‘Terry?’ Nell queried.
‘You don’t know him,’ Grania responded brightly. ‘I met him at one of the shoots for the underwear commercial. He’s in television. By the way,’ she added mockingly, ‘you do realise, don’t you, that what you’re doing with the house won’t get you into Joss’s good books? He doesn’t approve at all …’
Grania’s taunt and its implied hint that she, Grania, was far more au fait with Joss’s opinions than her dull, boring elder sister, set a spark to the over-dry tinders of Nell’s temper. She had borne so much these last eight months; struggled so hard to keep her promise to Gramps; carried the dual burden of its responsibility and that of knowing their true financial position, which she was sure Grania did not. The allowance she talked about so glibly for instance … the money she believed Gramps had left her. That came from Joss, and it galled Nell more than anything else on earth that she was forced to keep silent, to accept his charity.
As her grandfather’s executor, he was well aware of the exact state of their finances, and probably had been beforehand.
It was odd in a way how much her grandfather had confided in him … how in those last few months, when it became apparent that he had not long to live, he had drawn strength from Joss’s presence … had even come to rely on him in a way that he had never relied on her. But to Gramps she was just a woman—a frail creature who need protecting and directing.
Joss was different. Joss was a man. During those last months he had called regularly two and sometimes three times a week, making time in what Nell knew must be a hectic schedule to come and play chess with her grandfather in the old-fashioned panelled library. Yes, there was very little about the de Tressail finances and the de Tressail family that Joss didn’t know.
Only the week before his death, still chuckling over some reminiscence of when Joss had described his roving teenage years when he had falsified his age and travelled the world working on the huge oil tankers, Gramps had claimed, ‘He’s cut out of the same cloth as the first Sir Hugo, is Joss. A man who makes his own rules. A bit of a rogue perhaps, but tough enough to hold on to what he considers to be his own. Strong enough to stick by what he believes in. I like him,’ he had added staring fiercely up at Nell, as though half expecting her to argue with him.
Now Grania’s taunt about Joss’s views on what she was trying to do to bring money into the estate infuriated her, and she responded fiercely, ‘Well, then, that’s just his tough luck, isn’t it? Easterhay belongs to me, and what I choose to do or not do with it is my business and no one else’s, especially not someone like Joss Wycliffe,’ she added with far more scorn in her voice then she really felt. The scorn in actual fact was for herself, for feeling hurt by Grania’s revelation that she and Joss had discussed her and Joss had revealed his disapproval. Although why she should feel so hurt, so let down …
‘Unfortunately, that’s not strictly true.’
The dry, controlled male voice shocked her, making her spin round, her hand going to her throat in an age-old gesture of self-protection.
‘Joss … I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said weakly, knowing that she was flushing to the roots of her pale hair … knowing the contrast she must make to Grania’s vivid dark beauty, Grania who had no hesitation at all in running lightly across the room and flinging herself into Joss’s arms.
Only she didn’t quite make it. He fielded her off very neatly just before she reached him, holding her at arm’s length while she pouted and eyed him with wicked flirtatiousness.
Oh, to be Grania and not her dull, boring self!
‘Joss, the very person!’ Grania exclaimed. ‘I need to talk to you desperately. How on earth did you know I was here?’
‘I didn’t,’ Joss told her flatly. ‘I came to see Nell …’
‘Oh, well, that can wait. Besides, Nell’s just about to go and do her boring duty by the wedding party. Honestly Joss, you ought to see the fright of a dress the bride’s wearing. Home-made, I’m sure …’ Chattering blithely, linking her arm through Joss’s she led him out of the room.
Nell watched them, her face shadowed with pain. What a striking couple they made, both so tall and dark. Joss lithely male in his casual clothes, the leather blouson jacket he was wearing so soft that it promised to feel like purest silk to the touch; Grania, dressed in something wildly fashionable and no doubt wildly expensive, while she …
She looked down at her serviceable tweed skirt and blouse. They were good-quality separates, but she had had them for about six years, and they had not been bought for fashion’s sake then. What on earth had prompted her to choose beige in the first place? Her aunt, of course. Aunt Honoria had strong views on the dress and manners of young women. Nell had been eighteen when those clothes had been bought. Just leaving college and starting her first job at the small publishers’ run by an old friend of her grandfather, and the clothes had been those Aunt Honoria had deemed most suitable for her business life.
Like everything else in her wardrobe, they had simply become things to put on so that she could get on with the business of living … dull and worthy, like herself.
The sound of Grania’s excited laughter floated back towards her. In the dimness of the corridor, she could just see how Joss’s dark head inclined slightly toward her stepsister’s, and a pain she knew she ought to have learned to control three years ago knifed through her.
Joss Wycliffe … the very last man on earth she ought to fall in love with. And yet she had … instantly … on sight … and without any chance of ever recovering from the blow that fate had dealt her.
It was just three years ago that she had first met Joss, and she would never forget that heart-stopping moment when she had come to the door in answer to its imperative summons and discovered Joss standing outside supporting her grandfather, who had fallen over and hurt himself while out for his walk.
Joss had been wearing brief running shorts and a singlet, his dark hair sweat—slick, but still inclined to curl slightly. He had been tanned, his skin like Grania’s, naturally far darker than her own.
The sight of him had totally overwhelmed her, and she had behaved, she suspected, like an idiot, staring at him as though she had never seen a man in her life before. Who knew what foolish dreams she might have started weaving in her head if Joss hadn’t looked at her and said coolly, ‘Yes. Shockingly disreputable, aren’t I, and hardly dressed to make the acquaintance of a lady?’ And he had stressed that last word unmercifully, making her colour up painfully.
And she had seen in his eyes his contempt and dismissal of her; had seen how totally unattractive as a woman he found her, and for the first time in her life she had truly appreciated her Aunt Honoria’s training. As she had gone on appreciating it ever since. If nothing else, it enabled her to act out the role life had designed for her: the unmarried, unattractive daughter of the house who knew her place; and to conceal from Joss exactly what effect he had on her, or so she hoped …
BY TUESDAY the wedding marquee had been taken down, the tables and chairs packed away and the lawn restored to its normal pristine splendour.
Nell was sitting in the library, working on her accounts. She kept these meticulously, amused to discover that she had quite a talent for bookkeeping; but unfortunately, like all her other talents, it wasn’t enough to build a career on—at least, not the kind of career that would support a house like Easterhay. For that, one needed a business empire to rival Joss’s.
She looked again at her neat figures, her heart sinking. It didn’t matter how many corners she tried to cut, how many economies she made, she just wasn’t making enough money. Last weekend’s wedding had been the next to the last of the season.