Loe raamatut: «Hitched!»

ONE

I was having a good day until George Challoner turned up.

It had rained almost every day since I had arrived in Yorkshire, but that morning I woke to a bright, breezy day. By some miracle Audrey had started first time, and I hummed as I drove along the country lanes lined with jaunty daffodils to Whellerby Hall.

When I arrived at the site, Frank, the lugubrious foreman, had even smiled—a first. Well, his face relaxed slightly in response to my cheery greeting, but in my current mood I was prepared to count it a smile. Progress, anyway.

The ready-mixed concrete arrived bang on time. I stood and watched carefully as the men started pouring it into the reinforced steel raft for the foundations. They clearly knew what they were doing, and I had already checked the quality of the concrete. After a frenzied couple of weeks, I could tell Hugh that the project was back on schedule.

Phew.

Everything was going to plan. I had it all worked out.

1. Get site experience.

2. Get job overseas on major construction project.

3. Get promoted to senior engineer.

And because I was an expert planner, I had made sure all my goals were Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. I was aiming for promotion by the time I was thirty, an overseas job by the end of the year, and I was already getting site experience with the new conference and visitor centre on the Whellerby Hall estate.

True, things had got off to a shaky start. Endless rain, unreliable suppliers and a construction team made up of dour Yorkshiremen who had apparently missed out on a century of women’s liberation and made no secret of their reluctance to take orders from a female. My attempts to involve them in team-building exercises had not gone down well.

For a while, I admit, I had wondered if I had made a terrible mistake leaving the massive firm in London, but my plan was clear. I badly needed some site experience, and the Whellerby project was too good an opportunity to miss.

And now it might all just be coming together, I congratulated myself, checking another grid off on my clipboard. I’d won a knock-down-drag-out fight with the concrete supplier, which might account for Frank’s—sort of—smile and now we could start building.

Perhaps I could let myself relax, just a little.

That was when George arrived.

He drove the battered Land Rover as if it were a Lamborghini, swinging into the site and parking—deliberately squint, I was sure!—next to Audrey in a flurry of mud and gravel.

I pressed my lips together in disapproval. George Challoner was allegedly the estate manager, although as far as I could see this involved little more than turning up at inconvenient moments and distracting everyone else who was actually trying to do some work.

He was also my neighbour. I’d been delighted at first to be given my own cottage on the estate. I was only working on the project until Hugh Morrison, my old mentor, had recovered from his heart attack, and I didn’t want to get involved with expensive long-term lets so a tied cottage for no rent made perfect sense.

I was less delighted to discover that George Challoner lived on the other side of the wall, his cottage a mirror image of mine under a single slate roof. It wasn’t that he was a noisy neighbour, but I was always so aware of him, and it wasn’t because he was attractive, if that’s what you’re thinking.

I was prepared to admit that he was extremely easy on the eye. My own preference was for dark-haired men, while George was lean and rangy with hair the colour of old gold and ridiculously blue eyes, but, still, I could see that he was good-looking.

OK, he was very good-looking. Too good-looking.

I didn’t trust good-looking men. I’d fallen for a dazzling veneer once before, and it wasn’t a mistake I intended to make again.

I watched balefully as George waved and strode across to join me at the foundations. The men had all brightened at his approach and were shouting boisterous abuse at him. Even Frank grinned, the traitor.

I sighed. What was it with men? The ruder they were, the more they seemed to like each other.

‘Hey, Frank, don’t look now but your foundations are full of holes,’ said George, peering down at the steel cages.

‘They’re supposed to be that way,’ I said, even though I knew he was joking. I hated the way George always made me feel buttoned-up. ‘The steel takes the tensile stress.’

‘I wish I had something to take my stress,’ said George. He had an irritating ability to give the impression that he was laughing while keeping a perfectly straight face. Something to do with the glinting blue eyes, I thought, or perhaps the almost imperceptible deepening of the creases around his eyes. Or the smile that seemed to be permanently tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Whatever it was, I wished he wouldn’t do it. It made me feel...ruffled.

Besides, I had never met anybody less stressed. George Challoner was one of those charmed individuals for whom life was a breezy business. He never seemed to take anything seriously. God only knew why Lord Whellerby had made him estate manager. I was sure George was just playing at it, amusing himself between sunning himself on the deck of a yacht or playing roulette in some swish casino.

I knew his type.

‘What can we do for you, George?’ I said briskly. ‘As you can see, we’re rather busy here today.’

‘The guys are busy,’ said George, nodding at the foundations where the men had gone back to pouring the concrete. ‘You’re just watching.’

‘I’m supervising,’ I said with emphasis. ‘That’s my job.’

‘Good job, just watching everyone else do the work.’

I knew quite well that he was just trying to wind me up, but I ground my teeth anyway. ‘I’m the site engineer,’ I said. ‘That means I have to make sure everything is done properly.’

‘A bit like being an estate manager, you mean?’ said George. ‘Except you get to wear a hard hat.’

‘I don’t see that my job has anything in common with yours,’ I said coldly. ‘And talking of hard hats, if you must come onto the site, you should be wearing one. I’ve reminded you about that before.’

George cast a look around the site. Beyond the foundations where the concrete mixer churned, it was a sea of mud. It had been cleared the previous autumn and was now littered with machinery and piles of reinforcing wires. ‘I’m taller than everything here,’ he objected. ‘I can’t see a single thing that could fall on my head.’

‘You could trip over and knock your head on a rock,’ I said, adding under my breath, ‘with any luck.’

‘I heard that!’ George grinned, and I clutched my clipboard tighter to my chest and put up my chin. ‘I never had to wear a hard hat when Hugh Morrison was overseeing,’ he said provocatively.

‘That was before we’d started construction, and, in any case, that was up to Hugh. This is my site now, and I like to follow correct procedures.’

I promise you, I wasn’t always unbearably pompous, but there was just something about George that rubbed me up the wrong way.

‘Now, that’s a useful thing to know,’ he exclaimed. ‘Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong!’

His gaze rested on my face. Nobody had the right to have eyes that blue, I thought crossly as I fought the colour that was stealing along my cheekbones. My fine, fair skin was the bane of my life. The slightest thing and I’d end up blushing like a schoolgirl.

‘So what’s the correct procedure for asking you out?’ he asked, leaning forward confidentially as if he really expected me to tell him.

I kept my composure. Making a big play of looking over at the foundations and then checking something off my list, I said coolly: ‘You ask me out, and I say no.’

‘I’ve tried that,’ he objected.

He had. The first night I arrived, he had popped round to suggest a drink at the pub in the village. He asked me every time he saw me. I was sure it was just to annoy me now. Any normal man would have got the point by then.

‘Then I’m not sure what I can suggest.’

‘Come on, we’re neighbours,’ said George. ‘We should be friendly.’

‘It’s precisely because we’re neighbours that I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ I said, making another mark on my clipboard. George wasn’t to know it was meaningless. ‘You live right next door to me. If we went for a drink and you turned out to be some kind of weirdo, I’d never be able to get away from you.’

‘Weirdo?’

He was doing his best to sound outraged, but he didn’t fool me. I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

Pushing my hair behind my ears, I glared at him.

‘Maybe weirdo isn’t quite the right word,’ I allowed, ‘but you know what I mean.’

‘I see.’ George pretended to ponder. ‘So you think that after one date, I might never leave you alone? I might pester you to go out again or fall madly in love with you?’

My beastly cheeks were turning pink again, I could feel it. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely.’

‘Why not?’

I looked down at my clipboard, wishing that he would stop asking awkward questions and just go away.

‘I’m not the kind of girl men fall madly in love with,’ I said evenly after a moment.

Sadly, all too true.

George pursed his lips and his eyes danced. ‘OK, so if you’re not worried about me falling for you, maybe you’re worried you’ll fall madly in love with me.’

‘I can assure you that’s not going to happen!’ I snapped.

‘That sounds like a challenge to me.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m just saying that you’re not my type.’

Of course, he couldn’t leave it there, could he? ‘What is your type, then?’

‘Not you, anyway,’ I told him firmly, and he put on an injured look. Like I say, he didn’t take anything seriously.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t trust handsome men,’ I said. ‘You’re too good-looking for me.’

‘Hey, isn’t that lookist or something?’ he protested. ‘You wouldn’t hold my looks against me if I was ugly, would you? Or at least you wouldn’t admit it.’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know why you’re so keen to ask me out anyway,’ I said. ‘You must be desperate for a date.’

‘I’m just trying to be friendly.’

‘Well, I appreciate it,’ I said crisply, ‘but I’m only here for a couple of months and I’d rather keep our relationship professional if that’s all right with you.’

‘I like the idea of us having a relationship,’ said George, ‘but I’m not so sure about the professional bit. Is everything professional with you, Frith?’

‘It is while I’m here. This job is important to me,’ I told him. ‘I really needed some site experience and this is my first time in charge. It’s a great chance for me. Plus, this contract is really important to Hugh. He’s been so good to me, I don’t want to let him down.’

I looked around the site, narrowing my eyes as I envisaged what the centre would look like when it was finished. The specifications were for the use of sustainable materials wherever possible, and the wood and glass finish was designed to blend into the backdrop of the trees edging the site.

‘It’s going to look good,’ I told George. ‘It’s expensive, but I gather Lord Whellerby’s plan is to make Whellerby Hall the top conference venue in the north, and the centre will be a step towards that. It’s a good idea,’ I added. I rather liked the sound of Lord Whellerby. I hadn’t met him yet, but I got the impression that he was astute and sensible—unlike his estate manager!

George had been following my gaze, rocking back on his heels as he studied the site thoughtfully. The breeze ruffled his hair and set it glinting where it caught the sunlight. In spite of the muddy boots and worn Guernsey, he looked as if he were modelling for a country sports catalogue.

‘He had to do something,’ he said frankly. ‘These stately homes are expensive to keep up. Roly nearly passed out when he saw the first heating bill!’

‘Does Lord Whellerby know you call him Roly?’ I asked disapprovingly. In spite of his regular requests for progress reports, he had never visited the site, apparently happy to appoint the laid-back George as his go-between.

‘We were at school together,’ George said. ‘He’s lucky if Roly is all I call him!’

‘Oh.’ I was disconcerted. ‘I’d imagined an older man.’

‘No, he’s thirty-two. He never expected to inherit Whellerby. The last Lord Whellerby was his great-uncle, and he had a son and a grandson who were groomed to take over the estate in due course. But they had a whole string of family tragedies and Roly was pitched into the middle of things.’

‘It must have been difficult for him,’ I said, still trying to picture Lord Whellerby as a young man instead of the experienced landowner I’d imagined.

‘It was. This is a big estate. It was a lot to take on, and Roly had never even lived in the country before. He had no experience and he was frankly terrified. I don’t blame him,’ said George.

‘Oh.’ The breeze was pushing in some clouds, I noticed worriedly. It kept blowing my hair around my face and I wished I’d taken the time to plait it. My hair, by the way, is another bane of my life. It is fine and straight and brown and I can’t do anything with it other than let it hang there.

I pulled away a strand that had plastered itself against my lips, still trying to reconfigure this new information about Lord Whellerby, who was, after all, the client.

‘Did you come here at the same time?’ I asked George.

‘Not immediately. Roly inherited an estate manager from his great-uncle and the guy was running rings round him. I was...at a loose end, shall we say? Roly invited me up to keep him company for a while, and when the estate manager left he asked if I wanted the job.’ George grinned and spread his hands. ‘I had nothing better to do, so here I am.’

That rang true. George was exactly the kind of person who would get a job because of who he knew rather than what he knew, I thought darkly.

‘Jobs for the boys, in fact?’

George’s smile was easy. ‘No one else would employ me,’ he said, clearly unfazed by my disapproval.

I sniffed. ‘I still think you should show your employer some respect and refer to him as Lord Whellerby,’ I said primly.

‘Do you call Hugh Mr Morrison?’

‘That’s different.’

‘How?’

‘He’s not a lord, for a start.’

George made a big deal of shaking his head and then smacking his ear as if to clear it. ‘Sorry, that was really weird,’ he told her. ‘For a minute there I thought we were in the twenty-first century, but, thank God, we’re back in the nineteenth where we all know our place!’

‘Maybe it is old-fashioned of me,’ I conceded, ‘but I happen to think there’s nothing wrong with using a title to show a bit of respect.’

‘You call me George.’

‘And your point is...?’

He raised his hands in surrender and smiled. ‘I’d hate to be called Mr Challoner, anyway,’ he said. ‘I’d constantly be looking over my shoulder for my father.’ For a second, his mouth was set and a grimness touched his eyes, but so fleetingly that afterwards I decided that I must have imagined it.

A moment later, and the blue eyes were full of laughter once more. As they rested on my face I realised just how long I had been standing and talking to him when I should have been overseeing the pouring of the concrete.

‘Look, did you want something in particular?’ I said, summoning my best crisp manner. ‘Because I really do need to get on.’

‘I’m on my way up to the Hall. I just thought I’d drop by and see how things were going so I can give Roly—excuse me, Lord Whellerby—an update.’

‘I’ve done a progress report if he’d like one.’

‘Another one?’

‘I got the impression Lord Whellerby likes to be kept informed,’ I said stiffly. ‘It’s part of my job to keep the client happy.’

‘I must remember to tell Roly that,’ said George with a wink, which I met with a stony look.

‘Would he like this report or not?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’

‘Fine.’ Tucking my clipboard under my arm, I shouted to Frank over the sound of the concrete mixer. ‘Can you carry on, Frank?’ I pointed at the clouds. ‘And keep an eye on those!’

Frank lifted a hand in acknowledgement and I led the way to the site office. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but there is no way to walk gracefully through mud in a pair of Wellington boots. The mud sucked at my feet and made horrible squelching sounds, and I was horribly aware of George behind me, watching me waddle. I had to resist the urge to tug my safety jacket further down over my rear.

‘Boots,’ I said, pointing to George’s feet when we reached the prefabricated building that housed the site office, and he threw a crisp salute. Needless to say, he had made it across the mud as if he were walking across a perfectly mown lawn.

I ignored him. My boots were so clogged with mud that I struggled to get them off even using the scraper at the bottom of the steps, but after a tussle that George watched with undisguised amusement I managed to replace them with a pair of pumps I kept just inside the door. Tossing my hard hat onto a chair, I stalked across to my computer and pulled up the file, my colour still high.

George—of course—had no trouble taking off his own boots. He lounged in the doorway in his socks while I bent over the printer and concentrated fiercely on the pages spewing out. I could feel his eyes on me, and I plucked at the collar of the simple blue shirt I was wearing, wishing I could blame the single electric radiator for the warmth climbing into my cheeks.

Collecting up the pages, I banged them neatly together on the desk and fastened them with a bang of the stapler. ‘There you go.’

‘Thanks.’

But instead of leaving, George threw himself down in the visitor’s chair on the other side of the desk and flicked through the pages. ‘I see you’ve changed the specifications for the storm water drainage system,’ he said, then he glanced up at my face. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Nothing. I was just...surprised.’

‘What, you thought I couldn’t read a report?’

‘Of course not.’ I tugged at my shirt front. The truth was that I had assumed that he was too laid-back to pick up on the details of the report. ‘You don’t strike me as a details person, that’s all.’

A faint smile curled his mouth. ‘I can pay attention when required,’ he said.

‘Right.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Well, as you’ve noted, I’m putting in a different kind of underground chamber to store the rainwater run-off. I think this one is a better design.’

‘More expensive though,’ George commented, flicking through to the figures.

‘It is, but we’re saving money with a better deal on the glass wool cavity insulation slabs. If you look at the last page, you’ll see we’re still on target to stick to the budget.’

‘Good. We can’t—’ George broke off as a disembodied voice started shouting:

HEY, YOUR PHONE IS RINGING! PICK UP THE PHONE! YES, YOU, IT’S YOUR PHONE. DON’T EVEN TRY AND IGNORE IT! PICK IT UP RIGHT NOW!

He laughed at my expression. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

Embarrassed at having jumped so obviously, I smoothed back my hair. ‘Hilarious,’ I said, watching as George extracted the still-squawking phone from his pocket. I always leapt to answer my phone, but George only studied the screen in a leisurely manner, apparently able to ignore the noise it was making.

‘It’s Roly,’ he said. ‘Wonder what he wants?’

ANSWER THE PHONE! PICK UP THE PHONE! It wasn’t often that I found myself in agreement with an object.

‘Crazy idea, I know, but you could try answering it and find out,’ I suggested acidly.

George only grinned as he pressed the answer button. ‘Yes, my lord?’ The comment at the other end made him laugh. ‘I understand I’m not showing you enough respect,’ he explained, waggling his eyebrows at me. I tucked in the corners of my mouth and refused to respond.

Irritably, I began straightening the already immaculately aligned files set out in order of priority. I had phone calls to make of my own, but how could I concentrate when George was leaning back in the chair, tipping back dangerously as he yakked on to Lord Whellerby?

‘Who?’ he said suddenly, letting the chair crash forwards in his surprise. ‘You’re kidding! What’s she doing there?’ A pause as he listened, his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline. ‘Yes... Yes, it is... Her what?’

I shifted uneasily as the blue eyes focused on my face. ‘You’re kidding!’ he said again, looking at me so strangely that I mouthed What? at him. ‘Yes...yes...I’ll tell her. See you in a bit.’

George snapped the phone back and stared at me.

‘What?’ I said out loud.

‘You’ve heard of Saffron Taylor?’ he said conversationally, and a dreadful feeling of foreboding stole over me.

‘Omigod,’ I said in a sinking voice.

‘Adored daughter of charismatic tycoon Kevin Taylor? The ultimate IT girl? Darling of the celebrity circuit?’

‘Omigod,’ I said again.

‘She’s crying in Roly’s private sitting room.’

I stared at him, aghast. ‘Omigod!’ It was all I could say.

‘And she says she’s your sister.’

I dropped my head in my hands. ‘Please tell me this is a joke! Saffron can’t be here. She gets disorientated if she leaves Knightsbridge!’

‘Saffron Taylor is your sister?’

‘OK.’ I lifted my head and set my palms flat on the desk. Drawing a deep breath in through my nose, I exhaled slowly. ‘Random sister in client’s house. No need to panic.’

‘She is your sister!’

‘Half-sister,’ I said, rummaging in my bag for Audrey’s keys. ‘What in God’s name is she doing at Whellerby Hall?’

‘Crying, I think.’

A thought zoomed in out of nowhere and hit me so hard I almost buckled at the knees. ‘Has something happened to my father?’

God, what if something had happened to him? My mind spun frantically. What would I do? What would I say? What would I feel?

‘I think we’d have heard on the news if something had happened to Kevin Taylor,’ said George in a practical voice and I clutched at the thought.

‘Yes, yes, you’re right!’ I said gratefully.

‘Roly said something about a wedding, I think,’ he went on. ‘But he was whispering, so I might have got that wrong.’

I clutched my hair. ‘Please don’t tell me Saffron has come all the way up here because of some wedding crisis!’

‘I gather she wanted to talk to you.’

‘Then why didn’t she just ring? Oh!’ A horrible thought struck me. Another one. I pulled out my phone and stared at its blank screen. ‘I switched my phone off last night,’ I remembered in a hollow voice.

‘I always find it helps to keep my phone on if I want people to get in touch with me,’ said George, but I was in too much of a fret to rise to his smug tone.

‘I’ve just had so many phone calls from Saffron about the wedding,’ I said as I switched on the phone. ‘It’s been going on for months already. Which superstar rock band should be flown in to perform? Should she get her dress designed in New York or Paris or London? Castle A will look better in the photos, but castle B has a helipad, so which should she choose? It’s totally out of control!’

My phone began beeping as message after message came through. Distractedly, I scrolled through the ream of texts. ‘Call me... Call me... Crisis... Where r u?...I need u,’ I read. ‘Good grief, what’s been going on?’

‘Perhaps you’d better see her and find out.’

‘I would if I could just find my car key!’ I went back to scrabbling in the depths of my bag. ‘I know it’s in here!’

George got to his feet. ‘I’ll give you a lift, if you like. I’m going up to the Hall anyway.’

He was really enjoying the fact that I was so flustered, I could tell. The moment I knew Saffron was all right, I was going to kill her, I thought vengefully.

‘There’s really no need—ah!’ My fingers closed around the car key at last and I pulled it triumphantly out of my bag. ‘Here it is. I’ll be fine, thanks.’

I hurried down the steps and hop-skip-jumped my way around the puddles to Audrey while George was putting on his boots.

‘I’ll tell Frank you’ll be a while, shall I?’

Oh, God, I’d forgotten about the foundations! I dithered desperately as I hung onto the driver’s door. I needed to be on site, but I couldn’t leave my sister weeping all over my client. I hated being beholden to George Challoner, but I didn’t have time to explain to Frank now.

‘Er, yes...thank you,’ I said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Sure.’

He strolled over to the foundations while I flung myself into Audrey and shoved the key in the ignition.

Audrey wheezed, coughed, managed a splutter and then died.

I made myself breathe slowly. My sister was having hysterics over the client who was key to the success of Hugh’s business. I mustn’t panic. I would deal with it the way I dealt with everything else, firmly and capably. All I had to do was to apologise to Lord Whellerby and remove Saffron.

No problem.

Except that Audrey had chosen now not to cooperate. I tried to start the engine again, but got only more wheezing, feebler this time.

More deep breaths. I counted to ten and then turned the ignition key once more.

‘Please, Audrey,’ I muttered, jaw clenched. I was acutely aware of George Challoner, who had delivered the message to Frank and was now watching me from behind the wheel of the Land Rover. ‘Don’t let me down,’ I begged Audrey. ‘Not when he’s watching.’

But Audrey did.

One last turn of the ignition key, and not even a wheeze in return.

I resisted the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel. Just.

I couldn’t sit there any longer. I knew what Saffron was like when she got in a state, and if Lord Whellerby was anything like every other man I had known, he would be terrified. He was probably already Googling for another design and build company to complete his conference centre, I thought bitterly.

How was I going to explain that to Hugh?

I know this was the big contract to ensure the future of your company, but, see, Saffron was having a bit of a crisis and now we’ve lost the contract? I’d be lucky if Hugh didn’t have another heart attack.

Barely two weeks on the job, and what would I have to show for it? Hugh back in hospital, out of a job, my best chance for site experience blown. My plan would be in tatters, my career would be over before it had really begun.