Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary(11)

It was a very dangerous thing, that smile, inviting her to share in some  special secret kind of magic, when in reality he had been laughing at  her. A very deceptive smile. A very deceptive man, she reminded herself,  grimly forcing her attention back to her post.

When ten minutes had passed without Sheila's and Sophy's returning she  began to feel distinctly twitchy. She imagined him walking round their  downstairs office, studying the brochures on display, reading the  details which she herself wrote, meticulously trying to show each  property to its advantage, without any embroidery that might lead a  prospective purchaser to claim that they had been misled.

Where a property had a fault, she always made a point of listing it on  the final page of her brochures, where she always placed the property's  good and bad points under the headings 'Advantages' and 'Disadvantages'.  To be fair, which she always was, one man's flaws were another's  attractions.

A house served not by mains drainage but by septic tank would be  anathema to some, while others would consider this to be no problem at  all. For purchasers with children, proximity to schools must come higher  on their list of priorities than, say, being within walking distance of  village shops, which might be a prime requirement of an older couple.

Remembering her own working life in London, Charlotte was well aware  that this was not normal city practice, where competition forced agents  to be far more ruthless, far more elastic with the truth.

She abhorred that kind of selling, and dreaded discovering that Oliver  Tennant intended to introduce it into their quiet country life, thus  forcing her to either yield the major share of the market to him, or  compete with him on the same footing.

Nervously she looked at her watch. There was no sign of him leaving.  What on earth was he doing? Curious though she was, she was not going to  give in to the temptation to go downstairs and find out.

In the end it was twenty minutes before she saw him striding back across  the street in the direction he had come. Maddeningly, before Sheila and  Sophy could report back to her, there was a small flurry of business,  and it was almost half an hour after he had left before Sheila came back  upstairs to tell her breathlessly and triumphantly, 'You'll never guess  what … I've found you your lodger!'

As she stared at Sheila in silence, a horrid suspicion struck Charlotte.

'Not … not Oliver Tennant,' she protested in dismay.

'The very same,' Sheila told her cheerfully, apparently oblivious to the  fact that, far from sharing her delight in the news, Charlotte was  looking decidedly unhappy.

'Don't worry,' Sheila added. 'I've warned him about the alterations et  cetera and he says they won't bother him. Apparently he eats out a good  deal. In fact, he says you'll hardly see him. He came in looking for a  small property to rent, but I explained how seldom we get rented stuff,  especially in the tourist season when everyone with a spare room to let  is looking to make a bit extra from B and B.

'He was just about to leave when I remembered what we'd been saying  earlier, so I told him about your place. I explained all the  disadvantages, don't worry,' Sheila went on, before Charlotte could  interrupt and inform her that it wasn't Oliver Tennant's reaction to the  disadvantages of becoming her lodger that worried her, but the fact  that Sheila had actually made such a suggestion in the first place.                       
       
           



       

'As a lodger he'll be ideal,' Sheila enthused. 'He's prepared to pay  well above the norm. He did ask if it would be possible for him to have  the use of a room to work in, and I immediately thought of your dad's  old rooms. Remember when he was first ill, how he insisted on trying to  work at home, and we kitted out the adjoining bedroom with a desk for  him?'

Charlotte's hissed indrawn breath must have registered what she was  feeling, although Sheila misinterpreted the reason for it, as she turned  to her and said gently, 'Yes, I know how you must feel, but your dad's  gone, Charlotte. I'll bet you haven't even been in those rooms since he  died. I know when I lost my mother I couldn't bring myself to go near  her bedroom for months, but once I did …  Well, once I'd sorted through  her things and turned the room back into a guest room, I felt as though  I'd finally come to terms with her death. I know it will be difficult  for you having someone else in those rooms-'

'Difficult?' Charlotte exploded, unable to keep back what she was  feeling any longer. 'Sheila, you can't seriously stand there and tell me  that you've really invited Oliver Tennant … to become my lodger. Please  tell me it's just a joke,' she implored grimly.

Sheila stared at her. 'But I thought you'd be pleased.'

'Pleased? Pleased!' Charlotte was stunned. 'How could you think that?'

'Well, for one thing, it will give you an opportunity to keep an eye on  him, so to speak,' Sheila told her. 'And for another … well, you couldn't  really find a more suitable lodger, could you?'

'But, Sheila, I don't want a lodger.'

Now it was Sheila's turn to stare. 'But only this morning you said-'

'No,' Charlotte corrected her ruthlessly. 'You said. To be quite honest  with you, I think I'd rather sell than share my home with Oliver  Tennant-not that it's come to that yet. You'll have to telephone him and  tell him that there's been a mistake.'

She looked away from Sheila as she spoke, cravenly hoping that her friend wouldn't see the emotions she was trying to hide.

Oliver Tennant … sharing her home. Her heart was still thudding like a  sledgehammer, the shock of Sheila's announcement reverberating through  her body. She tried in vain to picture the two of them sharing the old  house in cosy intimacy, but her mind refused to conjure up any such  visions. Oliver Tennant might just be desperate enough to believe that  the two of them could live alongside one another in harmony, but she  couldn't believe it. And besides, what on earth would people say? She  closed her eyes in stunned dismay that Sheila, of all people, could  actually have suggested that Oliver Tennant lodge with her.

Almost as though she had read her mind, Sheila said cautiously, 'I suppose you're worried about what people will think.'

'That's certainly one of my worries,' Charlotte agreed grimly. 'Honestly, Sheila, you know what people are like round here.'

'Well, yes, but look at it this way-with both of you being unattached,  people were bound to gossip, to speculate, to connect the two of you  together. This way, the whole thing will be a nine-day wonder and then  forgotten.'

Charlotte raised her eyes heavenwards and denounced, 'I can't follow your logic at all. You'll have to ring him.'

As she turned her back, Sheila and Sophy exchanged glances. Clearing her  throat, Sophy said quietly, 'It's no business of mine, I know, but I  think Sheila did the right thing. People round here love a bit of  intrigue and mystery; if they think that you and Oliver Tennant are  going to become deadly enemies fighting for the major share of the local  property market, you'll both become subject to all kinds of  speculation. This way, people will just assume that you've come to some  harmonious agreement. The fact that he's sharing your home will raise a  few eyebrows at first, but once people realise-'

'How unlikely that a man like him would be interested in someone like  me,' Charlotte supplied bitterly for her. 'Yes, well, I suppose you're  right about that, but neither of you seem to have stopped to think that I  might not want a lodger at all … any lodger.'

'But you agreed earlier that it would be a good thing. Personally I'll  feel a lot easier in my mind if he is there. I've been worrying about  you ever since Henry died and I don't mind admitting it. You are off the  beaten track, you know, no matter how much you might deny it,' insisted  Sheila.                       
       
           



       

Biting back the acid comment that a bedridden father would surely have  been no defence against any would-be attacker, Charlotte struggled to  preserve her temper. She couldn't understand what had got into Sheila.  She was normally so circumspect …

'I can't understand why Oliver Tennant should have agreed with your suggestion.'

'Agreed? He nearly bit my hand off,' Sheila told her, with what  Charlotte suspected was an exaggeration. 'I only mentioned it idly  really, as you do, but he insisted that I tell him more about the house  and the more I told him, the more he seemed to like the idea.'

'He might, but I don't!' Charlotte retorted.

'Well, he's going to see about getting a tenancy agreement drawn up,'  Sheila continued. 'It seems that, because they deal with rented property  such a lot in London, he knows a solicitor who's familiar with the ins  and outs of such agreements. He said he'd call round with it tomorrow.'