As she reached the foot of the stairs, the study door opened and her father emerged with Gordon Poulton at his side. He looked tired and haggard, and in spite of her bitterness Julia felt a wrench of her heart at his obvious distress.
He looked up and saw her, and tried to smile. ‘Jools, sweetheart, no one told me you were home. ‘How marvellous!’
She ran to him. ‘Daddy, tell me it’s not true. Promise me you haven’t sold Ambermere to this appalling Greek peasant!’
She heard Gordon Poulton make a shocked noise, and saw her father’s brows snap together in sudden quelling anger. From the shadowy doorway behind them, a third figure detached itself and stepped forward.
Julia felt as if a hand had closed round her throat. She knew him at once, of course. It was the man she’d seen in the lower paddock and taken for a tinker.
No wonder he’d laughed at her! she thought dazedly.
Only this time he wasn’t laughing at all. As the hooded dark gaze swept her from head to foot, she felt as if the flesh had been scorched from her bones by some swift and terrifying flame.
It was all she could do not to fling up her hands to defend herself.
The Tower struck by lightning, she thought, from some whirling corner of her mind, and the King of Swords, coming to cut down her pride and separate her from everything she loved.
THE SAPPHIRE dress looked superb. Julia regarded herself critically in the full-length mirror, making a minute adjustment to the seams of her stockings, and tucking an errant strand of hair into place in her carefully casual topknot.
She looked elegant, poised and sophisticated—just as the daughter of the house should, she thought bitterly. But she was only attending the party under protest, and after the most thunderous row she’d ever had with her father. Even the thought of it now could still make her shudder.
‘How dare you, Julia!’ Sir Philip’s voice had been glacial, when they were finally alone together. ‘I’d hoped your time with Miriam might have cured you of your tendency to impulsive and inopportune reactions. You realise nothing is signed yet between Constantis and myself, and you could have jeopardised the negotiations by your insolence?’
‘Then I’m glad,’ she had answered defiantly. ‘Daddy, you can’t sell Ambermere to a man like that! There must be some other way.’
‘If there was, then I’d have found it.’ His tone sharpened. ‘You’re a child, Julia—a spoiled child. I’ve done you no favours by sheltering you from life’s realities.’
‘Is that how you categorise Alex Constantis?’ Julia’s laugh broke in the middle. ‘Then I’m glad you did—shelter me. He can’t have Ambermere—he can’t!’
‘He can—and I desperately hope he will.’ She had never seen her father look so stern. ‘And you, madam, will do and say nothing else to put the sale at risk.’
‘Well, you have no need to worry about that.’ Julia glared back at him. ‘I’ll make very sure our paths don’t cross again!’
‘In fact you’ll meet him again this evening,’ Sir Philip told her grimly. ‘He’s dining with us, and staying on for the party.’
Julia’s lips parted in a despairing gasp. ‘You can’t have invited him!’ she wailed. ‘Not someone like that. Our friends will think we approve of him—that we’re endorsing him in some way.’
‘And why shouldn’t we?’ Sir Philip slammed his desk with a clenched fist. ‘My God, Julia. Where did you learn to be such an appalling little snob? Alex Constantis may have inherited money initially, but he’s made another fortune on his own account since he became head of the Constantis empire. And in today’s world, it’s money that counts, my dear, as I’m afraid you’re going to find out. So far, he’s been reasonably accommodating. I just pray you haven’t ruined everything with your muddle-headed stupidity. He has a reputation for being a tough operator.’
‘For being a bastard!’ Julia flung back at him. ‘Which is, of course, exactly what he is.’
‘And what have we, precisely, to be so stately and moral about?’ Sir Philip demanded. ‘If the first Julia Kendrick hadn’t caught the Prince Regent’s eye, then we would never have owned Ambermere in the first place. Perhaps you should remember that.’ He paused, surveying her defiant, tight-lipped face. ‘And remember this too, Jools. Tonight I expect you to be civil to Alex Constantis—beginning, perhaps, with an apology.’
‘Will a plain “sorry I spoke” do, or would you like me to grovel—lick his shoes even?’
And so it had gone on, covering the same wretched ground, the same recriminations, until finally they had reached a kind of armed truce. Julia did not have to apologise in so many words, but she wouldn’t be allowed to feign a headache and miss the party either. And she would be polite to Alex Constantis.
‘I know it’s a terrible situation for you, darling,’ her father had said more gently, just before she went up, reluctantly, to change. ‘But we’re still a family, and that’s what matters in the end. Bricks and mortar, however historic, aren’t that important.’
The trouble was, Julia thought dispiritedly, her father had right on his side. She had been abysmally rude about Alex Constantis. But how could she have known he was lurking about in the study doorway like the Demon King, ready to pop up at just the wrong moment? And if she had known would she honestly have behaved differently? Somehow, she doubted it.
And where rudeness was concerned, honours were about even, she thought. He had snubbed her totally and succinctly, after her father had awkwardly attempted to introduce them, reminding Sir Philip coolly that they were due to visit the Home Farm, and walking off with him without deigning Julia a second look.
But that was all to the good, Julia thought, her mouth suddenly dry. Because if the second look lived up to the first, she might end up permanently singed.
There was little doubt that the evening ahead was going to be an ordeal. Her father had made it clear that he intended to introduce Alex Constantis to their neighbours and friends as the future owner of Ambermere, and Julia wasn’t at all sure she could bear it.
She had almost decided against wearing the new dress, telling herself that it didn’t matter what she looked like—that the oldest rag in the wardrobe would do for a—awake like this evening promised to be.
But her pride had reasserted itself. Her ship might be sinking, but she would nail her full colours to the mast—and she would let no one, but no one know how much she despised and resented Alex Constantis. Her innate realism told her that too many avid eyes would be watching for any sign of grief or distress. Their friends would understand and sympathise, she thought with a sigh, but there were others in the neighbourhood, less well disposed towards the Kendricks, who had been prophesying doom and disaster for years.
And now the doom had come upon them in the unwelcome shape of this—Greek upstart, she thought wretchedly.
Paul Constantis had been philosophical about the enforced change in his circumstances, but Julia had sensed an underlying bitterness. She’d sympathised with him, without feeling too involved, but she was concerned now all right. Because by some incredible, nauseating coincidence, Alex Constantis was going to take Ambermere from her, just as he’d preyed on the Constantis family fortune. He was going to steal her home.
‘Bricks and mortar aren’t important,’ Sir Philip had said.
Not to you, Daddy, Julia thought in aching silence. Never to you—but to me.
She was aware that her love