Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

‘Beautiful,’ Charlotte told her. ‘The kind of place everyone dreams of owning. I only hope we can find a buyer for it who will appreciate it.’

A frown furrowed her forehead. Oliver had been right when he’d said their first duty was to their client. Perhaps it was idealistic of her to hope that they could find a sole buyer for the house able to meet its price…someone who wanted to live in the house and not destroy or develop it.

‘Something wrong?’ Sheila asked sympathetically.

Charlotte shook her head. She knew that, had her father been alive, he would have agreed with every word Oliver had said. Her father had often accused her of being too sentimental.

‘No, not really. I was just wondering if I ought to leave a bit early. Oliver is moving in tonight, and the kitchen people started today.’

Sheila laughed. ‘Yes, I think you should. What about your car, though?’

‘I’ve rung the garage to order the two new ones, and they’ve promised me a loan car until they can provide them. I’m still not sure about that bright red,’ she teased Sheila. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be a dangerous colour?’

‘So what?’ Sheila retaliated. ‘At my age, I think I’m entitled to live a little dangerously.’

Was that what was happening to her? Charlotte wondered an hour later as she drove home in her loaned Volvo. Was this stupid infatuation she seemed to have developed for Oliver Tennant nature’s way of rebelling against the cautious, defensive way she lived her life? She hoped so…just as she hoped that these dangerous and unwelcome feelings of hers would fade quickly and quietly once they were confronted with the reality of sharing her home with him. There was nothing like a touch of realism for destroying idealistic daydreams, she told herself firmly as she turned into her drive.

The sun had gone in; the overgrown rhododendrons cast dark shadows over the drive, turning it into a secret, almost brooding place, so that she shivered momentarily, and then derided herself. She was letting Sheila’s mother-henning get to her. She had driven up and down this drive a thousand times without even giving it a second thought…

The workmen were on the point of leaving as she arrived, the chaos in the kitchen making her gulp and bravely swallow the dismayed words springing to her lips. Was it really possible for the pretty, warm kitchen she had visualised from the drawings Mr Burns had done for her to actually materialise from this mess of plaster, wood, exposed wires and heaven alone knew what else?

‘We’ve managed to turn the electricity back on for you,’ Mr Burns told her. ‘And your cooker’s fixed up in the pantry, like you asked. Seems like we’re going to have a problem with the plumbing, though. Lead pipes,’ he added succinctly, as though that explained everything.

Charlotte blinked and waited for enlightenment.

‘Not safe…not these days,’ he told her warningly. ‘They’ll have to be replaced.’

In her mind’s eye, Charlotte saw another nought being added to his original estimate and suppressed a faint sigh. ‘How long do you think it will be before you’re finished?’ she asked him fatalistically.

‘Well, provided we don’t come up with any more set-backs…should be all done middle of next week or so.’

Smiling weakly, Charlotte stepped over what she guessed were her old kitchen units and what now looked like a pile of firewood, and headed for the door into the hallway.

Mrs Higham should have been today. To Charlotte’s surprise she had been quite approving when Charlotte informed her about Oliver. Mrs Higham sometimes had a rather unconventional attitude towards her work, preferring to choose for herself which tasks she would and would not do, rather than be directed, and because Charlotte knew how difficult it would be to replace her she had put up with her eccentricities. She had already asked her to clean through the rooms which were going to be Oliver’s and make up the bed, but it might be as well to check that she had.

Charlotte heard the workmen driving away as she opened the room into the bedroom which her father had used as his study. The window was open, allowing the newly rehung curtains to move gently in the breeze. Her father’s old desk stood under the window to catch the best of the light. The house still retained its original bedroom fireplaces, thanks to her father’s refusal to entertain any modernisation, and Charlotte saw with a small start of surprise that Mrs Higham had left a fire laid in the grate, and filled a basket of logs.

Oliver was certainly getting star treatment, she acknowledged wryly as she saw the trouble the cleaner had gone to. She had certainly never left a fire laid in her bedroom, Charlotte reflected as she opened the door into the bedroom.