Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary(13)

Restlessly she left the drawing-room and walked round the house, ending  up outside the door to her father's old suite of rooms. Beyond the door  lay the room her father had used as his study-cum-sitting-room at the  start of his illness, his bedroom and his bathroom.

Since his death she hadn't been inside them. The vicar's wife had  arranged for his clothes and personal effects to be removed, and Mrs  Higham had gone through the rooms giving them a thorough clean. Now,  with her hand on the door, Charlotte felt a deep shudder of pain go  through her.

Their relationship should have been so different, she acknowledged. She  had loved her father, but had never been able to express that love  because she had always known that she was not the son he had wanted. On  the surface they had got on well enough, but under that surface there  had been a distance between them, a lack of closeness which had hurt her  deeply when she was child, but as she had grown up she had learned to  accept it, just as she had learned to accept that in her father's eyes  she would never be what he wanted.

Was that why she had always felt so inferior and vulnerable with other  men-because she expected them to reflect her father's disappointment in  her?

It was a disturbing thought, and one she did not want to pursue. It was  too late to go back now, looking for motives, for reasons to explain  away her lack of appeal for the male sex. She had long ago come to  accept that she was the way she was. Too late now to look back and  wonder if perhaps things could have been different.

Gordon had after all laid it on the line for her when they had broken  their engagement. He did not find her desirable, he had told her; he  liked her as a person, but as a woman …  Those words were still buried  inside her, sharp slivers of steel that still ached and hurt, that had  left a wound long after she had got over the loss of Gordon himself.

When she finally steeled herself to walk into her father's rooms she was  disconcerted by her lack of emotional reaction. They were simply rooms,  furnished with heavy but good furniture, their décor dull and  uninspiring, although her father's desk and the comfortable armchair  behind it gave one room a certain austere masculinity.

She tried to picture Oliver Tennant sitting behind that desk, holding  her breath tensely, relieved when she found it impossible to conjure up  his image and superimpose it on to her father's chair. In the morning  she would insist on Sheila's telephoning him and telling him that it was  impossible for him to lodge with her.

Her mind firmly made up, she went back downstairs. She had some  paperwork to do, which would fill her time far more profitably than  mooching about the house the way she was doing at the moment.





CHAPTER FIVE


THE next morning the Volvo refused to start once again. This time  Charlotte had to call out the local garage, and only arrived at the  office after the mechanic had spent over half an hour coaxing the  reluctant engine to fire.

In consequence she was both out of temper and out of patience when she  eventually hurried across the square and opened the office door, and the  last person she wanted to see standing there, somehow looking far  taller than she remembered, was Oliver Tennant.

He had his back towards her as he studied their property brochure  displays, but as she walked in he swung round, his eyes crinkling a  smile that made her stomach somersault dangerously.

'Mr Tennant.' She said his name in as crisply professional a manner as  she could. He was holding an envelope in his hand and her heart sank.  This must be the tenancy agreement. He hadn't wasted any time, but, in  all fairness to him, she had to acknowledge that the chance of his  finding somewhere else to rent at this time of the year was very small.

'Miss Spencer,' he acknowledged formally, and then frowned, asking far more personally, 'Is everything all right?'

Charlotte stared at him, conscious of the fact that Sheila was watching them both.

'Yes, of course it is. Why shouldn't it be?' she demanded aggressively,  and was stunned as he casually stretched out one hand and brushed his  fingers over her cheekbone in something that was so like a caress that  she drew in her breath, shocked by the sensations evoked by his touch.

Her eyes must have registered her feelings because for a breathless  second his own darkened, and then he said evenly, 'You've got oil on  your face. I wondered if your car had broken down.'

Oil on her face. Damn that mechanic. No wonder he'd been grinning when  he drove away. Why hadn't he said something? Charlotte fumed, resisting  the impulse to rush to the nearest mirror and see how much of an idiot  she looked.

'It's got a starting problem,' she admitted through gritted teeth.                       
       
           



       

Behind her she heard the door open as someone came in, but before she  could turn round Oliver Tennant was saying easily, 'Well, perhaps, once  I've moved into your place, I can repay your kindness by giving you a  lift into town … at least until you've got your car fixed.'

Charlotte was furious; she opened her mouth to disabuse him of his idea  that he would be 'moving in', as he termed it, but before she could say a  word a familiar and decidedly shrill female voice cut in acidly.

'You're moving in with Charlotte, Oliver? Good heavens … why?'

Vanessa! Charlotte closed her eyes on a wave of disbelief. Of all people  to have overheard Oliver's comment, Vanessa was the very last one she  would have chosen.

'Charlotte has kindly offered to take me on as a lodger until I find a  house of my own,' she heard Oliver say smoothly to Vanessa.

'But why? I told you we have a spare room. Heavens, Oliver, what can you  be thinking of? Have you seen Charlie's house? You'll be very  uncomfortable there.'

As Charlotte turned round, Vanessa said aggressively to her, 'You can't  possibly be serious about this, Charlotte. I mean, think of what people  will say. An unmarried woman … an unmarried man … living together.' She gave  an acid laugh. 'Of course, I don't suppose for a moment that anyone  will believe Oliver is interested in you, his reputation will be safe  enough, but people are bound to wonder about you … to speculate. You'll be  in a very vulnerable position, a woman of your age.'

Charlotte wasn't sure what prompted the blinding anger that overwhelmed  her, or what hurt her the most. Vanessa's insinuation that Oliver  couldn't possibly be interested in her only underlined her own views,  after all …  perhaps it was the fact that she was voicing it, and so  cuttingly, in front of Oliver himself. An Oliver who was oddly silent.

Carried along on a powerful surge of anger, Charlotte heard herself  saying acidly, 'I'm sure you're exaggerating, Vanessa, and that no one  will give the fact that Oliver is lodging with me a second thought. At  least, no one with any common sense. It seems a very sensible  arrangement to me. Oliver needs a place to live, and to be quite frank I  could do with some temporary help with the running expenses of the  house while I decide whether to keep it or sell it.'

'Keep it? It's a family house,' Vanessa told her shortly. 'What on earth  would you do with it? After all, it's not as though you're likely to  marry … not at your age.'

Seething with anger, Charlotte turned away from her, and was then  shocked into immobility as unbelievably she heard Oliver saying coolly,  'You're rather behind the times, you know, Vanessa. In London very few  women contemplate marriage these days until they're well established in  their careers and into their early thirties. The days when a woman's  sole aim in life was to secure a husband are long gone. It's we men  these days who are having to do the chasing and persuading.'

Vanessa stared at him, obviously taken aback by his criticism, and then  rallied to say coquettishly, 'Oh, come on, Oliver, don't try to tell me  that you've ever had to chase any woman.'

He had rescued her, Charlotte recognised in surprise. He had quite  deliberately stepped in and rescued her from Vanessa's malice.

His behaviour confused her, and left her feeling even more vulnerable  and unsure of herself. Why had he done it? Because he felt sorry for  her? Because it was in his own interests in view of the fact that he  wanted to lodge with her? Or because he had genuinely believed what he  had said?

Angry with herself for letting her thoughts wander, she said curtly to Vanessa, 'What exactly did you want, Vanessa?'

'Oh, I saw that Oliver was here and I came in to remind him that he  promised to come round and value our house,' Vanessa told her  carelessly.

Stunned by her rudeness, Charlotte swallowed her anger and said as  pleasantly as she could, 'Well, as the two of you obviously have  business to discuss, I'll leave you to it.'

However, as she turned to walk away, Oliver stopped her. The sensation  of his hand resting lightly on her arm was like a small electric shock.  As she reacted automatically to it, her eyes widening as she turned  towards him, he said evenly, 'This is neither the time nor the place for  such a discussion, Vanessa. If you'd care to ring me at my office … ' And  then, giving her a dismissive nod, he said to Charlotte, 'I've brought a  copy of the prospective tenancy agreement round for you to look at.  You'll want your solicitor to go over it, of course, but if you could  spare me five minutes to discuss it with you … '