A taxi—to Surrey! ‘I haven’t the money for a tax…’ Aghast, she stopped, fresh shock hitting her as, looking round for her bag, suddenly she fully remembered that the last time she had seen it some young thug was making off with it. ‘The money!’ she gasped in horror, she’d had two thousands pounds in that bag!
‘Here we go!’ drawled the man Jarad nastily. And, as Merren stared blankly at him, ‘Would it be very impolite of me, do you suppose, if I enquire what money?’
Merren had grown up loving her fellow man, but she had just come across one that she most definitely hated. She, who hadn’t a violent bone in her body, and maybe because of the violence recently done to her, felt she wanted to thump him, to hit him and keep on hitting him. But she had been better brought up than that. But her tone was full of loathing when she placed the brandy glass down on a nearby table and told him coldly, ‘Never, have I ever met a more odious creature than you.’
‘My heart bleeds—how much will it cost me?’
You’d have thought someone would have bashed that good-looking face in before this! ‘You—nothing.’
‘Let me try again. How much did the muggers get away with?’
Merren doubted that he’d decided to believe she’d been mugged after all. But pride about letting him know that she wasn’t the penniless ‘waif and stray’ he seemed so convinced she was made her answer, ‘Two thousand pounds, actually.’
‘In cash?’ She refused to answer. ‘You usually carry that amount of cash around with you?’ he questioned sceptically.
‘It was to pay some bills!’ Why did she feel she had to defend herself? She was going—getting out of there.
‘You don’t have a chequebook?’ he asked, before she had moved an inch.
She didn’t have two thousand in her account, nor even a quarter of that. Nor was she likely to tell him that Robert’s creditors had point-blank told him that a cheque would be unacceptable. Merren could only suppose he had tried to stave off the evil day by previously writing cheques that had not been honoured.
‘So either you don’t have a bank account or your creditors know your cheques are worthless.’ Oh, aren’t we the Smarty Pants! ‘Where did you get this two thousand?’ he wanted to know.
‘It’s nothing to do with you!’ she snapped, part of her wondering why she was still sitting there. Had that hard pavement addled her brain? Had the shock caused her to move in slow motion? Anyone would think she was enjoying having a slanging match with him.
‘Since it looks a certainty that I’m going to be two thousand pounds out of pocket, I’d say it has everything to do with me!’ he answered crisply.
Merren stared at him, totally perplexed. ‘You’re going to be two thousand pounds out of pocket?’
He clearly had no belief in her puzzlement, but astonished her when he replied mockingly, ‘I just know it’s going to cost me that much to keep my word to my brother that I’d look after you.’
‘You’re suggesting you’d lend me the money?’ she questioned, more to check that she’d got it right, that her brain wasn’t so addled she was beginning to believe.
‘I’m stating, not suggesting,’ he began, but, waking up fast, Merren was butting in.
‘Why should you?’ she asked, starting to realise she must have landed in either a most generous or most crackpot family.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ he questioned back, his steady grey glance on her improved colour. ‘Piers, whom I promise you has cost me more than forty pounds a week just lately with his lost causes, is about to leave the country to work abroad for a year. I think I’ll be getting off lightly by making a final two-thousand-pound contribution to his waifs and strays fund.’
Insults she didn’t need. Merren got to her feet, glad to find her legs were steady and that her dizzy spell was a thing of the past. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ she told him proudly, and, taking a few steps away from him, ‘As for your money, I wouldn’t dream of touching a penny of it.’
Grey eyes locked with deeply blue eyes. ‘Fine,’ he said, and, his glance flicking over her, ‘You won’t want to go through the streets looking like that.’ And then, a decision made, ‘I’ll drive you home.’
Had she any other choice, Merren would have taken it. But, aside from the fact she knew she looked a wreck, she didn’t so much as have the price of a twopenny bus ticket—if there was such a thing—and she certainly wasn’t going to borrow from him. ‘I live in Surrey,’ she stated.
He didn’t bat an eyelid, but escorted her out to where his beautiful-looking black Jaguar was parked.
They were silent for most of the drive. What was there to say? She didn’t want to talk to him—she certainly had no intention of answering any of his questions—and he, likewise, didn’t seem to want to talk to her.
In any case, she had a lot on her mind. Robert would be in despair when she told him she’d had the money but had lost it. She tried to think what else she could sell. There was her car, which was in good working order, but it was so old she’d be lucky if they got five hundred for it. Besides which, they seemed to need that car. In the six weeks since Robert and his family had moved in there had been countless visits en masse to the supermarket, and she’d taken her nieces, eight-year-old Queenie and six-year-old Kitty, out several times when Carol had been particularly edgy with them.
Merren wished her father would reply to Robert’s letter. She knew her father didn’t have a lot in the bank, but occasionally in the past, when her mother had hit hard times, she’d overcome her pride and accepted money he’d sent to tide them over.
Merren was just deciding that she would write to her father herself that night, when the man Jarad pulled up outside the detached house her father owned.
Jarad turned to her. ‘You’re looking better.’
‘I’m a good actress,’ she returned airily.
‘So, I may have been wrong, and you may have been mugged.’
‘Don’t strain yourself!’ she tossed at him, but belatedly remembering her manners, added politely, ‘Thank you very much for bringing me home.’
‘I’ll bet that hurt!’ Merren made to get out of the car. ‘Will there be someone in to look after you? You’re probably still in shock.’
She was more likely to have to look after them than they look after her. ‘I live with my family,’ she replied, and again made to get out of the car, when he stopped her.
He took out his wallet and extracted a business card. ‘If you change your mind about the money—give me a ring.’
She took the card from him, but, knowing she wouldn’t be phoning him, she didn’t so much as look at it. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. His car was purring away before she was halfway up the garden path.
Ignoring the general clutter of family life when she went in, Merren picked up a note from the kitchen table. ‘Gone to supermarket,’ she read. Heartily glad that she had the chance to make herself more presentable
