The Perfect Match (12 page)

'Oh, Guy, I'm so sorry,' Jenny repeated.

'Nowhere near as sorry as I am,' he told her shortly.

They discussed the problem with the caterer and then Jenny announced that she had to leave.

'Jen, you'll keep it to Jon and yourself, won't you?'

Guy asked her abruptly. 'What I said about the desk...? At least for now.'

'Yes, of course I will,' she promised him.

'It will all have to come out in the open soon enough. God knows what kind of fool I'm going to look, especially with the family.'

'There
could
be a rational explanation, Guy,' Jenny tried to comfort him, but Guy merely gave a harshly bitter laugh.

'Thanks, Jen. Nice try, but we both know the truth.

There's no way that desk could ever have belonged to Chrissie's family. It's a one-off...unique. It was made to order, and while I don't want to be unkind, there is no way that a small-scale farmer like Chrissie's great-grandfather could have afforded, or I suspect,
wanted,
to commission a piece of furniture of that type.

'The only reason the Crightons had it made, according to Ben, was because
his
father felt he had been cheated of his rightful inheritance when the Chester branch of the family refused to hand over the original to him when his mother had promised him that on her death he should have it.'

'Mmm...well, Ben's memory
can
be rather selective when he wants it to be,' Jenny told Guy ruefully.

'As I understand it, there was never any question of Ben's father inheriting the original desk, which is actually one of a
pair
made in France for the twin daughters of the Chester family, and as far as I know, Ben's father had the desk copied more out of pique and a desire to thumb his nose at the Chester branch rather than because the desk should rightfully have been his.'

'A pair. That's interesting. Where are they now?'

'Well, Laurence has one and Henry has the other.

They're very pretty... French and a world away from Ben's copy, although none of us would ever dare say as much to him.' Jenny laughed. 'You know how much rivalry Ben feels for the Chester side of the family, and in his eyes, of course, his father could do no wrong, even though from what Ruth's told me, her father was an extremely self-willed and autocratic man. Ben tends to see him through rather rose-tinted spectacles, though, I'm afraid.

'Give Chrissie another chance, Guy,' she advised him, touching his arm lightly.

'I can't, it's too late. Too much has been said and I doubt that she would even want me to. Much as I might be tempted, fool that I am,' he added with dry self-mockery.

Chrissie might not have imbibed the best part of a full bottle of red wine before going to bed, but she had slept just as badly as Guy and for much the same reasons.

It was too late now to regret not telling him the truth about her family connection with Charlie right from the very start. At least that way he could have rejected her there and then, she told herself miserably, instead of waiting until she had fallen deeply and ir-revocably in love with him.

If he had
really
loved her, he would have
listened
to her,
let
her explain...
wanted
her to explain, but he hadn't, had he? It had seemed as though he was actually looking for an excuse to end their relationship.

Was it because, as she had been warned, he had already fallen out of love with her?

As for his comments, his accusations, about her great-grandmother's desk...

She tensed as she heard the knock on the door, her hopes soaring against all logic and common sense and making it come as even more of a shock to see the police car parked outside the house and the stern-faced police officer standing on the doorstep with Guy standing equally cold-eyed to one side of him.

'Miss Oldham?' the police officer asked her, and when Chrissie nodded her head, he started to step forward, explaining, 'We understand that you have a desk here, which we have reason to believe could be stolen property.'

'Stolen property?' Chrissie darted a furiously indignant look at Guy, who was following the police officer into the hall. 'I do have a desk here,' she agreed with as much dignity as she could, 'but far from being stolen, it is...was, in fact, the property of my late great-grandmother.'

'I see. And do you have any proof of this ownership?' the policeman asked.

Of course she hadn't any proof apart from her mother's memories of the desk and her belief that her brother, Charles, had appropriated it at the time of their mother's death.

Unwilling for Guy to hear her being forced to admit that she couldn't prove ownership of the desk, she lowered her voice as she turned her back on him and replied quietly, 'No, I'm afraid I don't. Only my mother's description of it and her belief that it belonged to her family.'

'I see, and where could we get in touch with your mother, please, miss?'

Chrissie bit her lip. 'I'm afraid you can't, not at the moment. She and my father are away on a business trip. That's why I'm here...because she...they couldn't come.'

'So what you're saying is that at the moment there's no one to corroborate your claim to ownership of the desk?'

'No, I'm afraid there isn't,' Chrissie agreed as evenly as possible. She could feel Guy's attention on her but there was no way she was going to turn round and give him the satisfaction of seeing the shame and despair she knew were in her eyes.

'And your mother...your parents...when will they be available?'

Chrissie bit her lip again. 'Not for quite some time.'

'And you, Mr Cooke, you believe this desk belongs to Mr Ben Crighton?'

'I
know
it belongs to him, Officer,' Guy corrected crisply. 'I valued it myself for him only a few months ago, and as you know, it
was
listed as one of the items stolen when the house was broken into.'

The way both men were looking at her was beginning to make Chrissie feel not just uncomfortable but actually guilty, as well. But she had
nothing
to feel guilty about. At the worst, the
very
worst, her mother had made a mistake and the desk was not the one she remembered, despite the fact that she had been so certain, so positive, in the way she had described it to Chrissie.

'My mother grew up with this desk,' Chrissie announced shakily, 'but if she...if there
has
been a mistake...'

'A mistake?' Guy derided, causing Chrissie to flash him a look of bitter contempt.

'A mistake,' she repeated firmly. 'Then I know she'll be the first to say so,' she told the policeman slowly. 'Until then, all I can do or say is...' She paused, appalled to discover her eyes were filling with tears. Fiercely she blinked them away. The last thing she wanted to do was to break down in front of Guy and let him see how much he had hurt her, how vulnerable he had made her feel.

'Well, I think the best thing we can do now is to have the desk removed until it can be properly identified,' the police officer said diplomatically.

Chrissie gave him a grave-eyed smile as he thanked her for her assistance and turned to leave. Her stomach muscles tensed when she realised that Guy was deliberately hanging back and that he wasn't going to leave with him.

'I had to inform the police about the desk,' he told her quietly once they were alone.

'Yes, I'm sure you did,' Chrissie agreed emotion-lessly. And then, before she could stop herself, she burst out passionately, 'I know you think I'm lying, but I'm
not
and neither is my mother. That desk belongs in the family.'

'You weren't so sure of that ten minutes ago,' Guy reminded her pithily.

'My mother would
never
lie,' Chrissie asserted with quiet dignity, her face burning with hot colour as she saw the contemptuous look he was giving her. 'She wouldn't,' she protested heatedly. 'She's not...'

'She's not what?' Guy baited her. 'Not like you?'

Chrissie had had enough. Without thinking, she tried to lash out at him, but he reacted quickly, catching her wrist in mid-air and holding it pinioned behind her.

'My God, you really are a vixen, aren't you?' he breathed. 'Your Uncle Charlie would have been proud of you. Why didn't you tell the truth about him, Chrissie?'

For a moment she thought he genuinely wanted to know, but then just in time she recognised her own foolish weakness.

'If I
told
you, you wouldn't understand,' she informed him proudly.

'No, I dare say I wouldn't,' Guy agreed bitingly,

'but I
do
understand
this.'
Before she could stop him, he had pushed her back against the wall, and still holding her pinioned, he was plundering her mouth with a kiss of such raw savagery that its heat almost physically burned her mouth. Yet unbelievably she was actually responding to it
and
to him, letting him invade her mouth, her senses, her
self,
without even trying to raise the slightest pitiful defence against him.

Where was her pride, her respect, her self-esteem and sense of self-preservation?

'I hate you,' she spat at him untruthfully when he finally released her. 'I
hate
you and I
never
want to see you again.
Never.
Do you understand?' But it was too late. Guy had already gone, loudly slamming the door behind him as he left so that the noise drowned out the protest she had made too late.

Outside in the street, Guy couldn't quite believe what he had done. He had never
ever
behaved towards a woman with such...such brutality before...or ever imagined that he might
want
to. Never guessed that he could want someone so much that he had to dis-guise and mask his need with the kind of macho display of faked anger that he had always despised.

He had
wanted
to kiss Chrissie...wanted to do far more than merely kiss her, he admitted with a groan.

Still
wanted to. Dear God, when was it all going to end...where was it all going to end?

'Chrissie...'

To her chagrin, Chrissie felt her eyes fill with tears she was unable to prevent from spilling over as she heard the gentle concern in Jon's voice.

It had been several weeks since her quarrel with Guy and the only comfort she could offer herself was that since she had now experienced the worst shock that life could possibly give her, things could only get better. But alas not yet. No, she was quite definitely not feeling anything like better yet.

She had arrived for her appointment with Jon ten minutes ago but had found it wholly impossible to concentrate on what he was saying to her about her late uncle's debts. Sorting through her uncle's possessions, finding a new valuer to assess them, and dealing with the assorted paperwork had taken longer than she, or her mother, had ever anticipated.

'I'm so sorry,' she apologised through her tears, accepting the box of tissues he proffered her. 'It's just...'

Jon, who had heard from Jenny what had happened, said nothing. Privately he found it extremely difficult to believe that Chrissie could have had anything to do with the theft.

'I suppose you've heard that the police are still investigating?' Chrissie commented when she had finally stemmed her tears. 'I'd thought about going back home to look in the family albums in the hope that there might be a photograph with the desk in it,'

Chrissie admitted, giving a bitter little laugh. 'My mother was so sure,' she told Jon passionately. 'She said that her grandmother really treasured the desk, that she could remember watching her polishing it.

She said she could actually remember her crying as she touched it, although she pretended she hadn't been when she saw my mother watching her.'

'Would it help if you were to return home?' Jon suggested gently. 'I could fax you with the details—'

'No,' Chrissie interrupted, shaking her head fiercely. 'If I did that, I would feel other people might think... I don't want anyone to think I'm trying to...escape or run away,' she finished quickly.

Jon gave her a small smile. 'I understand,' he told her simply.

When Chrissie left his office half an hour later, she was beginning to feel uncomfortably sick. She had skipped breakfast this morning and for the previous three mornings, as well, and now although she knew she ought to be hungry, for some reason the mere thought of food was beginning to make her feel extremely unwell. She felt light-headed, too, and oddly dizzy, so dizzy, in fact, that she had to stop walking and reach out to hold on to the railings separating the short cut she had taken through the environs of Haslewich's very grand Norman church from the graveyard that lay beyond it.

She felt most peculiar, Chrissie acknowledged, and she rather thought she ought to just stand where she was for a little while longer before trying to walk back to Uncle Charlie's house.

As she shook her head trying to clear the unfamiliar muzziness that seemed to have semi-paralysed the normally clear-thinking working of her brain, she realised to her consternation that she was standing only yards away from the elegant row of houses of which Guy's was one, but even
that
knowledge didn't give her the strength to move and, if anything, only made her feel worse. Hot tears began to press painfully on the back of her eyes as she fought to control the surge of painful emotions that overwhelmed her.

Ruth was feeling rather irritated with herself. She should have been in America with Grant right now.

He had had to fly out there earlier in the week to attend some business meetings and she had planned to go with him, but almost at the last minute she had changed her mind, moved by guilt at the distressingly pathetic vulnerability Ben had displayed following the break-in at Queensmead.

'I
know
he can be stubborn and cantankerous,' she had explained to Grant as she snuggled up blissfully with him in bed. She was ruefully aware as she did so how very much out of character her delight in the physical proximity of her husband and her still-almost honeymoon enjoyment of the pleasures of simply knowing they were going to be sleeping together and that
she
was going to wake up with him there beside her in the morning might seem to those who had known her simply as the unmarried and rather strait-laced maiden aunt of the Crighton family. Indeed, she realised how disapproving some people might be of a woman her age actually enjoying herself in the physical, sexual and emotional sense by being as deeply in love with her husband as a young girl in her twenties.