terrified of being found there … I daren’t ring for a taxi … I had to leave … and I do know how to drive … but the car was so big …’
Closing her eyes Emma forced herself not to interrupt.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said at last. ‘You hit something?’
‘A stone bollard,’ Camilla admitted. ‘You see it was very early in the morning—there wasn’t any traffic, but I saw this milk cart coming and I panicked. I hit the kerb and then this bollard …’
‘And …?’
‘I just got out and ran. Eventually I found a taxi, and I went back to the flat … Fiona wasn’t there, but when she came in I told her what had happened, and she told Drake Harwood, and he’s threatening to sue me for stealing his car and smashing it up …’
Fresh tears started to fall. ‘It will be in all the papers and everyone will know I spent the night there. David will find out and he’ll never marry me … His mother wouldn’t let him.’
Emma suspected that she was right. She gnawed thoughtfully on her lower lip, silently condemning both her sister and Fiona as a pair of stupid fools.
‘Haven’t you been to see Drake Harwood, and tried to explain? I’m sure if you told him the full story …’
Camilla shuddered. ‘You haven’t met him. He’s dreadful … So uncouth. Fiona thinks he’s exciting … but I didn’t like him. I couldn’t go and see him Emma, I just couldn’t … but his solicitor has already written to me. He wants me to pay for the damage to his car, otherwise he’s going to sue … and I can’t afford it.’
‘So what do you want me to do about it,’ Emma asked, already mentally bowing to the inevitable.
Tears were transformed into a radiant smile as Camilla turned towards her. ‘Oh Emma, I was hoping you would help me. Couldn’t you go and see him … Explain …’
‘Explain what?’ Emma asked drily. ‘That you don’t want your mother-in-law to know that you spent the night in one of his beds and then stole his car. … And what about paying for the damage Camilla?’
‘He doesn’t need the money, he’s filthy rich,’ Camilla said sulkily, ‘he’s just doing this because I wouldn’t pay any attention to him …’
‘Ah … You mean he fancied you and you gave him the cold shoulder? Umm, I can see that in those circumstances he might not be prepared to let you off the hook so lightly.’
‘But you will try and do something … you will go and see him?’ Camilla pleaded. ‘There’s still a month to go to the wedding and this letter says if I don’t pay for the damage within seven days, legal action will be taken.’
The man could always simply be trying it on, Emma thought, but then given his reputation and his tough upbringing it might not be wise to assume so. ‘Camilla are you sure this marriage to David is what you really want,’ she asked slowly. ‘You know you ought to be able to tell him about this, to …’
‘To ask him for several thousand pounds, a month before we get married?’ Camilla asked bitterly. ‘Yes I could tell David, Emma, but he would tell his mother and I could just imagine her reaction. You know she doesn’t want him to marry me, and yes, I do want to marry him. Can’t you see, I’m not like you, I don’t want a career or to be independent. I just want to live quietly and comfortably…’
The accent probably being on the latter, Emma thought drily, but refrained from saying so. ‘Let me look at the letter,’ she requested.
She read it quickly, sifting through the legal verbiage to the nitty-gritty, and when she had done so, she could see why Camilla was in such a panic. Drake Harwood wanted and intended to have his pound of flesh. Well she would just have to try and find some means of persuading him otherwise.
‘You won’t tell him the truth will you?’ Camilla begged. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to tell one of his newspaper friends and then it will be all over the papers.’
‘I hardly think the fact of your crashing his car merits such coverage Camilla,’ Emma told her mildly. ‘You’re getting things a little out of perspective.’
‘You don’t know how furious he was about his car.’ She shuddered. ‘Fiona says he had only just bought it … You haven’t met him Emma. You don’t know what he’s like. He isn’t like us. He’s…’
‘The proverbial rough diamond?’ Emma asked, her mouth twisting. ‘Oh grow up Camilla and don’t be so silly, otherwise you’ll end up like Mrs T.—a dyed-in-the wool snob. I’ll go and see him for you, and I’ll do what I can to calm him down. How do you intend to pay him back though? Could you manage monthly instalments from the allowance David is giving you?’
‘I suppose so … I don’t suppose you could persuade him to forget the money completely … I mean,’ she wheedled, when Emma’s mouth compressed, ‘it isn’t as though he needs it.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t need it, but you do owe it to him Camilla,’ Emma told her bitingly, ‘and in your shoes I should be only too anxious to pay it back and get it off my mind …’
‘Oh you always were too “goody two shoes” to be true,’ Camilla snapped crossly. ‘David says you’re a real schoolmarm type and that that’s why you’ve opted for a career instead of marriage …’
‘Oh does he?’ Emma was thoroughly incensed, both by her sister’s stupidity and by her smug assumption that once Emma had done her dirty work for her she could forget all about her responsibility for the accident.
‘Well, let me tell you that I’d choose a career over marriage to David any day of the week … he’s about as exciting as … as cold rice pudding …’
She regretted the words when Camilla got up and ran out of the kitchen, telling herself that she should not have taken her irritation out on her sister. Camilla was so absurdly sensitive to criticism, so much so that she occasionally wondered if the younger girl didn’t use her ‘sensitivity’ as a weapon to get her own way. She glanced down at the solicitor’s letter again, and frowned. She might as well get the ordeal over as quickly as possible. She picked it up and went through to her father’s shabby study, quickly typing out a letter on his ancient machine, requesting an interview with Drake Harwood.
She had to go to London next week for her interview anyway, and with a bit of luck she might be able to combine the two appointments. She only hoped for Camilla’s sake she was able to come to some arrangement with him. He couldn’t be expected to forego the cost of the repairs altogether, and Camilla was selfish and blind to think he should, but if she could persuade him to accept payment by instalments … if she could perhaps explain the reasons behind Camilla’s rash behaviour. She sighed, remembering that her younger sister had bound her to silence. She would just have to play it by ear, she decided, sticking a stamp on the envelope and sealing it.
‘Now remember, don’t try any clever stuff, just be your natural self.’
Emma grimaced as she listened to her boss Robert Evans, giving her instructions concerning her forthcoming interview. ‘And remember we’ll all be rooting for you here. You’ve got more than a fair chance Emma… You’re goodlooking, poised, intelligent, and you’ve got a personality
