic notion that she might be hanging on his every word and deed, she did a rapid about-turn and swiftly let herself in through the front door.

Only when she had the door shut—she was on the inside and he was on the outside—did she pause to take stock. He hadn’t so much as tried to kiss her, much less ask her out again! Not that she’d have gone out with him again if he had asked, she firmly decided. But then all thoughts of Trent de Havilland were momentarily taken from her mind when the stair light came on and her sister came hurrying into view.

‘Has he gone?’ Maxine whispered, leaning over the bannister rail, either because of the possibility of Trent de Havilland still being around, or because she was scared of waking one of the children.

‘Yes, just,’ Alethea whispered back.

‘Shall I make you some hot chocolate?’

By the sound of it, Maxine wanted to talk. ‘Lovely,’ Alethea accepted, and the two of them went quietly into the kitchen.

It was there that Alethea soon realised that her sister’s need to talk did not stem from a loneliness of spirit, as she had supposed, but from an urgent need to have a discussion that would not wait until morning, when there was every chance they would be interrupted.

For, without so much as enquiring, Did you have a nice evening?, Maxine launched in to ask, ‘Do you know who Trenton de Havilland is?’

Alethea stared at her. Trent had introduced himself to Maxine and their mother as Trenton? But she concentrated on Maxine’s question. Alethea knew that Trent was a nifty Viennese waltzer, was interesting, not to say stimulating to go out with, and also that he was a friend of her employer. But Maxine had asked if she knew who he was. ‘Who is he?’ Alethea queried.

‘He didn’t tell you that he owns Science Engineering and Consulting?’ Maxine pressed.

‘I know he has his own company,’ Alethea answered, feeling slightly perplexed and wanting to know what Maxine was getting into a state about, for she was certainly growing more and more agitated by the second. ‘He told me he was in science engineering, but...’ Alethea broke off suddenly, remembering how Trent had only had to mention his name for it to mean something to her mother. ‘Are you saying that, like Mother, you know of his business?’

‘I should do—Keith works for him!’

‘Keith...’ Alethea stopped, horrified, Science Engineering and Consulting suddenly clicking in her head to be SEC, who had suspended her brother-in-law while investigations into his honesty were taking place! Oh, my stars, her brother-in-law was employed in a trusted position by Trent and had abused that trust. ‘Does Trent know Keith works for him?’ she asked, alarmed.

‘Heavens, no. Keith’s not that far up the corporate tree that his chairman would know of his existence!’

That was some small relief to Alethea. She felt she would never have survived the embarrassment had Trent known all the time he had sat opposite her this evening that her brother-in-law, his employee, was a crook who had robbed him. ‘Mother knew all about Trent being the man who pays Keith’s salary, though, didn’t she?’

‘She saw Keith’s letter today from SEC. It had the name of the chairman and directors on it. You know Mother’s sharp brain. She’ll have filed away all that information without even realising she was doing it.’

‘Oh, grief!’ Alethea exclaimed, and remembered how both her mother and sister had looked when she had come into the sitting room at a minute before seven that evening. ‘Mother seems to be permanently bitter about men. But is that why you looked a degree or two more sour when Trent was here? Because...’

‘How else could I look?’ Maxine asked tearfully. ‘Here am I stuck in this house which, since Mother insisted I bring everything that wasn’t nailed down so that some other woman couldn’t have it, is so crammed full you can’t move without tripping over, and there were you, all dressed up to go out for a fun evening with a man who I’d just realised could be ultimately responsible for bringing a court action against my children’s father!’

‘Oh, Maxine!’ Alethea exclaimed as her sister started to cry. Men, men, rotten men, she fumed as she hurried over to her.

Alethea wasn’t sure that she meant all men as she tried to comfort her sister. When Maxine was a little calmer, she made her the drink which Maxine had offered to make her. And when, half an hour later, she and her sister were upstairs and in their rooms, one thing was set like concrete in Alethea’s mind. Maxine’s disclosures about who was in charge of SEC made it well and truly settled. Even if Trent de Havilland did make contact to ask her for a second date, now that she knew that, ultimately, he was the man her brother-in-law had stolen from, there was no way she could ever go out with him again!


CHAPTER THREE

WEDNESDAY and Thursday passed uneventfully, although Alethea found that thoughts of Trent de Havilland were slipping into her head far more frequently than she would have expected—given that she was never going to go out with him again, even if he did ask...which he wouldn’t.

Evidence that Trent de Havilland was not thinking of her so frequently—if at all—was plain from the fact that her phone at home stayed silent. Not that she was at all bothered, of course. It saved her from looking for some excuse to give him. How could she go out with him when her sister’s husband had cheated his firm out of money?

Life at home, however, seemed to be growing incneasingly difficult. Her mother was forever badgering her on the subject of Trent de Havilland, even though Alethea had stated that she had no intention of going out with him again. No need to tell her mother that chance would be a fine thing—a girl had her pride.

‘The children have been up in your room,’ her mother greeted her when she arrived home from work on Friday.

‘All of them?’ Alethea asked faintly.

‘Just Sadie and Georgia. I looked after them after school while Maxine took Polly to the doctor. I don’t think they did any harm.’

‘How is Polly?’

‘It’s just a bit of a cold. The doctor said there’s nothing to worry about.’

Bracing herself, Alethea went upstairs to her room. ‘Oh, grief!’ she muttered as she went in. Someone had added an extra table to the room, which was already filled to capacity, and her wardrobe door was ajar. Her clothes had been gone through, garments tried on and then crumpled by the inexpert attempts of shorter persons to hang them back on the rail. Her dressing table was a disaster area. The idea of having an apartment of her own had more and more appeal. Her mother would have a fit if she suggested leaving home, she knew that in advance, but...

Sadie and Georgia, of course, had no school the following day and were allowed to stay up a little later—if they were quiet. But they seemed to be noisier than ever that evening. Alethea joined in the general sigh of relief when at last all three girls were in bed and silence reigned.

Then the telephone rang. Most peculiarly, for there was not the smallest reason why, Alethea felt her heartbeat quicken. She looked across at Maxine. ‘It’s for you, I expect,’ she commented, but Maxine was already halfway out of her chair.

‘She’s far too soft with him!’ Eleanor Pemberton stated abruptly as Maxine disappeared into the hall to take the call in the alcove under the stairs. ‘What she wants to do is—’ She broke off as Maxine came back into the room.

‘It’s for you, Alethea,’ Maxine informed her.

‘Who is it?’ their mother wanted to know.

‘Trent de Havilland,’ Maxine answered, and Alethea felt her face go a warm pink.

‘I thought you weren’t going to go out with him again!’ Eleanor Pemberton snapped.

‘I’m not,’ Alethea answered, and went out into the hall. Why on earth she felt the need to swallow before she could pick up the phone and say, ‘Hello,’ she had no idea.

‘Lucky I caught you in!’ Trent responded. Was he being funny?

‘You’re on your way out yourself, I expect,’ she commented lightly, hoping he’d think that was the way it was with her, too, and that the sun never set for her on a Friday night.

‘I’m just back after a few days in Italy,’ he drawled easily, and, getting down to the point of his call, he continued, ‘I’m having some people round tomorrow evening—any time from eight to midnight. Can you make it?’

He did want to see her again! She wasn’t going, of course, but, she realised, she felt much better for being asked. ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, useless when it came to telling lies, but striving hard to think up some excuse.

‘It was a long shot,’ he cut in pleasantly. ‘I hardly expected you’d be free.’

‘You know how it is,’ she murmured, wondering why she didn’t tell him outright that she was not going to see him again—probably because she was certain to receive a very short and sharp answer for her trouble. Or perhaps it was solely good manners that held her back.

‘Of course,’ he answered blandly, but straight away he went on to astonish her by adding, ‘Perhaps you’ll make a note of my address. If you and your date are in the area, both of you might like to drop in.’

She hadn’t found his address on file at the office. So, like the efficient assistant PA that she was, Alethea automatically had a notepad before her, a pencil in her hand, as Trent dictated his address. Don’t hold your breath, she thought sourly—clearly Trent de Havilland didn’t give a button that she had a date with someone else tomorrow—and he wasn’t to know that she hadn’t, was he! Not that she wanted him to give a button anyway! ‘I’ll see what I can do—thank you for asking,’ she said prettily, and knew, as she was sure Trent knew, that his small ‘get together’ tomorrow evening would take place without her.

She said goodbye nicely and, tearing the slip of paper from the notepad, she put it in her pocket and went back to the sitting room.

‘You were a long time,’ her mother accused her.

‘Was I?’ Alethea thought she hadn’t been speaking with Trent for more than a few minutes.

‘What did he want?’ Eleanor Pemberton demanded.

Alethea didn’t want to tell her. Somehow, she just knew it: the fact that Trent de Havilland had invited her out for a second time would be all her fault.

‘He’s having a small—or—party tomorrow night. He asked if I’d like to go along.’

‘You’re not going?’ It sounded more of a statement than a question.

Wondering what her mother would do if she said yes—have apoplexy on the spot, she wouldn’t wonder—Alethea merely answered with a dutiful, ‘No.’

‘I should think so. You tell him next time he rings not to bother you again.’

Alethea gave more thought to leaving home as she lay wakeful in her bed that night. Her mother usually kicked up a fuss whenever she asserted her right to go out with someone if she so wished. But, since Trent had called for her last Tuesday, Mother had seemed to carp non-stop.

Alethea knew that her mother had endured a hard time, and she was sorry about that. But, unlike Maxine, who was having trouble getting any maintenance money from Keith, her father had seen to it that his wife kept their house and had a good monthly allowance. Though, thinking about it, her mother would have had lawyers sitting on his doorstep night and day had he attempted to do otherwise.

Alethea stopped herself right there. Grief! She was sounding as bitter as her mother! Quite when her thoughts had become a touch on the sour side, she couldn’t have said. But suddenly Alethea knew without question that the time had come for her to cease merely thinking about leaving home. If some of her mother’s bitterness wasn’t to rub off permanently on to her, she had to do something about it now. The trick would be to find the nerve to tell her mother what she had in mind.

Saturday dawned early. Sadie, with a sleepy-eyed Georgia in tow, came into Alethea’s bedroom and woke her up. ‘I’m bored,’ Sadie announced.

‘And me,’ Georgia echoed.

‘Looks as though we’re in for another fun-filled Saturday.’ Alethea struggled to sit up. She knew that there was not the remotest likelihood that they were going to allow her to go back to sleep again. ‘We could go down and have breakfast,’ she suggested.

‘Yes!’ they whooped in unison.

The morning that had started off noisily grew progressively worse. Lunch ended in a pitched battle with Sadie being sent to her room yelling, ‘It’s not fair!’ and with Georgia smiling cheerfully at the outcome.

Alethea, who had been hoping at some time during the morning to find a tactful way of telling her mother that she had decided to find somewhere else to live, accepted then that she wasn’t going to get the chance of a quiet talk until all three of Maxine’s offspring were tucked up in bed.

Sadie was unusually silent upstairs. It was a silence Alethea didn’t trust. She went upstairs and found Sadie in her bedroom experimenting with her lipsticks.

‘Suits you,’ she murmured faintly. Guessing they were all in for an afternoon of hell, she added, ‘If I can square it with your mother, do you fancy a walk.’

‘Past the sweetshop?’

‘Into it if you like.’

Only just did Alethea manage to avoid a sudden and impetuous kiss from her heavily lipsticked niece.

Polly was still a little poorly, so it only took half an hour to clean up Sadie and get her and Georgia ready.

In all, Alethea had them out of the house for around three hours. But, at least, thanks to a nearby playground with slides and swings, plus a mile-and-a-half long ramble, when they returned with sweet bags in hand, they were looking fit, healthy and cheerful, and even managing to talk at a less than high-pitched level.

If the two girls were looking cheerful, however, it was more than could be said for their mother. Maxine looked extremely worried and as if—but for the presence of her daughters—she would be in floods of tears again.

Alethea gave her a questioning look; Maxine shook her head. Clearly she did not wish to discuss the fresh crisis which had presented itself while the children were around. Alethea could make a fair guess at who was at the root of Maxine’s present upset, though, when her mother coldly let fall in passing, ‘He called!’

Alethea had to wait until the children were upstairs in bed, and she and Maxine were in the kitchen tidying up, before she heard anything of why Keith Lawrence had that afternoon braved his mother-in-law’s house.

He was, it seemed, to be prosecuted. SEC, Trent de Havilland’s company, had decided they now had sufficient evidence to have him tried for diverting some of the company’s funds into his own bank account.

‘Oh, Maxine, I’m so sorry!’ Alethea gasped, realising that it hadn’t taken the powers that be very long to have a case against her brother-in-law all neatly tied up. ‘Is he sure it will come to that—prison, I mean?’

‘He’s positive,’ Maxine answered shakily, adding, in obvious distress, ‘We’d just started to agree that any money left over from the sale of the house—once he’s paid everything back—I could have. But, unless someone can put in a good word for him, it will mean...’ She started to cry. ‘It will m-mean that my girls will have to bear the stigma of having a jail-bird for a father. Oh, I can’t bear it!’

‘Oh, Max, don’t...’ Her heart was wrung, and Alethea couldn’t bear her sister’s distress. She left off wiping down the work surfaces and went over to put an arm around Maxine. ‘Perhaps it won’t come to jail. Perhaps someone will speak up for him. Has Keith a friend at work who...?’

‘He hasn’t been there all that long. He knows no one really, except...’ Maxine broke off to wipe her eyes. ‘Except, you,’ she ended.

For several witless seconds Alethea stated at her. ‘Me?’ she questioned, smiling nervously as she sought to understand what her sister meant. ‘What have I...?’

‘You know Trent de Havilland,’ Maxine enlightened her.

‘Tr...’ Alethea’s lovely violet eyes widened in alarm as, appalled, comprehension started to dawn. ‘Yes, but...’ She gasped.

‘You could go to his party tonight and, if need be, beg him not to prosecute.’ Maxine, it seemed, after hours of worrying, had come up with the only possible solution.

‘I couldn’t do that!’ Alethea argued in a strangled voice.

‘Why not?’ Maxine wanted to know, sounding tougher than she looked. ‘I’d do it for you.’

‘Oh, Maxine...’ Alethea cried. Her sister’s distress was her distress. But surely Maxine could see that Alethea couldn’t possibly do what she was asking. ‘Trent doesn’t even know Keith. He’d have no idea who on earth I was talking about.’ She tried to counter Maxine’s insane idea with reason.

‘He doesn’t have to know Keith,’ Maxine continued. ‘He’s the chairman of the whole shoot. All he has to do is pick up the phone and give the order to drop the prosecution and...’

Oh, Heavens! Maxine was seeing her wild notion as perfectly feasible, Alethea could see that she was. ‘But Keith stole from him!’ she cut in to protest.

‘And you’re his sister-in-law, my sister and aunt to his three children,’ Maxine said forcefully. This was her only chance and for her three children she would fight—and expect their aunt to do the same.

‘I’m—sorry,’ Alethea mumbled, and, unable to bear the accusing look in Maxine’s eyes, she left the kitchen and went up to her room, with an unbearable weight of guilt dogging her footsteps.

That same guilt plagued her for another half an hour while she sat on her bed and tried to forget Maxine’s tear-stained face. Maxine seemed to think there was nothing to it. That Alethea could just bowl up to Trent’s gathering and do as she asked. But how could she?

Another half an hour went by and, wriggle though she might, Alethea, thinking of Maxine tearing herself apart, thinking of Maxine’s pronouncement, ‘I’d do it for you’, found she had presented herself with a new problem: how could she not do it?

She didn’t want to do it. No way did she want to do it. The idea of driving over to the smart area where Trent de Havilland lived, of ringing his doorbell and then of somehow or other getting him alone and saying, Oh, by the way... and then confessing she was the sister-in-law of a man who had robbed his company, and going on from there to ask him to stop the prosecution, was utterly and totally ludicrous.

Why should Trent do it? Why should he take any notice, for goodness’ sake? He was a businessman, for certain upright in all his dealings, or Hector Chapman would not consider him a friend. So why, in creation, should Trent take any notice of her, someone he barely knew, pleading the case of someone he didn’t know, but who had cheated his company?

She glanced at her watch. It was half past nine. She went and had a shower, and was still mentally protesting against what she was doing when she applied powder and lipstick and stepped into the plain mustard-coloured dress she had worn the last time she had seen Trent.

Was it only last Tuesday? It seemed ages ago. With luck she might make it to his home before eleven. Oh, grief, she didn’t want to go.

She had her car keys in her hand and was halfway down the stairs when it all at once dawned on her that Maxine could have said nothing to their mother of what she was going to ask Alethea to do. Alethea could quite see why. For, regardless of any stigma Maxine believed would attach itself to the children if their father was sent to prison, his mother-in-law would take only delight from the fact he was having to pay for his misdeeds. Prison, in her mother’s opinion, would be the best place for him.

In view of her mother’s lack of sympathy, Alethea was positive that Maxine would want her to keep their discussion to herself. That being so, her mother was going to raise the roof when she went into the sitting room to mention she had changed her mind and was just off to Trent de Havilland’s party.

The thought of her parent’s wrath gave Alethea some moments of unease. But then, perhaps in relation to that word ‘sympathy’, she recalled thinking that sympathy on its own would not be much help to Maxine.

Time to suit her actions to her sympathy. Alethea took a brave breath and continued down the stairs. ‘Where on earth are you going?’ her mother demanded the moment she walked through the sitting-room door, spotting at once that her younger daughter no longer wore jeans and a T-shirt, but looked to be on her way out to a party.

‘I—er—changed my mind about going to that party,’ Alethea dared, not looking at Maxine in case her mother did a two-and-two addition and came up with a correct four.

‘You’re going to Trenton de Havilland’s party?’ her mother questioned incredulously.

‘I thought I would.’

‘Well, I...’ Her mother started to give full voiceonly for once her elder daughter interrupted her.

‘Alethea has a right to a life of her own, Mother.’ She willingly drew Eleanor Pemberton’s fire on herself, and Alethea didn’t hang about.

‘And a fine mess you’ve made of yours!’ she heard her mother rally as she got over her shock. By then Alethea was negotiating the chest in the hall.

She found the exclusive area where Trent de Havilland, lived without any trouble. But she was already brimful of nerves as she parked the car outside, went up stone steps and rang his doorbell.

Oh, how she wanted to run away as she waited. Oh, it would be so easy! But she could not take that way out. For all she had barely glanced at Maxine before leaving, her sister would know that the only reason she had changed her mind about attending this get-together was to do as she had wanted. To ask Trent de Havilland not to prosecute her crooked brother-in-law. Grief, what on earth had ever made her think Trent would listen, much less agree?

Alethea, though her feet were glued to the doorstep, was mentally all set to run away when she heard the sound of someone coming to answer the door. Oh, help her, somebody! Oh, if only she hadn’t come.

‘Alethea!’ Trent, casually dressed, opened the door to her. He was as she remembered him: tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired. ‘Come in,’ he invited, stepping back to allow her to come by him.

‘I—er—didn’t bring a boyfriend. Is that all right?’ she blurted out in her nervousness.

‘Of course,’ he replied evenly, and, closing the door, he continued, ‘I’m glad you could make it.’ And so saying he led the way into a vast, high-ceilinged drawing room.

The floor was thickly carpeted, with a low table separating a couple of matching sofas which flanked a massive stone fireplace. But, having anticipated being shown into a room full of people, or with at least half a dozen other guests, Alethea saw there were none.

‘Oh, no, I got the wrong night!’ she exclaimed, appalled.

‘The fault is all mine,’ Trent replied urbanely, his tall length between her and the door as if he read in her eyes that she was ready to bolt.

‘Fault?’ she echoed.

‘My other guests rang from Paris. They flew over for the day,’ he explained. ‘Unfortunately, their plane is fog-bound, making it impossible for them to get back tonight.’ Flew over for the day! This was another world—but Alethea had no time to dwell on it; she was too busy coming to terms with the fact that, by the sound of it, she was Trent’s only guest! ‘I should have phoned you,’ he went on. ‘Forgive me that I didn’t,’ he apologised. ‘I was somehow certain you’d no intention of accepting my invitation.’

Was there a question in his voice? Alethea was too embarrassed to be able to tell for sure. ‘Hey-ho!’ She tried to make light of it, and, skirting round him, she mumbled, ‘I’ll—er—see you,’ and was at the door.

Trent de Havilland, however, was there before her. ‘You’re not going?’ he asked, making it sound as though he sincerely wanted her to stay a little while.

‘I—It’s gone eleven, and—and...’

‘And you don’t have to be up early for work in the morning,’ he teased, which reminded her of her mother—who on Tuesday had said the reverse of that—which in turn reminded her of her sister.

Oh, Lord! ‘That’s true,’ she agreed while she tried to sort out the conflict going on in her head. She must have had a brainstorm to think for a moment that she could get upright Trent de Havilland to give the order not to prosecute her brother-in-law! Yet, at the same time, what better opportunity to ask him than now? She didn’t even have to try and get him alone to have a quiet word with him. There was no one else there! Perhaps within the next few minutes...

‘You don’t sound very sure,’ Trent cut through her thoughts.




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