Second Chance with the Millionaire(10)

* * *

'If we didn't have these two to think about, I'd suggest rounding off  the day with dinner somewhere,' Saul told her as he drove home. Both  children were fast asleep in the back of the car, and Lucy glanced back  at them.

'Fanny's not exactly maternal is she?' Saul commented.

'In her own way she is.' Lucy felt bound to defend her stepmother. 'She loves them both very dearly.'

'But she's quite happy to let the responsibility for them rest on your shoulders.'

'I love them, too,' Lucy told him quietly, remembering how miserable she  had felt earlier when she had contemplated the thought of him returning  to America.

'I know you do. I suspect the man who marries you is going to find himself taking on the kids as well.'

Was he trying to find out if she would expect the children to live with  her if she married? Up until today, she had never given much thought to  her own future; marriage had seemed highly unlikely and certainly had  been unwanted. But now …

'Not necessarily. Fanny is their mother and if I married I'm sure she  would want them to live with her. The income she would get from her  allowance and the trusts is enough for them all to live on, but of  course I am their co-guardian and as such I would want to keep in touch  with them.'

'Mmm …  Strange that …  After all, Oliver has his own father doesn't he? I'd  have thought he'd be the one to support Oliver and not your father.'

What on earth could she say? The knowledge that she was actively deceiving him made her tongue slow and her voice hesitant.

'My father loved Oliver very much.' It was after all the truth. 'He was a  man who much preferred sons to daughters, and he and Fanny married when  Oliver was quite small.'                       
       
           



       

'Mmm …  Even so, it was rather odd, don't you think, that he should make  such generous financial arrangements for a child who wasn't his own?'

What could she say?

'He wasn't the sort of man whose decisions you could question,' she told  him, knowing that, whilst her comment was the truth, it was only a tiny  part of it.

To get off such a potentially dangerous subject she asked him curiously,  'What do you intend to do about the Manor? Obviously you can't keep  it … '

'No?'

It was more of a question than an agreement, and she looked sharply at him.

'It would take a fortune to make it properly habitable,' she reminded  him, 'and even without that, the rates and running costs alone … '

'Mmm …  You're right of course. Don't you feel any sentimental attachment to it at all, Lucy?'

Now it was his turn to be curious and this at least was something she could answer honestly.

'Of course I do, but I'm afraid I'm also practical. During the last few  months of my father's life, I had to take charge of running the estate,  paying the bills and so forth, and I'm afraid that cured me of a lot of  my sentimentality. Besides, I'd grown up knowing that one day I'd have  to leave.'

'Yes, your father was very resentful of that entail, wasn't he? I  remember that summer I came over, he never stopped reinforcing how much  he disliked the thought of it coming to me. Was he very disappointed  when Tara was born?' he asked her perceptively.

Lucy bowed her head so that he couldn't see her expression. 'A little,'  she responded guardedly. 'Obviously you realised how he felt about the  house-and the family. Up until the time my mother died I think I  believed that somehow the Martins were immortal, inviolate, and way, way  above the fate of other human beings. My mother's death taught me  differently.

'So it wasn't resentment that summer-just pain.'

She liked him for seeing that.

'Yes,' she admitted.

'Well that's all behind us now.' He lifted his hand from the wheel briefly to cover hers, the contact warm and sure.

'I haven't seen you using the library since I've arrived. I hope that isn't because you don't think you're welcome?'

Initially it had been; that and a stubborn, difficult pride, but now …

She shook her head. 'I just haven't had time to do any more work on my  book. The draft of the first one is finished anyway and with the  publishers. I'm going down to see them next week, and although I've been  sifting through the diaries and letters for background information I  don't intend to start on the second in the series until the first one's  been passed and accepted.'

'You must be very good to have got this far,' Saul commented praisingly.  'I know how difficult it is for a new author to get a first book  accepted, especially when it's fiction.'

'Well I was lucky in that my uncle was able to give me a recommendation,' Lucy reminded him modestly.

'True, but if your work hadn't been good enough, no amount of recommendations would have helped.'

Lucy knew that this was true, and it gave her a warm glow of pleasure to hear Saul's praise.

That was what she had missed since her mother's death, she acknowledged.  Someone to share her ups and downs, no matter how small and trivial.  Her father had never been interested in her writing, and Fanny, although  kind-hearted, considered it a nonsense that any woman could actually  want to work and become financially independent.

There was her uncle, of course, who she loved very much, but she didn't  see that much of him, especially now that he had retired, and the fact  that she and Neville no longer saw eye to eye tended to make her visits  to his parents less frequent. Neville had his own flat in London, but  Lucy always tended to feel a little uncomfortable in her aunt's  presence, knowing how much she adored her only child. Her uncle, she  suspected, saw his son more clearly, but he was a gentle, mild-mannered  man, as far removed from his arrogant callous son as it was possible for  a man to be.                       
       
           



       

'Will the books follow the fortunes of the Martin family?' Saul asked her, returning to the subject of her work.

'Very loosely. I'm going to use the more scandalous bits-the Martin who  cost the family a title by refusing to go to bed with the Prince Regent  will probably feature in it, and of course the family's trading  connections, especially with the West Indies, make a very good  background.

'Although I'm not up to that point yet, I'm thinking about incorporating  the anti-slavery act, probably by using two brothers …  twins maybe, one  for and one against. I'd like to see the diaries and papers, if I may.'

'Wouldn't it have been easier for you to take them to the Dower House with you?'

'Yes it would, but they are family papers, and I felt they belonged to the Manor.'

'Rather a different view to your father's. I gather from my conversation  with the solicitors that he managed to dispose of almost everything  that might raise any cash.'

It was a just criticism and one she could not defend. She had privately  considered it deplorable that her father should have stripped the house  of its assets-assets that, had Saul inherited them, he would have been  able to sell to keep the house going.

'I'm not my father, Saul.'

It was all she could say, and she knew from the warm touch of his hand against her own that he understood how she felt.

Although it wasn't very late when they got back, she felt tired enough  to make her own way to bed less than an hour after she had tucked both  children into theirs.

She and Saul had parted without so much as a kiss but she did not feel  cheated or disappointed. The look in his eyes before he left her had  told her there would be a time for them, and it had soothed her earlier  fears about his imminent return to the States. Had he been questioning  her about the children earlier because he did intend to ask her to go  with him?

One step at a time, she told herself sleepily. One step at a time.

* * *

Her appointment with her publishers was fixed for Tuesday lunch time and  on Monday Lucy went down to see the vicar's wife, to ask if she could  possibly look after Oliver and Tara for the day. She had known Nancy  Smallwood nearly all her life; Nancy's daughter Veronica was five years  her senior and married now with two children.

'I'd love to have them,' Nancy assured her warmly. 'Veronica's bringing  Daniel and Amanda down this afternoon-I'm looking after them for a week  so that she and Ryan can have a break-so they'll be company for one  another.'

'How's Saul settling in?' she asked, having met Saul the summer he had stayed at the Manor.

'Pretty well. Oliver was inclined to resent him a little at first, but now he tends to rather hero-worship him.'

'Oh well, that's no bad thing. A boy that age needs a man to model himself on. Does Saul intend to stay do you know?'

'I don't. I can't see how he would be able to keep the Manor on-that would take a fortune.'

'Yes. So what will he do-sell I suppose?'

'I expect so. He hasn't discussed it, but I don't see that he has much option. It won't be easy to find a buyer.'

'It would make a first-rate hotel-or a school …  or even a convalescent home.'