“Making love to a virgin could have complications I’d prefer to avoid.”

Astra stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment or two, and then went pink when she thought she saw what he was getting at. “I might get pregnant?” she questioned coolly, if a touch self-consciously.

“I was thinking more that, not knowing the rules, the way these things work, you might be the clinging type,” he corrected her.

“Clinging!” She was furious on the instant. “From gratitude, obviously,” she hurled at him.

She saw his lips twitch. Pleasantly he enlightened her. “You might want marriage.”

Marriage? Never! How dared he? “To you? Don’t flatter yourself, Baxendale.”

“You’re too splendid for words when you’re angry.”

For three cousins it has to be marriage—pure and simple!

Yancie, Fennia and Astra are cousins—exceedingly close cousins, who’ve grown up together and shared the same experiences. For all of them, one thing is certain—they’ll never be like their mothers, having serial, meaningless affairs; they’ve pledged that, for them, it has to be marriage or nothing!

Only, things are about to change when three eligible bachelors walk into their lives—and each cousin finds herself with a new boss…and a potential husband?

But will each of their stories end at the altar?

This month it’s Astra’s turn!

The Marriage Pledge by Jessica Steele

HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®

3588—THE FEISTY FIANCÉE

3615—BACHELOR IN NEED

3627—MARRIAGE IN MIND

Marriage in Mind
Jessica Steele

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

ASTRA stared incredulously at her immediate boss. ‘You’re saying he wants us, Yarroll Finance, to work out some sort of financial package for him?’ she questioned disbelievingly.

‘It hasn’t got that far,’ Norman Davis cautioned. ‘Mr Baxendale made contact this morning while you were out. Apparently word has reached him of our dynamic financial adviser, and he wants to see you.’

‘Me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mr Baxendale wants to see me?’

‘You,’ Norman Davis confirmed.

Astra was stunned. She knew, without false modesty, that she was good at her job. But that Sayre Baxendale, a board member of Blyth Whitaker International—and a man to be reckoned with, according to a report she had read in some financial paper only last week—should consult them was astounding. That he should approach Yarroll Finance when it came to matters of personal finance was staggering enough—and it had to be personal finance if she was involved, because that was the area in which she excelled. But that he should ask for her, in particular, to talk facts and figures with was astonishing.

‘You’re sure it’s me he wants to see?’ she questioned, her habit of double-checking everything to do with her work starting to kick in.

‘If you’re Miss Astra Northcott,’ Norman Davis beamed. Yarroll Finance was a highly respected company; to have a director of Blyth Whitaker International on their books was yet another indication of their first-class reputation in the world of finance.

Astra stared solemnly at him. She was twenty-two and was young, she knew, to hold the position she did in a firm of such superior standing. But she had studied hard for her qualifications. Had worked hard and, given that she seemed to have a natural flair for figures and hard work, this—to be asked for personally by such an esteemed client, and client he would be if she had to work twenty-five hours a day to get him the package he wanted—seemed to her to be the very ultimate of success in the finance world.

Then she allowed herself a smile. Her lovely lips parted to reveal beautiful white, perfectly even teeth, her happiness showing in the large green depths of her beautiful eyes. ‘I’d better ring him to make an appointment,’ she suggested. ‘Do you have his home number?’

‘The appointment’s already made,’ her boss informed her cheerfully. ‘Sayre Baxendale’s a very busy man. He’ll see you at his office at two-thirty tomorrow afternoon.’

Astra would have liked to have fixed a mutually convenient time—she knew she was scheduled to be busy elsewhere at two-thirty tomorrow, and hated breaking appointments. But he who paid the piper called the tune, and apparently what Mr Baxendale wanted Mr Baxendale got. Two-thirty tomorrow was convenient for him—end of story.

Her flicker of irritation with Sayre Baxendale at what to her seemed to be a mite high-handed had long since gone by the time she arrived home that night. She’d had a busy day, and it wasn’t over yet.

She took her briefcase into her study, but before she started work again she went and took a shower, put a delicious-looking lasagne in the microwave to defrost and spent an hour unwinding from the demands of the day.

If, that was, thinking about tomorrow’s appointments could be called unwinding. Thankfully, in order to accommodate Sayre Baxendale, she had been able to re-schedule tomorrow’s original two-thirty appointment; things had worked out well, as it happened, because the alternative time now suited her client better.

Astra went over again all she had been able to glean that day about the man she was to see tomorrow. Though what she had found out did not amount to very much, she realised. She had known already that he was on the board of Blyth Whitaker, a company with many subsidiary companies but dealing for the most part in manufacturing industries. Today’s trawl had revealed he was thirty-six—younger than she had supposed a man of his business repute to be. She had learned that, while never lacking some sensational-looking female to squire around, he was unmarried.

So what was this bachelor director, presumably without children, doing looking to Yarroll Finance for some sort of financial package? Astra stepped from her shower, donned a robe, fixed herself a salad to go with the lasagne and continued to question.

Without a doubt, Blyth Whitaker fielded their own finance department—so why was he coming to Yarroll Finance? Astra was munching her way through her meal when she settled for the only logical answer—Sayre Baxendale must want to keep his personal business separate from the company he worked for. Yes, that must be it. He wanted to keep his personal dealings totally private from his own people.

So why, if he wanted to keep it so private, had he asked that she should call and see him at his place of business? She was used to visiting clients in their own homes—she’d have thought he would have instructed that she call and see him at his home.

But perhaps he was too busy dating sensational-looking females to have any spare time! Astra grinned at the sourness of that thought—good luck to him.

She wished, though, that he had given Norman Davis some sort of hint about what kind of package he was after. Surely it couldn’t be some kind of a pension plan? Laughable! He’d have stocks and shares by the thousands, endless funds salted away to cover any eventuality; of that she was certain.

Astra liked to be well prepared before she saw any of her clients, but had just resigned herself to hoping she would have the answers to any questions Sayre Baxendale threw at her, without having to call back to base, when her telephone rang. It was her cousin, Yancie.

‘I’ve interrupted you and you hate me?’ Yancie apologised in advance.

‘You didn’t and I don’t.’

‘You’re in your study.’

‘I’m not—I’m in the kitchen and I’ve just finished eating a lasagne Fennia made some time ago.’

‘Have you heard from her?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Neither have I—which isn’t at all surprising. Now—what am I going to do about you?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Astra threatened, recalling again her horror when, at Fennia’s wedding a couple of weeks ago, Yancie had said ‘And then there was one’ with such a meaningful gleam in her eye—Astra now the only one of the three cousins remaining unmarried. Astra had had to tell her cousin to scrap at once any embryo notion she might have of seeing to it that she met ‘Mr Right’.

Yancie laughed at her fierce ‘Don’t you dare’. ‘I wouldn’t, love,’ she promised. ‘But with both Fen and me finding such utter bliss it doesn’t seem right that you haven’t. I know, I know,’ she went on quickly before Astra could butt in, ‘you’re a career woman, happy as you are and absolutely, positively, have no interest in getting married. But, honestly, Astra, if it does happen, and you do fall in love, please—let it happen. Promise me!’

In Astra’s view the possibility that she, like her two cousins, might fall head over heels in love was so remote as to be extinct. It was, therefore, no hardship to give Yancie the promise she wanted.

‘Oh, I will,’ she answered lightly, and changed the subject. ‘How are things with you?’ she asked. ‘Don’t answer—it’s there in your voice. You’re still on cloud nine.’

‘Fly in the ointment,’ Yancie confessed.

At once Astra wanted to do anything she could for her cousin. Yancie had been married to Thomson Wakefield only three months—nothing should be allowed to mar her happiness. ‘Your mother?’ she guessed.

‘How well we all know one another!’ And, to show that she wasn’t too distressed, Yancie laughed. ‘Mother’s broken up with Henry and…’

‘That didn’t last long!’

‘Does it ever? Anyhow, for some unknown reason, my mother wants to come and stay with me for a while.’

‘Grief!’ Astra exclaimed; it was relatively unheard of for any of their mothers to want very much to do with their daughters, much less ask to come and stay for a while.

‘My sentiments exactly!’

‘What does Thomson say?’

‘He says to invite her—and he’ll invite his mother to come at the same time. I think he’s thinking that they’ll both be such ghastly company for each other that neither of them will stay long.’

Astra remembered Thomson’s sour-looking mother at his wedding—she had no trouble at all remembering Yancie’s mother, her aunt Ursula. She, like her two sisters—Astra’s mother and Fennia’s mother—was completely flighty, man and money mad.

But, as irrepressible as ever, Yancie was laughing again as she stated, ‘I think I might just do that.’ And Astra burst out laughing too.

She was not laughing a little while later when she put down the phone. Memories were surfacing, memories which she had thought no longer haunted her, but all too plainly, and painfully, still did.

Her parents had divorced when she was three years old. Her mother, according to her aunts, had not particularly wanted a child but had conceived her as a ploy to get wealthy Carleton Northcott to marry her.

Astra’s aunt Ursula and aunt Portia had seen nothing at all wrong in revealing to Astra when she had been in her early teens that their sister Imogen had declined Carleton Northcott’s offer of a handsome maintenance settlement for her and the child. Instead, obviously knowing something of the integrity of the man—for all it seemed he’d balked at having to actually marry her—Imogen Jolliffe, as she was then, had horrified him by telling him it was marriage—or an abortion.

So Imogen had got what she wanted. It hadn’t been enough for her. Whether the marriage would have worked had she kept to her marriage promises was difficult to tell, but her baby had been barely six months old when Mrs Carleton Northcott started playing in pastures new.

Astra remembered little of those early years. What she did remember was that, for all her father no longer lived with them, she saw more of him than she saw of her mother.

In her early years Astra grew used to being banished to her room on the occasions when her mother brought ‘a friend’ home. As it happened, Astra, a quiet, reserved child, was quite happy not to have to stay and be talked at by the succession of men who filed through the house.

Had she stayed at home, however, she might—while shying away from it—have formed the opinion over her growing years that her mother’s promiscuity was normal behaviour. Though her father had been ready to put a stop to any chance of that.

She was just coming up to her seventh birthday and had spent a very pleasant weekend with him when, according to her aunt Delia, her mother’s elder half-sister, her father had been disturbed by Astra’s innocent chatter about the story book she’d been reading in her bedroom while her mother had talked to ‘Uncle’ William in her bedroom.

Instead of returning Astra to her home at the end of her weekend stay with him, it was to her aunt Delia’s house that he took her. ‘Stay here with Aunt Delia, poppet; I just want to go and have a private word with Mummy,’ he explained, having had a discussion with her aunt while Astra went to chatter to Mollie, Aunt Delia’s mongrel dog.

Astra loved her aunt Delia; everything was so calm around her, and with one arm around Mollie Astra waved her father off with the other. She had no inkling then of the almighty row that had taken place between her parents. Which, pieced together many years later, started with her father saying he had merely called to inform her mother personally that Astra wasn’t coming back, and that he was taking her to live with him.

Apparently, for all it was plain that Imogen Northcott had little interest in her child, she cared not at all to have her ex-husband laying down the law. ‘No, you are not!’ Imogen told him bluntly, and in the ensuing ‘Yes I am, no, you’re not’ argument his ex-wife informed him she had made arrangements—without consulting him—for Astra to go to boarding-school.

Carleton Northcott might have argued, but immediately saw that, while he still followed his business interests and much though he had grown to love his daughter, he would not be able to be a full-time father to her. Since his main objective was to get her from under her mother’s roof—perhaps boarding-school might be the answer.

‘She’s only seven.’ He wasn’t ready to give in easily. ‘She’ll be lonely—I’m not having her…’

‘She won’t be lonely. Her two cousins are going with her.’

Cold dislike had been in the air as Carleton Northcott looked at the woman he’d been forced to marry. ‘How long have you and your harpy sisters been planning this?’ he had wanted to know.

Imogen had smiled a triumphant smile as she informed him, ‘From the day she was born. Unfortunately, the boarding-school we’ve chosen wouldn’t take them younger than the age of seven.’

Astra had been happy at boarding-school. All three cousins were born within a month of each other, and, rooming together as they did, Astra, Yancie and Fennia became as close as sisters. Apart from school holidays, they were inseparable.

Astra considered herself the lucky one in that both Fennia and Yancie’s fathers had died, and while Astra, too, sometimes had an ‘uncle’ come to collect her at the end of school term more often than not it was her father who came for her.

Though, because he was busy a lot of the time, her mother demanded that she spend her school holidays at home with her. This, Astra soon discovered, was more to spite her father than from any deep-rooted maternal instinct. For Imogen, married again and now Imogen Kirby, was still carrying on as though she had never said ‘I do’ to Robert Kirby.

Holidays, apart from the time Astra spent at her father’s smart apartment, were in the main fairly awful. She couldn’t wait to get back to school—the same went for her two cousins. Astra clearly remembered how the three of them had met up again after a lengthy summer break and Yancie, having gone through a shocking time, had fervently declared, ‘No, no, no, no way am I going to be like my mother.’

‘That goes double for me and my mother!’ Fennia, having gone through a dreadful traumatic time too, unhappily asserted.

‘And that’s triple for me!’ Astra had chipped in, having been aghast at the way her mother had barely waited for the door to close on husband number two, whenever he left for his office, before she was on the phone to some other man.

Having spent weeks in the same close confines with their female parents, each cousin—aware enough by then, educated enough by then—had been absolutely appalled by what they had seen and heard going on. Absolutely appalled and—afraid!

‘What if we’ve inherited something?’ Fennia exclaimed, aghast. ‘A gene, or something—some promiscuous part of our mothers that makes them the way they are when any likely-looking man pokes his head above the parapet!’

They had gasped in dismayed consternation—it was truly a terrifying thought. And it was there and then, after a lengthy and fearful discussion, that the cousins vowed that they would defy any such wayward gene should it rear its ugly head. They would not be permissive, promiscuous or free-moralled. They would, they pledged, be alert and ready to stamp on any wayward urge that showed itself.

There had been no need to renew that vow two years later when, at the age of eighteen, they had left boarding-school for the last time. It was by then as if written in stone. There would be no string of lovers. Only one man would do. The right man. If they didn’t find him, they would give themselves to no man.

Yancie and Fennia’s ‘right’ men had come along, and they had married them. Astra, having undergone further extensive and in-depth business training, was career-minded and dedicated to her job. She had hopes of going higher and yet higher up the professional ladder. Marriage simply had no place in her plans.

She worked hard, evenings and weekends, and had no time for any kind of a relationship. Which was fine by her—she’d seen enough of her mother’s ‘relationships’ to know that that route wasn’t for her.

Not that Astra was lacking for offers. She had rich red hair, green eyes and, though naturally pale, a dream of a perfect skin. Her figure, while slender, curved in all the right places. And, according to Sukey Lloyd—a girl the three cousins had been at school with—Astra had legs to die for.

While feeling quite friendly on the inside to her fellow man, Astra found she could do little about her cool, aloof-looking exterior. Indeed, she had been completely unaware of her cool and aloof look until a couple of months ago when she’d turned down yet another invitation out from a newcomer to Yarroll Finance, who, peeved at her crisp thank-you-but-no, went away muttering, ‘Now I know why they call you North Pole Northcott!’

She hadn’t thought that had bothered her but, friendly with one of the secretaries who sometimes did some work for her, Astra found herself one day asking her if everybody at Yarroll’s had a nickname.

‘Only the favoured few,’ Cindy had replied. And, on a gasp as she realised what lay behind the question, she exclaimed, ‘You’ve heard?’

‘North Pole Northcott?’

‘Oh!’ Cindy murmured—and, obviously trying to make light of it, added, ‘Never mind—your mum loves you.’

That, Astra considered, was extremely doubtful. She had returned to live with her mother when she had finished school, but that arrangement had never been going to work. Her mother lived an idle life of socialising and greed. Astra—to her mother’s shame—wanted to work for her living.

It was a constant bone of contention between them that Astra, while living at home, was taking a full-time course which involved taking further exams for her chosen career. So that by the time Carleton Northcott decided to retire and move to his second home in the Windward Islands, and suggested that if Astra didn’t want to go to Barbados with him she could move into his London apartment and keep an eye on the place for him, Astra thought it the best idea she’d heard in a long while. Her mother must have thought so too, for this time she raised no objection.

All of which had worked out for the best, Astra reflected as she washed her used dishes at the kitchen sink. Over the last few years, what with being so busy with her job, and Imogen having a full social calendar, Astra rarely saw her mother. Though, dutifully, she would telephone and occasionally her mother—usually when she was having some kind of disaster with her current male, and both her sisters were engaged elsewhere—would pay her a visit.

Which, Astra thought, dragging her mind back to the present, her briefcase as yet still unopened in her study, wasn’t getting the work done. She dried her hands, and ten minutes later she was totally absorbed in her work.

Strangely, though, after all the multitude of thoughts that had gone through her head that evening, when later she turned off her computer and went to bed it wasn’t of her family that she thought. For quite some while she lay sleepless, her mind not on any member of her family, but on the tough-sounding board member of Blyth Whitaker International, a man she had yet to meet.

Next day, Astra arrived at the Blyth Whitaker building in good time. Incongruously, when she would have said she knew her business inside out, she suddenly started to feel a little nervous. What nonsense! she scoffed, but couldn’t deny that she was glad the mirror in the lift she had been directed to showed her looking cool and immaculate in her black suit and white silk shirt.

Briefcase in hand and in her smart plain black, two-and-a-half-inch-heeled shoes, Astra stepped out of the lift determined to keep looking outwardly composed. On the face of it, there was no reason why she should lose the tiniest bit of composure—even if it was Mr Sayre Baxendale himself that she was there to see.

Even if it seemed too incredible to be true that Sayre Baxendale had asked for her personally, she was good at her job. Why did she feel the need to keep reminding herself of that? Good grief—she couldn’t remember the last time, or any time for that matter, when she’d had the jitters about meeting a client. For heaven’s sake, he was expecting her; she wouldn’t have got past Reception had that not been so.

Astra found the door she was looking for, and, since she was expected, tapped on it only lightly, and went in. A tall black-haired man was at another door with a woman in her late twenties who was on her way out so that Astra caught only a glimpse of her. The woman seemed vaguely familiar. But Astra met so many people in her job that it didn’t surprise her that the woman, his PA, most probably, could be someone she had already met.

However, she was here to see Sayre Baxendale, who had closed the door after the woman and was coming back into his office. ‘Astra Northcott, Yarroll Finance,’ she introduced herself. She was softly spoken, her voice unaccented, with a hint of friendliness—otherwise her appearance and everything else about her was totally businesslike.

She extended her right hand—he ignored it. ‘Take a seat,’ he instructed shortly.

Astra didn’t know what it was about this man; he was good-looking certainly, was broad-shouldered, without fat, had dark eyes, and she could well imagine that sensational-looking females would come chasing after him rather than him having to exert himself. But she felt more niggled by him than anything else. No one had ever declined to shake hands with her before.

Astra was aware that his dark glance was giving her a thorough going over, as if to note every detail—her figure, her thick red hair, worn as she usually wore it in a sophisticated chignon, her green eyes, her pale skin. She felt herself dissected—and put back together again—and that too annoyed her.

Which left her, since she instantly did not care at all for this man with whom she was here to do business, to draw on every scrap of her professionalism. She went calmly over to the chair he had indicated—it was opposite to the one he took—his large, uncluttered desk in between them.

‘I am unsure which kind of personal package you may be interested in, Mr Baxendale,’ she remarked pleasantly, placing her briefcase on his desk. ‘If you’d care to give me a few details of what you have in mind,’ she went on, her long, slender fingers already at the fasteners on her briefcase, ‘I’ll…’

‘I’m not remotely interested in any personal package you have to offer.’ He cut her off before she could finish, and Astra, her fingers falling away from her briefcase, just sat and stared at him, stunned.

He’d somehow made that sound as if she wanted him to be personally interested in her! Fat chance! She started to recover from her incredulity, and almost told him that it sounded to her as if his sensational females should be less forthcoming than they were if he thought she was remotely interested in him either—personally. But she was here on business, or thought she was, and to have him, Sayre Baxendale, as one of her clients would be a prize indeed.

So she remained calm, remained even a hint friendly, as she enquired, ‘You are Sayre Baxendale? I am speaking with the same man who contacted Yarroll Finance yesterday and suggested I come to see you today?’

‘I asked you to come and see me today,’ he replied bluntly, no suggestion about it.

Somehow Astra managed to keep a pleasant look on her face. ‘I must have got it wrong,’ she murmured apologetically. ‘You’re more interested in some commercial…’ She broke off; she saw he was looking at her sceptically. And anyhow she didn’t ‘do’ commercial. Her intelligence going into overdrive, she had a positive notion that if his Finance section couldn’t come up with everything he wanted on the commercial side, then heads in that section would roll thick and fast. ‘You’re neither interested in a personal package nor anything commercial, are you, Mr Baxendale?’ she enquired as calmly as she could.

He studied her, his dark eyes fixing at last on her cool green ones. ‘No,’ he answered shortly.

Instinctively, Astra wanted to get up and walk out of there. But she was here representing her firm and, anyhow, she was more professional than that. ‘May I ask, then, why you have asked to see me today?’ she enquired—and very nearly dropped when he told her.

However, he did not tell her straight away, but first, to her surprise, referred her to someone she had completed a deal with several months before. ‘Does the name Ronald Cummings mean anything to you?’ he asked.

It was a name she was unlikely to forget! She’d had a client named Ronald Cummings. That was to say she had dealt with—long and tediously—Ronald Cummings, a fifty-year-old who’d changed his mind constantly in the months prior to him finally settling on the investment she had arranged for him.

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss anyone who may or may not be a client,’ she kept her professional hat firmly in place to reply.

Sayre Baxendale was unimpressed. ‘Ronald Cummings has no such ethics when it comes to discussing you!’ he informed her shortly.

‘You know Mr Cummings?’ Astra enquired, more to give herself a moment to sort out in her head what the dickens was going on here than anything else.

‘His daughter happens to be my PA,’ Sayre Baxendale answered crisply.

‘His daughter?’ The woman she had caught a glimpse of just now? Astra speedily thought back to three or four months ago, grateful that she had an excellent memory. No wonder the woman looked familiar—she had met her. ‘Mrs Edwards,’ she pulled out of nowhere, and didn’t think that was too bad considering she had met the woman only once. But this was no time for self-congratulation; Sayre Baxendale was looking every bit as tough as she’d heard he could be. ‘Mrs Edwards, Mr Cummings’s daughter, is your PA?’ she questioned.

He didn’t deign to answer. Straight-to-the-point-Baxendale, Astra dubbed him. ‘We were speaking of Ronald Cummings and the extremely bad advice you gave him.’

‘Bad advice!’ she echoed, staring at him disbelievingly.

‘Not to say bordering on the criminal,’ Sayre Baxendale didn’t flinch from accusing.

‘Criminal!’ Astra exclaimed, and as anger stormed through her at such a heinous accusation she flared hotly, ‘I very much hope you can substantiate such a remark.’ My stars! This man was the end! ‘Neither my company nor I will put up with such defamation…’

‘I’m sure Yarroll Finance will be delighted to know that their representative is far more interested in earning a fat commission than in…’

‘That’s outrageous!’ Astra flew, rising furiously to her feet and glaring at the objectionable man who stared back at her, imperturbable, when she felt angry enough to hit him.

‘It would be, if it were untrue,’ he replied, rising to his feet and staring down at her. ‘However, I’ve seen for myself the Porsche you drive—which takes quite a chunk out of your income in monthly repayments, I suspect…’ What impertinence! The car was paid for! ‘…and that suit you’re wearing would put most women back three months’ salary.’

There was so much Astra could have said in her defence to such a charge. For one, that she had bought her car with only a part of an inheritance from her paternal grandfather. For another, she could have told Sayre Baxendale that her father insisted on paying considerable sums into her bank account from time to time. In fact, she could have told Baxendale that, if the truth be known, she had not the smallest need to work at all. As for the commission she’d earned on the Ronald Cummings package—and, recalling the way the man had dithered and constantly changed his mind, oh, my, how she’d earned it—commission had been the last thing on her mind throughout the whole transaction.

But she said none of those things, and indeed did not so much as attempt to defend herself. Very much to her own surprise, she had to admit, she heard herself actually bluntly enquire, ‘You’ve seen my car?’

If he too was surprised that she chose to enquire rather than defend, he didn’t show it, but told her equally bluntly, ‘Veronica Edwards drew my attention to you getting out of your car the other day when we were in Great Portland Street on business.’ That was a week ago! Astra recalled she had been in Great Portland Street a week ago. ‘Where I saw you and your car is incidental,’ Sayre Baxendale stated, clearly not prepared to waste any more of his precious time. ‘I’ve seen all the papers relative to the deal you put together for Ronald Cummings; the near criminal investment you calculated for him—forgetting completely to mention that he stood to lose his home, his property if he…’

‘I would have told him that!’ Astra exclaimed hotly—it would have been second nature to do so. ‘I…’

‘Where?’ Baxendale demanded. ‘It’s not written anywhere!’

Wasn’t it? She couldn’t remember. ‘You have the advantage over me, you’ve seen the paperwork recently. I’ll have to check…’

‘And when you do check also that there wasn’t a better deal you could have sold him.’

How dared he? Putting financial deals together was her job! What did he know about it? ‘You’re saying you know that there is?’ she challenged, angry sparks flashing in her wide green eyes.

Sayre Baxendale stared at her for long moments before he crisply replied. ‘I wouldn’t presume to know anything of the sort.’ Though, before she could take any comfort from that, he was going on toughly, ‘According to my finance people, not only have you advised this man extremely badly, you have also overlooked the fact that, though not yielding such a handsome commission, but bearing in mind the full knowledge you have of the man and his circumstances, there was a much more suitable package you could have sold him.’

Astra stared at him in disbelief, that offensive ‘handsome commission’ remark barely touching her. Without question, Baxendale’s finance people would be on top of the job, but… ‘I doubt very much that your finance section have all the details,’ she defended bravely—of course they had all the details; Veronica Edwards was the man’s daughter; she’d have shown them completely everything. ‘But I’ll check it out.’

‘Good!’ Baxendale retorted. ‘And when you’ve checked perhaps you’ll come back and tell me what you intend to do about it.’

Astra read three distinct messages in that last sentence. One, she had just been dismissed from this interview. Two, this man was convinced that he was right and that she was wrong. Three—and there was a threat there—that if she didn’t check it out he would be on to her employers, the highly respected Yarroll Finance Company, tout de suite.

To that, Astra added a fourth. She did not take kindly to being threatened. Nor did she take kindly to the way this man had spoken to her. Never had any man spoken to her the way Baxendale had. Her pride was up in arms. My word, had she been right to wonder why he had asked to see her in connection with some private finance—all too clearly, that had never been his intention!

She stared once more into those dark, dissecting eyes, and tilted her chin a proud fraction. Then, without saying another word, she caught hold of her briefcase and headed to the door. Four—if that swine of a man was waiting for her to come back and report to him, would he have one hell of a long wait. She hoped he held his breath!

CHAPTER TWO

ASTRA’S anger against Sayre Baxendale was still on the boil when she reached her office. Oh, how she was going to enjoy sending him the sweetest of business letters telling him how she had re-checked on what was suited to Mr Cummings’s circumstances at the time of their negotiations, but she could only confirm that her advice to her client had been first-class. If Mr Baxendale would care to check himself, or perhaps get his finance people to do so—she liked that line; it suggested, politely of course, that Baxendale was brain-dead in the figure department—they would see that Mr Cummings could not have been better advised. So put that in your trumpet and blow it!

She realised she would have to itemise certain details of Ronald Cummings’s current finances, and to include such confidential matter went against all her instincts. But, since the man’s daughter had obviously already fully discussed her father’s financial standing with Sayre Baxendale and his finance department, she didn’t think it could be termed as breaking client confidentiality.

Nothing if not thorough, Astra found the Ronald Cummings file on her computer, did a cursory scan and then printed out everything she had. That done, she surrounded herself with facts, figures and details of any scheme that might be even vaguely relevant to her client’s circumstances. She then went back to her very first note in her dealings with him. From there, methodically, she carefully worked her way through page by page, note by note.

It had not been one of her easiest of negotiations. The man had dithered, changed his mind a number of times. She had a note to say she had suggested to him that perhaps he might like to leave it for a short time while he thought over the several options she had suggested.

She also had a note to say no, he was adamant, he would be fifty-one in November, he thought he’d better get something arranged now. She had, in fact, she saw, many notes about what had taken place between her and her client.

Her first shock in making her in-depth scrutiny of what had taken place, however, was to find that, while she was absolutely positive she must have told Ronald Cummings that if he continued on the plan he had chosen his property might be at risk, she hadn’t made a note of it. Nowhere could she find in the many letters she had written to him any note of that most important warning.

Astra’s second shock came when she started fitting Ronald Cummings’s details to all of the plans available at that time. Though, initially, it had seemed that nothing fitted his circumstances, in actual fact there was something that did. It was then, with thundering disbelief, she realised that, yes, there was a much better package she could have put to him! A package that would have been much more beneficial to him.

It was a staggering shock, and at first Astra just couldn’t believe she had overlooked the much better plan. But—she had!

Because she just couldn’t believe it—she was usually so methodical, so on top of her job—she double-and triple-checked out every fine detail. But, galling though it was, Sayre Baxendale had been right! In the light of this other plan, her client had been very badly advised! How could she have made such a dreadful mistake? Normally she was so clear-headed.

Astra thought back to the time when her negotiations with Ronald Cummings had started to take shape. And then she realised how her normal diligence with regard to her work must have slipped. It had been around that time that her much loved cousin Yancie had been involved in a car accident. Yancie hadn’t been seriously hurt, but neither Astra nor Astra’s equally much loved cousin Fennia had known that when they’d dropped everything and in a terrified panic had raced to the hospital.

They had barely recovered from that fright when Yancie had announced that she was getting married and, because neither she nor Thomson had wanted to wait very long, her two intended bridesmaids had to drop everything and help her out! What with having to take time off for rushed dress fittings and everything else, Astra now realised that for the first time ever she hadn’t given full attention to her job.

It was no good blaming it on the excitement of Yancie getting married, or, Astra realised, to make the excuse that surely she was entitled to a little time off. There was no excuse. Nor could she use the excuse that Ronald Cummings had changed his mind so many times, there was every probability that she had put forward the better proposal but that he had rejected it—she didn’t have a note of it. And anyhow having clients who were unsure what they really wanted was all part and parcel of the job. It was her job to help, to advise—and she had fallen down very, very badly.

Astra took a deep breath, and, the facts staring her in the face, she accepted what she had to do. She picked up the phone and rang Norman Davis’s extension. ‘Is it convenient to see you straight away?’ she enquired.

‘Rather!’ he answered jovially—and to Astra it seemed as if her boss had been sitting there just waiting for her to get in touch to tell him how her meeting with Sayre Baxendale had gone.

Armed with a sheaf of papers, Astra left her desk knowing that she was going to have to own up to negligence. There were thousands of pounds at stake here—it was up to her to put it right.

Norman Davis was on his feet when she went into his office, a beaming smile on his face. He was not smiling ten minutes later.

There was a lot he could have said, but, although he seemed as shaken as she felt when Astra had told him everything, all he did say—and she silently thanked him for it—was, as she had supposed, ‘Leave everything with me, Astra—I’ll double check it all myself. But if there has definitely been a mistake it will have to be put right. Perhaps you’ll come and see me in the morning.’

She left him and went straight home. That evening, knowing she had no alternative, Astra wrote out her resignation. She did not sleep well but even when she had so much else to think about one tall, black-haired, dark-eyed man whom she had met that day—and oh, she so earnestly wished she hadn’t—seemed to return to her mind again and again. Oh, clear off, she fumed, punching her pillow; but for him and his interference, she might have got a decent night’s sleep. Well, one thing was for sure—she was glad she was never going to have to see Sayre Baxendale again!

Astra still felt very much shaken by what had happened when she presented herself at Norman Davis’s office in the morning. He was not a happy being, she could tell; she knew the feeling. Clearly his checks had shown the same results as hers—she had fallen down extremely badly on the job.

Before she handed him her resignation, however, Astra informed him that she personally would make financial reparation to their client—only for her offer to be refused. ‘Yarroll Finance will take care of that,’ Norman Davis insisted, letting her know, if she didn’t already, how worthy the company was of its highly esteemed reputation. She had sold the plan in the company’s name; the company would, therefore, take care of compensation.

There seemed nothing else to do but to hand him her resignation. Norman Davis didn’t look any happier but, as she had seen no alternative but to resign, she knew he had no alternative but to accept her resignation.

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ He took the words she had been going to say out of her mouth. ‘Your work until now has been exemplary. You were tipped for much higher things.’

‘I’m sorry I let you down,’ Astra answered quietly, this, the whole nightmare of it, a bitter pill to swallow. They shook hands and he walked to the door with her. ‘Will you write to Mr Baxendale?’ she felt honour-bound to ask—she didn’t want to have to do it, yet, for the sake of the company, it couldn’t be ignored.

‘I’ll clear up the Cummings end first, then drop him a line thanking him for his interest and letting him know the matter has been settled to Mr Cummings’s satisfaction,’ he answered, and warmed her down-on-the-floor feeling by giving her arm an affectionate fatherly squeeze before letting her go.

Norman Davis had let her off working out her notice, so Astra went home and tried to put it all behind her. It was not that easy. Apart from the humiliation of having to resign, she was used to hard work, enjoyed hard work, and without it she felt bereft. She couldn’t settle to do anything. To pick up a book and try to bury herself in its pages was beyond her.

She thought of phoning Yancie, but her cousin would be upset for her and, given that it looked as if Yancie was going to be visited by a coven of mothers, Astra didn’t want her newly-returned-from-honeymoon cousin to be upset on her behalf. Her other close confidante, Fennia, was still on her honeymoon.

When Astra’s inner disquiet got too much for her, she telephoned her father in Barbados. ‘How’s my best dad?’ she asked him brightly.

‘Wanting to see his best daughter,’ he answered his only child. ‘When are you coming to see me? You can’t work all the time, you know, sweetheart.’

‘As a matter of fact…’

Her phone call to her father lasted about twenty minutes. As a parent he wanted to slay all her dragons. As a former businessman of high integrity, he appreciated that Yarroll Finance had taken the only course they could: to indemnify their client, and to accept her resignation.

Astra went to bed that night trying to pin her thoughts on something other than the ghastly happenings since she had yesterday walked into Sayre Baxendale’s office, introduced herself and held out her hand.

She now knew why he had refused to shake hands with her—oh, didn’t she just! He’d made no bones about stating he thought she was more interested in her fat commission and it was hard luck for any poor sucker of a client who came into her orbit. Sayre Baxendale…

Oh, get out of my head, do, Baxendale. Now, should she go and stay with her father for a while—if he had his way she would go and live with him—or should she look around for another job?

She felt very pulled towards going to visit her father, but felt too restless to lounge around in Barbados doing nothing. Yet she shied away from the idea of looking for another job—should indeed any firm in the same line of business want to employ her after this!

Fortunately she was in a position where she didn’t have to work. But the loss of the job she had loved and had strived so tirelessly to be perfect at was too new for her to be able to contemplate working in any other field, just yet.

Her feeling of being bereft was still with her the next morning. It seemed odd not to have to go along to the study and make a few business phone calls. She decided to pay her mother’s half-sister a visit.

‘Well, look who’s here!’ her aunt Delia exclaimed delightedly.

‘You’re not going out? I should have phoned.’

‘No, you shouldn’t. You know I’m always pleased to see you. You’re usually much too busy in that career of…’ She broke off. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’

‘You always did know the three of us better than most.’

‘I’ve always been glad the three of you have felt able to come to me when something has troubled you,’ she answered.

Shrewd, lovely aunt. Astra realised her aunt had seen beneath her smile and light-heartedness, had seen that something was troubling her. ‘I’ve resigned from my job,’ Astra owned.

‘Oh, my dear! You love—loved—that job so much! What on earth happened to make you do such a thing?’

It was not very pleasant to have to confess to her nearest and dearest that she hadn’t had the luxury of an option but to resign. But, simply because her aunt Delia was so near and dear to her, to evade or lie to her was out of the question. So she gave her aunt a brief outline of what had happened.

‘You’re every inch your father,’ her aunt replied after a moment. Astra had been guarding for years against any sign that she might be like her mother, so was very much cheered by her aunt’s opinion. But, ignoring that Astra hadn’t had much choice but to resign, Delia Alford was going on, ‘Your mother would never in this world have acted so honourably. Though, come to think of it,’ she smiled, ‘it would never have occurred to her to get herself a job in the first place.’

Astra felt much better for her visit to her aunt Delia, but as the weekend came and went time started to hang very heavily on her hands.

Her cousin Yancie phoned her on Tuesday with the dreaded news that the two mothers-in-law were coming to stay. ‘You wouldn’t care to pull the plug on that computer and come to dinner on Saturday, would you?’

Confession time. ‘Er—there’s no computer plug to pull,’ Astra answered lightly. And, in the same light vein, she explained that she no longer had a job.

‘I’m on my way!’ Yancie said at once.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘You lived and breathed that job—something must have happened. I’ll come over.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘You’re upset.’

‘I’ll be more upset if you take time out from whatever it is you’re doing to come and hold my hand. Besides, I’ll be seeing you on Saturday evening,’ Astra replied.

‘I’ll…’ Yancie broke off. ‘You’ll come on Saturday and help take the pressure off?’ she exclaimed.

‘Would I let you down?’

They chatted on for ages, but Astra was remembering she had said, ‘Would I let you down?’ to Yancie when the very next day her half cousin, Greville, rang.

‘I’ve just been paying a visit to my mother,’ he opened.

Ah! ‘Aunt Delia told you?’

‘If you’re looking for a career in finance, I’m sure Addison Kirk would love to have you on their payroll,’ Greville, a director of that firm, answered.

‘The last time you got one of your cousins a job, she ended up marrying the boss!’ Astra joked, never more happy for Yancie, but marriage was not a road she wanted to tread.

‘Still a fate worse than death?’ Greville enquired.

‘That makes two of us,’ she answered lightly. Greville, tall, good-looking, his fortieth birthday imminent, had been married once some years ago, but the marriage had ended in divorce, leaving her half cousin so badly scarred that he, like Astra, avoided entanglements like the plague.

Or so she had thought, and owned she was quite surprised when he seemed to hesitate, and then said, ‘Er…’

Astra knew him. She loved him. And suddenly she was remembering a remark her cousin Fennia had made shortly before her marriage to Jegar Urquart. It was something to the effect that Fennia thought that Greville was over his marriage break-up and all the pain that had gone with it.

‘What gives, Greville Alford?’ Astra probed gently.

‘You always were smart,’ he answered—and Astra waited. ‘Well, since you’re no longer working all hours…’ He broke off—and only then, what with Yancie suggesting she worked all hours, and Greville openly saying so, did Astra realise just how glued to the grindstone she had truly been. ‘The truth is, Astra, love,’ he went on, ‘your big cousin needs your support.’

‘You’ve got it!’ Astra told him unconditionally. Greville had always been more of a big brother to her than a cousin. She loved him dearly; all three cousins did.

‘The thing is, Astra—um—I’m in something of an emotional turmoil.’

His confession jolted her. ‘You?’ she questioned.

‘I know. Who’d have thought it?’

‘You’re—er—you’ve fallen for someone? I’m sorry,’ she apologised instantly. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’ And, the practical side of her waking up, she rose over her shock that it looked as if her confirmed, ‘never again’ half cousin had fallen for someone and was ‘all over the place’ emotionally about it. ‘How can I help?’ she asked, ready, willing, eager to help him if she could. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing too terrible,’ he replied, and explained, ‘I’ve been invited to this party and I happen to know that the someone I’m particularly—um—interested in will be there. And, daft though it may seem for a man of my age, I’m scared stiff I’ll frighten her off if I act too eager.’

‘You want me to come with you in order to keep you in check?’ Astra queried, only just managing to hide her surprise—her cousin had got it badly!

‘More to see that I don’t make too much of a fool of myself,’ he admitted, and Astra wanted to give him a hug.

He had asked for her support—she gave it unreservedly. ‘I’d love to come to a party with you,’ she answered cheerfully.

‘Wonderful!’ he cried, and sounded so like a young, enthusiastic boy that Astra had to smile. Her smile rapidly faded, though, when he went on, ‘We don’t want to get there too early—it’ll go on all hours anyway. I’ll pick you up at—say, eight-thirty—nineish, on Saturday.’

‘This Saturday?’ Astra queried, playing for time, her thoughts rapid. Yancie was relying on her to help keep the peace between a brace of warring mothers. Astra recalled her reply to Yancie: ‘Would I let you down?’. And truly she couldn’t let her down. But Greville had never let any of them down ever, and here was her chance to do something for him.

‘Is this Saturday a problem, Astra?’ Already Greville was starting to sound a touch disappointed.

‘Nothing we can’t solve between us,’ Astra answered brightly, going hurriedly on, ‘I’ve already arranged to have dinner on Saturday—with a friend. You said this party will go on all hours. Can you cope if I don’t actually come with you, but come on later?’

Clearly this party on Saturday was important to her half cousin. ‘Say where you’ll be and I’ll come and pick you up,’ he at once volunteered, so eager, it seemed, to have her there to support him that there was no way he wanted to withdraw his invitation.

But Astra knew in advance that if she told Yancie that Greville was calling for her, and so much as hinted at the emotional turmoil he was in, Yancie would want to do all she could to help Greville too, and would tell her to forget about dining with them. And knowing what a barbed tongue Aunt Ursula, Yancie’s mother, had when the mood was on her, Astra felt she must support Yancie too.

‘That would make it too complicated with cars,’ Astra smiled. ‘I’ll be driving myself to meet my friend,’ she added, and knew Greville had seen the sense of this when he told her the name of the party givers, and their address.

‘I’ll leave arriving as late as I can myself,’ Greville decided. ‘But if you can get there as soon as you can,’ he added, and rang off, and Astra started to realise just how seriously his emotions had been put in turmoil.

He was nervous, and jittery, and all too plainly all at sixes and sevens over this new woman in his life. And that could only mean that he had no idea how the lady felt about him. Otherwise, why would he need his half cousin along to support him? Poor darling Greville; never had she known him be anything but supremely confident. But he shouldn’t worry. To know Greville was to love him.

Saturday dragged around very slowly. She had thought a deal about Greville and also about Yancie and how she deserved her happiness. And then Astra thought of Sayre Baxendale—and found it extremely annoying that he should pop into her thoughts so constantly. The reason for that, though, was plain enough. It was because of him, and his interference, that she’d had to give up her job.

To be painfully honest, she admitted, the fault was hers. And, having inherited her father’s integrity, Astra felt relieved on the one hand that her oversight had come to light and that things had been put right for Mr Cummings. But that still didn’t make her feel any the warmer towards Baxendale. Had Mr Cummings or his daughter contacted her, and requested her to check the investment deal, then Astra knew she would have checked her work just as thoroughly—and would have just the same brought her mistake to Norman Davis’s attention. So there had been no need for Baxendale to poke his nose in. And anyway, she’d have thought he had better things to do. She was doubly glad she’d never have to see him again.

Dinner at Yancie and Thomson’s home went much better than Astra had expected. The two mothers had little to say to each other, which perhaps was just as well because Astra had been brought up knowing the cutting edge of her aunt Ursula’s tongue, and Thomson’s mother didn’t look as if she would take any prisoners. But it warmed Astra’s heart to see the way Thomson’s eyes followed Yancie when she crossed the room, the way his mouth curved when he heard her laugh. Purely and simply, he delighted in her.

At around ten-thirty Mrs Wakefield senior made noises about going to bed, and Astra said she must be off. ‘Can’t we persuade you to stay a little while longer?’ Thomson enquired charmingly.

But he accepted pleasantly when she said she’d had a lovely evening, but really felt she must go. She made her goodbyes, and both Thomson and Yancie came out to her car with her.

‘You’re all right, Astra? You’re not fretting about…’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ Astra laughed, and added, immediately on her cousin’s wavelength, ‘I’m having a wonderful rest while I decide what I’d like to do.’

‘I’m sure you won’t need my help,’ Thomson inserted, ‘but you’d be an asset to my company if you’re interested in career advancement with Addison Kirk,’ its chairman offered.

Yancie beamed, and Astra felt touched and, her cool and aloof image having no place in family, she kissed them both. She drove off, catching sight of them in her rear-view mirror, arms around each other, strolling back to the house. She drove to the party in the most contented frame of mind she had been in all week. It was not to last.

Astra found the house she was looking for without any trouble, and parked the Porsche in about the only place available. The house was large, the cars in the drive many. It was, she guessed, a big party. And well under way.

She rang the doorbell. A good-looking man opened the door. He was not her host, however, but someone merely passing when the bell had sounded.

He seemed much cheered to see her. ‘I was thinking of going home, but things are looking up,’ he leered. Spare me! Astra gave him a look that should have told him ‘Don’t let me stop you’ but he was not to be put off. ‘Leigh Jenkins,’ he introduced himself, his eyes making a meal of her trim shape in her black velvet trousers and black lace top.

‘Hello,’ she answered coolly, and walked past him to where, through wide open double doors, she could see the party was in full swing.

She stood just inside the entrance of the crowded room. But before she could do more than look to her left Greville was there. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye open for you,’ he beamed, and as always gave her a hug and a kiss.

Astra was still in his cousinly arms, in fact, when she had a strange sensation that someone was watching her. She looked to the right—and just couldn’t believe it! She was being watched! And her heart seemed to turn over. So much for thinking she would never see Baxendale again! There he was, tall, sardonic, those dark eyes inscrutable, looking unblinking at her.

She tilted her chin—and looked through him. He was close enough for her to see that he didn’t care very much for that. Good! She couldn’t have been more pleased, and pulled out of her cousin’s hug to smile up at him and ask, ‘How’s it going?’

He bent to whisper in her ear, ‘She’s here; I’ll introduce you.’

Over the next hour Greville introduced her to many people, though since he was being careful nothing should betray his most private of emotions at the end of that hour Astra had not the smallest notion as to which of the affable women he had introduced her to was the one.

Thankfully, he either did not know Sayre Baxendale or that man was not in the vicinity. But Greville did not get around to introducing Baxendale, anyhow. Though while she would have welcomed refusing to shake his hand had she had the chance she had no wish to embarrass her cousin. Greville and the family knew some of the details of the mistake she had made that had caused her to resign, but for reasons of confidentiality she had not mentioned any names.

Greville had no idea that she would rather spit in Sayre Baxendale’s eye than say ‘How d’you do’ nicely to him. Though that probably went for Baxendale, as well. He’d probably cut her dead regardless of embarrassing anyone, should Greville attempt any such introduction. She was definitely persona non grata.

That thought made her angry. Not that she wanted the scurvy knave to speak to her. But her mistake had been a genuine one, and once she had known of it she had swiftly taken steps to put it right. So why was she getting upset that Baxendale thought her more interested in her commission than in her client?

Ridiculous—she wasn’t upset, though she had to own that the party had started to pall. ‘Um, do you want me to stay to the end?’ she asked Greville.

‘Had enough?’

She felt mean. She was here to support Greville. What she wanted didn’t come into it. ‘Not at all,’ she smiled.

‘I’ll come too. We’ll just say goodbye to our hosts,’ he decided.

‘No, Greville!’ she protested. ‘We’ll stay and…’

‘We’ll go—and you’ve been a real pal.’

‘I’m dying to know which one?’ she stretched up to whisper in his ear.

He laughed delightedly. ‘You couldn’t tell? Didn’t see? Couldn’t guess?’

‘Not by word or look,’ she confirmed.

‘Whew! That’s a relief!’ Their heads were bent in close conversation. ‘I feel so—all melty inside whenever I look at her. I felt sure it would show.’

‘You must have learned to keep your expression deadpan in the boardroom.’ Astra might have added more, only just then she happened to glance across the room—and caught Sayre Baxendale’s dark-eyed, hostile gaze head-on.

Words died on her lips, but even as she adopted a cool pose and looked elsewhere she seemed powerless to be aware of anything but him. And then Greville was saying firmly, ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s find our hosts.’

By the time they had thanked their hosts and said a few goodbyes they were leaving the room, and Astra was relegating to the bin any fanciful notion that Baxendale had a shred of power to make her aware of nothing but him.

‘I’ll see you to your car,’ Greville was just saying as they went to go through the double door, when some man Greville knew stopped him and seemed to want ‘just a moment’ of his time on a small matter of business.

A businesswoman herself, albeit just now an ex-businesswoman, Astra knew full well that a ‘moment’ could mean an age. She was quite capable of seeing herself to her car.

‘Be in touch,’ she said lightly, kissed her cousin’s cheek, and went out into the hall.

She didn’t make it to the outer door before she was pounced on by the man who had introduced himself as Leigh Jenkins. He was still only thinking of going home, then?

‘I didn’t get your name?’ He plonked himself straight in front of her, and looked as if he had no intention of moving until she supplied her name.

‘No, you didn’t,’ she answered, and went to go by round him.

He caught hold of her arm to stop her—she objected most strongly to being manhandled. She froze him with a look, and he had the grace to let go of her arm. ‘What’s a guy have to do to get a date with you?’ he asked peevishly.

Had he been other than the brash, pushy type, Astra might well have softened her refusal. But he was pushy, he was brash—and she hadn’t missed him ogling her several times that evening. Were it not for the fact that she and Greville had stayed comfortably close together, she had an idea he would have tried his luck earlier. So, ‘You don’t!’ she told him icily, and brushed past him to the outer door.

She didn’t immediately get to go through that door, however, because some other man had come out into the hall, and, by the look of things, had overheard every word of her conversation with Leigh Jenkins.

‘Now there’s a girl who lives up to her nickname,’ drawled a voice she was not a stranger to. And while she hesitated, her hand already down by the door handle, Sayre Baxendale strolled over to her, placing himself in between her and Leigh Jenkins.

She went to reach for the door handle, but, as Leigh Jenkins melted away, so, against all her instincts, she stayed where she was to face Sayre Baxendale. She’d be damned if she’d let him think that because of his low opinion of her she was running away.

‘I haven’t a nickname,’ she denied coldly. If he’d invented one for her—she didn’t want to know it.

‘That’s not what I heard,’ he mocked, his dark gaze flicking over her, taking in her cool, elegant deportment, her fine features and upswept red hair.

Astra was momentarily shaken. The only nickname she’d got—and since she’d left Yarroll Finance that would have left with her—was the one she’d been dubbed with while working there. But surely he couldn’t know…Yet—hadn’t she just been more than a touch frosty with Leigh Jenkins? Was that what Baxendale was referring to—North Pole Northcott?

‘Norman Davis wrote to you?’ She took a stab in the dark—surely to goodness her ex-boss wouldn’t have mentioned that nickname in any letter, even if he knew it, which she doubted. He was much more professional than that.

‘I don’t recall hearing from any Norman Davis,’ Sayre Baxendale replied. ‘Though I do believe I received a communication from a Maurice Robertson.’

Good grief! They didn’t come any higher up in Yarroll Finance than Maurice Robertson! In an instant Astra saw how it had been. Norman Davis had reported her oversight to his superior, mentioned the name Sayre Baxendale, as he naturally would, and so it had gone higher yet higher, until Maurice Robertson had heard of it.

‘I hardly think Mr Robertson would be so unprofessional as to bandy nicknames in any business letter thanking you for your interest,’ Astra tilted her chin to tell him haughtily.

Sayre Baxendale’s eyes narrowed for a brief moment, letting her know—as if she cared—that he wasn’t too enamoured by her uppity manner. Then that mocking look was back. ‘Neither did he,’ he drawled. ‘Apparently you were recommended to Ronald Cummings via Veronica Edwards, through a friend of hers who works for Yarroll Finance. The same friend passed on the good news to Veronica that North Pole Northcott no longer worked for the company. Tell me,’ he went on, retribution his in full for her daring to have come the high and mighty with him, ‘what are you doing now you’ve been dismissed for incompetence?’

Had he deliberately been trying to goad her, he did a splendid job. ‘You’ve been misinformed!’ Astra snapped, angry pink colour flushing her normally pale cheeks. ‘When I found some of the people I was called upon to deal with too obnoxious for words I resigned.’ Chew on that!

She had as good as called him obnoxious—it glanced off him. ‘You’re still in the same line of business?’ he enquired silkily. ‘You are working, I take it?’

Odious—obnoxious was too good for him! ‘I’ve had two good offers,’ she took great delight in being able to inform him. He wasn’t to know that both offers were in the family, so to speak, or that both offers of a job were for the one firm.

‘You’ve accepted neither?’ Dark, all-assessing eyes studied her. Why did she feel she’d love to poke him in the eye? She’d never had such tendencies before!

‘I’m being selective,’ she replied coolly, in control of her anger once more. Her control didn’t stay around for long.

How could it? He strained it to the limits when loftily he suggested, ‘You obviously earned enough commission in your last job not to need to take another job for a while.’

What was it about this man? Astra took a long, steadying breath. She’d be hanged if she’d tell him she had private means. ‘Obviously,’ she agreed, her temper straining at the leash. She opened the door—to the devil with him; she was going home.

Before she could so much as take a step outside, however, Baxendale was there again with his comments. Though she had to admit she was a touch baffled by his change of subject when he said, ‘You and Alford seem on very close terms?’

What on earth had her cousin Greville Alford got to do with any of this? Astra threw Baxendale a look of intense dislike. ‘We are,’ she replied coldly. ‘Very close.’ And, not giving him a chance to get another remark in, she went swiftly through the door and marched over the tarmac drive.

Honestly! That man! Never had any man upset her the way he so easily did. Insufferable swine! The next time Greville invited her to a party, she’d ask to see the guest list first. If Sayre Baxendale’s name were on it, Greville would be going on his own!

CHAPTER THREE

GREVILLE telephoned Astra on Sunday morning to enquire if she got home all right. ‘I would have rung you last night, only I got held up longer than I expected. Did you enjoy the party?’

Greville himself gave fabulous parties. By comparison the one they’d attended last night was average. ‘More to the point, did you?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply, and Astra didn’t miss that there was a smile in his voice.

‘When are you seeing her again?’

‘Ah—slight snag.’

‘You didn’t ask her out?’ Astra was surprised—her cousin was normally self-assured, confident—he really had got it badly.

‘I didn’t get very much of a chance last night,’ Greville owned. ‘Her brother was there and, albeit he wasn’t always at her side, I thought he seemed a mite protective of her.’

‘How old is she?’ Astra enquired, wondering if the woman her cousin was so enamoured with might be some giddy young woman.

‘Late twenties, maybe thirty,’ Greville replied, and should Astra think that thirty was a bit mature to have a brother watching over her he was instantly defensive of his love. ‘She’s been through a very tough time lately,’ he explained.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be—you’re gorgeous,’ he answered, and was back to being her super cousin again, who, if truth be told, had done a fair job of watching over his three cousins in their traumatic growing years.

The week began slowly and dully, but Astra was cheered on Thursday to receive a postcard from Fennia. ‘Yancie was right,’ she read. ‘S’wonderful.’ They had received a ‘S’wonderful’ card from Yancie on her honeymoon.

Astra was still smiling when her phone suddenly called for attention. It was her cousin Greville again. ‘Anything wrong?’ she asked. Although they were regularly in touch and knew each other’s happenings, either via his mother, her mother, her other cousins or her aunts, sometimes an age could go by without Greville phoning.

‘Why should anything be wrong? Can’t I ring my lovely cousin to enquire how she’s feeling without there being something wrong?’

‘So your lovely cousin’s fine. She’s not fretting because she’s not working a sixteen-hour day. And no, she hasn’t yet found another job that has the same appeal as the last one, but she hasn’t seriously been looking.’ Astra took a breath, and then asked gently, ‘So, what’s troubling you, love?’

There was a second or two of silence before Greville, the pretence over, the game up, told her the real reason for his call. ‘I need a favour.’

He was the dearest man. ‘It’s yours,’ she answered unequivocally. Should that favour be another party with even the remotest possibility of Sayre Baxendale attending—she could be equivocal later. That fiend Baxendale had been in and out of her head ever since Saturday’s party—before that even—and she’d had enough of him. But, for the moment, Greville was sounding a touch anxious, and it would be a pleasure to help him for a change. ‘What can I do for you?’ she offered cheerfully.

‘Would you come to the theatre with me tomorrow?’

Astra had always known how much Greville enjoyed the theatre and was ready to say straight away that she’d be pleased to go with him. But she sensed there was more to his wish that she accompany him tomorrow than hoping she would enjoy it.

‘I don’t know her name, but she’ll be there, won’t she? The woman you…’

‘Ellen,’ he supplied. Astra did a quick flip through a name-and-picture gallery of the women he had introduced her to on Saturday, but she couldn’t link ‘Ellen’ to any of them. ‘Ellen Morton,’ Greville went on, her name sounding gentle on his tongue. ‘The thing is, Astra, I rang Ellen on Tuesday asking her to have dinner with me—and got a polite refusal for my trouble.’

‘Oh, Greville. Don’t give up hope,’ Astra encouraged.

‘I won’t. This is much too serious for that. The problem is, though, and you’ll call me all sorts of a clod, I bumped into Nick Wilson today—he was at the party on Saturday—and he remarked on my stunning partner. But when I said you weren’t my partner but my cousin he said that if he’d known he wouldn’t have been poaching he’d have come over and asked if you’d any space in your diary to fit him in. He asked for your phone number, by the way.’

‘You didn’t give it to him!’

‘Would I? Though he deserves some reward, because if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have got round to wondering had I mentioned to Ellen when I introduced you that you were my cousin. Had I, in fact, told anybody at that party that we were cousins?’

Astra tried to remember—but all she could remember was that she had told Sayre Baxendale that she and Greville were very close, but definitely hadn’t told Baxendale that they were cousins. ‘I don’t think you did,’ she confessed slowly after a few seconds.

She heard Greville groan. Then suddenly he brightened. Though he did start off by confessing, ‘I’m in such a stew, I don’t seem to be able to think straight any more. But follow me through this, Astra. If some chap came up to you at a party and introduced a beautiful redhead, and then—given that the chap exchanged a few pleasantries with you every now and then—more or less stayed glued near to said redhead all night…Then—bearing in mind you’d had your fill of philandering Casanovas, having a year ago divorced one—how would you react if a few days later the redhead’s seeming-to-be boyfriend rang you up and asked you to dine with him?’

Astra knew that she’d tell any such man to go take a running jump. But Greville was suffering here. ‘Do I like this man?’ she asked.

‘I wish I knew,’ Greville groaned. ‘I don’t feel I can ring her again just to say, Oh, by the way, the beautiful redhead’s my cousin. I’d feel a complete idiot. Besides which, with her ex-husband being such a Don Juan, the poor girl’s probably heard a dozen or more similar lines in her day, and wouldn’t believe me, anyway.’

Astra saw the light. ‘But if I went with you to the theatre tomorrow night…’

‘I’d angle to be somewhere near Ellen during the interval—with you right there beside me, of course. Then I could say, casually You know my cousin, Astra, don’t you? and…’

‘Hey presto, you’ll hope your next phone call will be more favourably received. What time do you want me to be ready?’

‘You’re a darling. But I always knew that—despite that detached air you show everybody else.’

Astra put the phone down after Greville’s call, hardly crediting the change that had come over her cousin. All through her life she had known him as kind and caring, and had also known him as sophisticated but sociable—though careful since the end of his marriage to never again let anyone get too close. But look at him now! He’d known in advance that Ellen Morton would be at the party, but as soon as he’d been in the same room with her—his normally clever brain had scrambled! He hadn’t even remembered to introduce his cousin as his cousin!

If falling in love did that to you, and to Astra it sounded as if Greville was up to his ears in love, then she was glad she’d decided to have nothing whatsoever to do with that emotion.

Though she did so want Greville to be happy. He had been through such a terrible time. By the look of it Ellen Morton had been on the same ghastly treadmill of broken marriage too. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Ellen Morton could learn to love Greville? Astra knew that her cousin had had many lady-friends since his divorce, but inside his marriage he had been faithful; none had been more trustworthy.

There was a school of thought that said everything went in threes. Yancie had married, Fennia had married—perhaps Greville…Grief! Astra brought herself up short; she was getting to be a romantic! Her cousin hadn’t even managed to get a date with the woman yet, and here she was marrying them off!

Even though Greville was early calling for her the following evening, Astra—wearing a straight dress of green silk—was ready. She sensed he was nervous, anxious and on edge, so purposely chatted calmly to him all the way to the theatre.

The strain was starting to show even as they took their seats. ‘I do hope she’ll come,’ he said worriedly. And a few minutes later he remarked, ‘She sounded all right when I spoke to her on the phone, but there’s a lot of summer colds about.’

‘She’ll be here,’ Astra answered lightly, wondering how the dickens he was going to last until the interval when the performance hadn’t even started yet!

Greville ‘accidentally’ dropped his programme, and in bending to pick it up took an ‘uninterested’ scan around. ‘She’s here!’ he mumbled in Astra’s ear as he bent to take his seat, and sounded so tense that for an awful moment she had a dreadful idea that his love was here with some other man.

‘Ellen’s here with her brother?’ Astra asked lightly, calmly, recalling how last Sunday Greville had said Ellen had been at the party with her protective brother.

‘She’s with Sayre and the Listers,’ Greville answered, keeping his voice low.

Sayre! Astra felt her scalp tingle. It couldn’t be! ‘Sayre?’ she enquired, her light, calm tone threatening to escape.

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