Jonah Marriott, he answered, and, treating her as a grown-up, his right hand came out.
Nervously, she shook hands with him, her colour a furious red as their hands met, his touch firm and warm. But still she could not leave him without trying to make him feel better. Would you like some tea, Mr Marriott? she asked him shakily.
He had smiled then, and she had thought he had the most wonderful smile in the world. Thank you, no, Miss Pearson, he had refused politelyand she had blushed again, this time at the dreadful thought that he was perhaps teasing her.
Just then, though, her father had come in. Sorry to keep you, Jonah. That phone call has settled most everything. And, with a fond fathers look to his daughter, Youve met Lydiesoon to tear herself away from her beloved Beamhurst and go back to school again after the summer break!
Youll miss her when shes gone, Im sure, Jonah answered with a glance to her, and Lydie had blushed again.
Ill see you later, she mumbled generally, and fled.
And so had begun a giant-sized crush on one Jonah Marriott. But she had not seen him later or ever again. That had not stopped her from finding out more about him. He had been in his late twenties then, and already had a thriving electronics business. From bits she had gleaned on separate occasions from her mother, from her father, and also from her brother Oliver, who at one time had gone around with a crowd that included Jonahs younger brother Rupert, she knew that Jonah was the elder son of Ambrose Marriott. Their father owned several department stores, and Jonah had felt obliged to go and work for his father. When Rupert had finished university, and had declared that there was nothing he would like better than to start work in the business, Jonah had felt free to leave the family business and start up his own company.
His father had not liked it, so Jonah had borrowed from the bank to get started. He had gone from success to success, but still owed the bank when he had wanted to expand his company. The banks had lent him as much as they couldit had not been enough. Too proud to ask his own father to lend him moneyhe had approached her father, a well-known businessman, instead.
The rest was history, Lydie fumed when, after a very fitful nights sleep, she awakened on Friday morning. Her father had lent Jonah Marriott fifty thousand pounds. Jonah Marriott, her idol for so long, had never paid him back. And Lydie was going to do something about itthis very day!
Had she experienced the smallest doubt about that, then that very small doubt evaporated into thin air when she went down to breakfast and saw that, while she had slept only fitfully, her father looked like a soul in torment and appeared not to have slept at all.
And what are you going to do today? he forced a cheerful note to ask. And she wished that she could tell him, Dont, Dad, I know all about it. But her fathers pride was mammoth, and she could not take that away from him. Time enough for him to know when she came back from seeing Jonah Marriott and was able to tell himif all went wellthat Jonah would ring her fathers bank and tell them, hopefully, that he would take on his debt.
I havent seen Aunt Alice in ages, she answered, Aunt Alice being her mothers aunt, in actual fact, and therefore Lydies great-aunt. I thought I might take a drive over to see her.
Youre picking her up for the wedding next week, arent you?
She doesnt want to stay away from home overnight. Lydie tactfully rephrased part of what her great-aunt had written in her last letter.
We, your mother, Oliver and me, are going to a hotel overnight, as you know. Your mothers idea, he muttered, but added dryly, Hilary will be sorry her aunt wont be staying here.
Lydie grinned. She thought Aunt Alice brilliant; her mother thought her a stubborn pain. Lydie was not grinning after breakfast, though. Dressed in a smart suit of powder blue, her dark hair pulled back from her delicate features in a classic knot, she got out her car ostensibly to make the twenty mile drive to her aunts home in Penleigh Corbett in the next county.
While facing that she did not want to make the journey to the London head office of Marriott Electronics, since make it she must, she wanted to be early. For all she knew she might have to wait all day, but if Jonah Marriott was in the building and refused to see her, then, since he had to come out at some time, she was prepared to wait around to speak to him on his way out.
Her insides had been churned up ever since she had opened her eyes that morning, but the nearer she got to London, the more her churning insides were all over the place.
When the traffic started to snarl up she found a place to park her car and made it to the Marriott building by foot, tube and lastly taxi.
But once outside the building she experienced the greatest reluctance to go inside. For herself, perhaps having inherited her fathers massive pride, she would have galloped in the opposite direction. Only this wasnt for her; it was for him.
Lydie had to do no more than recall her fathers drawn look at breakfast and she was pushing through the plate-glass doors and heading for the reception desk.
The receptionist was busy dealing with one person and there was someone else waiting. Mr Marriotts PA is on her way down to see you. The receptionist put down the phone to pass on the message to the suit-clad man she was dealing with.
Lydie closed her ears to the rest of it, her glance going over to where the lifts were. One started up and, from the changing numerals, she saw that the lift was making its way down from the top floor.
Without being fully aware of it, Lydie edged over to that lift. When the doors opened and a smart-looking woman of forty or so stepped out, and with a smile on her face went over to the man at the desk, Lydie stepped in and pressed the button for the top floor.
She knew she could quite well have got it wrong, but if her hunch was right, that had been Jonah Marriotts PA. If she had just come down from the top floor, then, to Lydies mind, on the top floor was where she might find Jonah Marriott.
The lift stopped; she got out. She felt hot, sick, and knew that this was the worst thing she was ever going to have to do in her life. Instinct took her to the end of the carpeted corridor. With what intelligence her emotions had left her, it seemed to her that the man who was head of this corporation would have his office well away from the sound of the lift going up and down.
There were doors to offices on either side of the long corridor. Lydie ignored them and at the bottom of that corridor turned round a corner which opened out to show two doors blocking her way. Lydie hesitated, but only for a moment. She was by then starting to feel certain she had got it all wrong. Somehow, churned up, anxious, worried, she had got it all wrong, all muddled; she knew that she had. She went forward and, placing a hand on the handle to the door to the right, she paused for about half a second, then turned the handle.
Shock as the door swung inwards and she saw a man seated at a desk in front of her kept her speechless and motionless. He looked up, and as colour surged to her face so, his glance still on her face, he rose from his chair and began to come round his desk and over to her.
She was five feet nine inches tall, he looked down at her andto her utter astonishmentcommented, Still blushing, Lydie? He remembered her, her blushes, from seven years ago?
She was five feet nine inches tall, he looked down at her andto her utter astonishmentcommented, Still blushing, Lydie? He remembered her, her blushes, from seven years ago?
Im L-Lydie Pearson, she heard herself say inanely from somewhere far off.
I know who you are, he answered smoothly. Come in and take a seat, he invited, and as she took a couple of steps into the room he closed the door behind her and touched a hand to her elbow.
In something of a daze she found she was seated on a chair some way to the side of his desk before she had got herself anywhere near of one piece.
Havent I changed at all in seven years? she asked, her head still a little woolly that he had so instantly recognised her.
I wouldnt say that, Jonah replied pleasantly, his eyes flicking a glance over her still slender, but now curving deliciously in all the right places, shape. Elaine, my PA, made a note that a Lydie Pearson phoned last Tuesday. I recalled one black-haired, green-eyed Lydie Pearson with one hell of a superb complexion. It had to be you. He paused, and then, while she was feeling a touch swamped that he thought she had a superb complexion, Youre still Lydie Pearson? he enquired.
Having thought she had her head more together, Lydie wasnt with him for a moment or two. Um she mumbled, then realised what he was asking. Im not married, she answered, and, with a quick glance to his ringless left hand, It doesnt look as if anybodys caught you either.
His rather splendid mouth quirked upwards at the corners slightly. I have very long legs, he confided.
You sprint pretty fast at the word marriage?
He did not answer. He didnt need to. So, hows the world treating you? he asked.
Lydie looked away from his fantastic blue eyes and over to his laden desk. He had not been expecting this visit and from the look of his desk was extremely busy catching up on a backlog of work. Yet he seemed to have all the time in the world to idly converse with someone he barely knew, someone he had only ever clapped eyes on onceand that was seven years ago.
Erthis isnt a social call, Lydie stated abruptly.
It isnt? he questioned mildlywhen she was sure he must know that it wasnt.
She experienced an unexpected urge to thump him that surprised her. She swallowed down that small burst of anger, but only when she felt marginally calmer was she able to coldly state, My father seems not to have fared as well, financially, over the last seven years as you yourself appear to have done.
Jonah nodded, every bit as if he already knew thatand that annoyed herbefore he coolly commented, Thats what comes from constantly bailing out that brother of yours.
How dared he blame Oliver? Oliver no longer has his own business!
That should make things easier for your father, Jonah Marriott shot back at her, cool still.
Honestly! Again she wanted to hit him. My fathers own business has gone too! she retorted pithily, and saw that at last Jonah Marriott was taking her seriously.
Im very sorry to hear that. Wilmot is a first-class
So you should be sorry! she interrupted hotly. If youd had the decency to honour that debt
Honour that debt? Jonah queried toughly, just as if he had not the first clue what she was talking about.
Youre trying to say that you have totally forgotten coming to my home seven years ago and borrowing fifty thousand pounds from my father?
Im hardly likely to do that. If it wasnt for your father
Then its about time you paid that loan back! she interrupted his flow hotly. And, suddenly too het-up to sit still, she jumped to her feetto find Jonah Marriott was on his feet too, and was standing looking down on her. She saw him swiftly masking a look of surpriseat her nerve, no doubt. But she cared not if he thought she had an outrageous sauce to burst in on his busy morning without so much as a by your leave and demand the return of her fathers money. Her fathers peace of mind was at stake here. If my father doesnt have that fifty thousand pounds by the end of todays banking, she hurtled on, we, that is my mother and father, will lose Beamhurst Court!
Lose
But Lydie was too angry to let him in. Beamhurst Court has been in my family for hundreds of years and my father has until only today to see that it stays in the family! she charged on.
Youre exaggerating, surely? Jonah Marriott managed to get in evenly, his eyes on her angry face, her sparking green eyes.
I love Beamhurst! Does it look as if Im exaggerating? she erupted. But calmed down a little to concur, Its true my father invested heavily in Olivers company, but my father didnt know his own firm was going to suffer a downturn.
So he borrowed as much as he could from the banks, putting Beamhurst Court up as collateral, Jonah took up. And when your brothers firm went belly-up, and your father settled his sons creditors, there was nothing left in the kitty to settle his own debts.
You know this? she asked, starting to feel her anger on the rise again that he should be aware of the situation and still refuse to repay her father.
I didnt, Jonah replied, defusing her anger somewhat. From what youve said, that seems the most likely way it went. And disconcertingly he asked, And whats your brother doing in all of this?
Lydie did not care for his question. It weakened her argument. Her father was distraughtwhile Oliver did nothing. HeI havent seen Oliver. I only came home on Tuesday, she excused, and defended her elder brother. Olivers getting married a week tomorrow. Theres a lot to arrange. Hes staying with his fiancées people to help with any last-minute problems they Her voice trailed away.
Lets hope he makes a better job of it than he made of his business, Jonah commented, but, before she could take exception, Big do, is it?
Lydie could have done without that remark too. In the instance of her family being on their uppersand she was coming to realise more and more that her father constantly financing her brothers business was largely responsible for thatit did seem a bit over the top to have such a pomp of a wedding.
The brides parents are paying for everything, she felt obligated to admit, her pride taking something of a hammering here. Look, were getting away from the point! she said snappily. You owe my father money. Money he needs, now, if he is to remain in the only home he has ever known, the home he loves.
Fifty thousand pounds will assure that? Jonah asked, doubting it.
My father has sold everything he can possibly sell in order to meet his debts. All that remains is an overdraft of fifty thousand pounds at the bank that he knows, and they know, he cannot findnor has any likelihood of finding. They have given him until today to try to find that money anyway. He cannot, she ended, and her voice started to fracture. A-and he looks t-terrible.
Abruptly she turned away from Jonah, knowing that her emotions as she thought of her dear distracted father had brought her close to tears. She went to stare unseeing out of the window and swallowed hard as she fought for control. Her pride would never survive if she broke down in front of this hard man.
When she felt she had control she turned towards the door, knowing instinctively that she had pleaded her fathers cause in vain. It had been a long shot anyway, she realised. Had Jonah Marriott the smallest intention of repaying that money, he would have done so long before this.