Tycoon's Ring of Convenience

As she walked indoors, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor, she looked at the sweeping staircase soaring to the upper floors, at the delicate Adam mouldings in the alcoves and the equally delicate painted ceilings—both in need of attention—and the white marble fireplace, chipped now, in too many places. A few remaining family portraits by undistinguished artists were on the walls ascending the staircase, all as familiar to her as her own body.

Upstairs in her bedroom, she crossed to the window, throwing open the sash to gaze out over the gardens and the park beyond. An air of unkemptness might prevail, but the level lawns, the ornamental stone basin with its now non-functioning fountain, the pathways and the pergolas, marching away to where the ha-ha divided the formal gardens from the park, were all as lovely as they always had been. As dear and precious.

A fierce sense of protectiveness filled her. She breathed deeply of the fresh country air, then slid the window shut, noticing that it was sticking more than ever, its paint flaking—another sign of damp getting in. She could see another patch of damp on her ceiling too, and frowned.

Whilst her father had been so ill not even routine maintenance work had been done on the house, let alone anything more intensive. It would have disturbed him too much with noise and dust, and the structural survey she’d commissioned after he’d died had revealed problems even worse than she had feared or her father had envisaged.

A new roof, dozens of sash windows in need of extensive repair or replacement, rotting floorboards, collapsing chimneys, the ingress of damp, electrical rewiring, re-plumbing, new central heating needed—the list went on and on. And then there was all the decorative work, from repainting ceilings to mending tapestries to conserving curtains and upholstery.

More and yet more to do.

And that was before she considered the work that the outbuildings needed! Bowing walls, slate roofs deteriorating, cobbles to reset... A never-ending round. Even before a start was made on the overgrown gardens.

She felt her shoulders sag. So much to be done—all costing so, so much. She gave a sigh, starting to unpack her suitcase. Staff had been reduced to the minimum—the Hudsons, and the cleaners up from the village, plus a gardener and his assistant. It was just as well that her father had preferred a very quiet life, even if that had contributed to his wife’s discontent. And he had become increasingly reclusive after her desertion.

It had suited Diana, though, and she’d been happy to help him write the St Clair family history, acting as secretary for his correspondence with the network of family connections, sharing his daily walks through the park, being the chatelaine of Greymont in her mother’s absence.

Any socialising had been with other families like theirs in the county, such as their neighbours, Sir John Bartlett and his wife, her father’s closest friends. She herself had been more active, visiting old school and university friends around the country as they gradually married and started families, meeting up with them in London from time to time. But she was no party animal, preferring dinner parties, or going to the theatre and opera, either with girlfriends or those carefully selected men she allowed to squire her around—those who accepted she was not interested in romance and was completely unresponsive to all men.

Into her head, with sudden flaring memory, stabbed the image of the one man who had disproved that comforting theory.

Angrily, she pushed it away. It was irrelevant, her ridiculous reaction to Nikos Tramontes! She would never be seeing him again—and she had far more urgent matt

ers to worry about.

Taking a breath, anxiety clenching her stomach, she went downstairs and settled at her father’s desk in the library. In her absence mail had accumulated, and with a resigned sigh she started to open it. None of it would be good news, she knew that—more unaffordable estimates for the essential repairs to Greymont. She felt her heart squeeze, and fear bite in her throat.

Somehow she had to get the money she needed.

But not by marrying Toby Masterson. She could not bring herself to spend the rest of her life with him.

She felt a prickle of shame. It had not been fair even to think of him merely as a solution to her problems.

Wearily, she reached for her writing pad. She’d have to pen a careful letter—thanking him for taking her out in London, implying that that was all there was to it.

As she made a start, though, it was quite another face that intruded into her inner vision, quite different from Toby’s pudgy features. A face that was dramatic in its looks, with dark eyes that set her pulse beating faster—

She pushed it from her. Even if Nikos Tramontes were not involved with his supermodel girlfriend, all a man like that would be after would be some kind of dalliance—something to amuse him, entertain him while he was in London.

And what use is that to me?

None. None at all.

* * *

Nikos slowly made his way along the avenue of chestnut trees, avoiding the many potholes as Greymont gradually came into view.

With a white stucco eighteenth-century façade, a central block with symmetrical wings thrown out, its aspect was open, but set on a slight elevation, with extensive gardens and grounds seamlessly blending into farmland. The whole was framed by ornamental woodland. A classic stately home of the English upper classes.

Memory jabbed at him, cruel and stabbing. Of another home of another nation’s upper class. A chateau deep in the heart of Normandy, built of creamy Caen stone, with turrets at the corners in the French style.

He’d driven up to the front doors. Had been received.

But not welcomed.

‘You will have to leave. My husband will be home soon. He must not find you here—’

There had been no warmth in the voice, no embrace from the elegant, couture-clad figure, no opening of her arms to him. Nothing but rejection.