AND THEN...
No, Alanna told herself almost violently. Nothing more. I will not—not go there. Never again.
Chilled and cramped, she found she’d almost curled into a ball, her arms wrapped protectively round her body, and straightened slowly, inwardly cursing her own stupidity at allowing past mistakes to impinge on her again.
On the other hand, she argued to herself, it could have been very much worse. Supposing Zandor had spent this weekend elsewhere, as he’d clearly been expected to do, and she’d remained in ignorance of his connection to the Harringtons. She might well have found herself embarking, if tentatively, on a serious relationship with Gerard.
Imagine, she thought, her mouth twisting, how that would have crashed and burned when I eventually discovered the truth, and that particular skeleton came tumbling out of the woodwork.
As it is, I can ease myself out of the situation, with no broken bones—alive or dead.
A knock at the door brought her to her feet. ‘Who is it?’ She kept her voice steady.
‘Joanne. I have coffee, if you don’t mind black without sugar.’
‘Sounds great.’ She crossed to the door, the key grating in the lock as she turned it.
Joanne, a steaming mug in either hand, gave her an astonished look. ‘You’re safety conscious,’ she commented. ‘If you’re worried about the abbot’s ghost, it’s only supposed to haunt the cloisters.’
‘I didn’t even know it existed,’ Alanna returned, waving Joanne towards the only chair before she returned to the window seat with her own coffee. ‘And aren’t ghosts supposed to walk straight through doors and walls anyway?’ She hesitated. ‘But I guess locking myself in is a habit dating from my bedsit days.’
Joanne giggled naughtily. ‘Poor Gerard, if he risked Grandam’s eagle eye to come visiting.’
Alanna forced a smile in return. ‘No, the rules were explained to me in advance.’
And if anyone dared to ignore them, it certainly wouldn’t be Gerard, she thought, her throat tightening. Just someone who was strictly a law unto himself.
‘Well the pair of you must make sure you get some time alone today and prepare yourselves for this evening. Repeating silently that it will all be over by this time tomorrow works for me.’
Alanna looked at her, this time with genuine amusement. ‘Joanne—that’s absurd. It’s just a birthday party.’
Joanne sighed. ‘It’s never “just” anything with Grandam. Witness her invitation to Lord Bradham.’
Alanna remembered Mrs Dennison had mentioned the name with foreboding.
‘Don’t you like him?’ she asked.
‘He’s lovely. Local landowner. Very rich. Life peer for services to conservation.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘Ah, so Gerard hasn’t told you.’ Joanne pulled a face. She lowered her voice. ‘The problem is that he was engaged to my aunt Marianne. Date fixed and everything. She went off to Paris to stay with her godmother who was buying her wedding dress, and was invited to some party at the embassy. One of the other guests was a guy called Timon Varga. A bit of a mystery man with plenty of looks and charm, but a bit short on background.
‘A week later, Marianne walked out of the house with her passport, and the wedding dress which had been delivered the day before, leaving a note to say she was marrying this glamorous unknown.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Naturally, all hell broke loose. I mean—a week for God’s sake. She must have been meeting him on the sly, but no one had suspected a thing.’
She shook her head. ‘Grandam was raving that he was nothing but a con man and a gipsy who thought Marianne had money, and she wanted to start a police hunt, but Grandfather talked her out of it. He said Marianne was over eighteen and free to choose for herself, however mistakenly that might be.
‘And if Grandam was right and she did come back abandoned, destitute and pregnant, they would look after her.’
‘What about her fiancé?’ Alanna asked. ‘How on earth did they tell him?’
‘They didn’t have to. Marianne had already written to him apparently. Naturally, he was desperately upset—so much so, he closed up his house and went off to Canada. When he came back two years later he was also married—to a girl called Denise that he’d met in Montreal.’
She gave a sudden giggle. ‘Grandam loathed her on sight, and when he got his life peerage and Denise became Lady Bradham, she was fit to be tied, muttering it should have been Marianne.’
Alanna cleared her throat. ‘Who was not, presumably, abandoned and destitute?’
‘Far from it,’ said Joanne. ‘When Grandfather insisted they should be invited down to the abbey, my mother says Marianne was wearing a diamond like the Rock of Gibraltar. It turned out that her husband was absolutely loaded and that they adored each other.
‘Grandam, of course, wouldn’t accept that. She did her damnedest to find out where he came from and how he’d made his money, but she never did, so she told the rest of the family, he must have bad blood and was probably a criminal of some kind and Marianne would be lucky if he didn’t end up in jail with her alongside him.’
Alanna almost choked on her coffee. ‘How could she?’
‘Quite easily. After Zan was born, Ma says she used to refer to him as the gipsy brat, even when he was old enough to understand.’
‘I...see,’ Alanna said slowly.
‘Anyway, that’s why Lord Bradham, who’s now a widower, has suddenly been invited. To remind Zan that, to Grandam, he’s still an outsider and that’s the man his mother should have married.’ She paused rather awkwardly. ‘Among other things.’
So much for the smiley, white haired old lady, thought Alanna.
She finished her drink and handed Joanne the empty mug. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘No problem. When Gerard brings you down here without the rest of us, shove a kettle and a jar of instant in your bag. The kitchen’s out of bounds before breakfast which is served at nine o’clock sharp.’ She winked. ‘Another company rule.’
Alanna forced another smile. ‘I’ll remember.’
And not just the coffee...
She now had even more reason to ease herself out of the situation, she thought, as she took her shirt, jeans and boots from her bag. The sun was out now and most of the mist had dispersed, so presumably she and Gerard would be going riding and spending the rest of Saturday as planned.
Maybe as Joanne had said, remembering her stay would be over in twenty-four hours might work for her too.
And when they were back in London, she could tell Gerard that she felt things were not working out between them.
And wished she felt more disappointed.
* * *
Niamh Harrington was presiding at the breakfast table, still in her riding breeches and silky polo-necked sweater, plus pink-cheeked and twinkly-eyed, even though neither her daughter-in-law nor Zandor had observed the nine o’clock deadline. For which Alanna had to be thankful.
She had politely wished Mrs Harrington a simple ‘Many happy returns of the day’ as Gerard told her that gifts would be presented at dinner that evening, and helped herself to toast and coffee from the sideboard.