Kitabı oku: «Beyond Compare»

Beyond Compare
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Concept Page

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

End Page

CHAPTER ONE

‘AND HE’S ACTUALLY had the gall to invite you to his engagement party?’

‘Yes,’ Holly agreed glumly, her normally gamine features doleful. ‘And I can’t get out of it because he already knows I’ve got the weekend off. When he asked me to keep it free, I thought it was because he was going to propose to me, and all the time… Besides, I can’t not go. All our old crowd will be there, and if I don’t…’

‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ her employer agreed thoughtfully. ‘What you could do with is a new man to show off in front of him.’

‘To make him jealous, you mean?’ Holly exclaimed, immediately brightening. ‘You’re right.’ And then her face fell again. ‘But where on earth would I find one? Eligible, available men aren’t exactly beating a path to my flat door at the moment.’

‘No… not to make him jealous,’ Jan Holme said with exasperation. ‘He’s getting engaged to someone else, Holly. No, what I meant was that if you had someone else to go with you to the engagement party, it would boost your ego and make you feel better.’

‘Nothing could make me feel better,’ Holly announced mournfully, clinging on to her mood of self-pity. ‘I love him, Jan.’

Privately, Janet Holme doubted it. And, as she looked down at her youngest and favourite employee, she suspected that, as yet, for all her pretence to sophistication, Holly had hardly any idea what love was.

Certainly she had imagined herself in love with the charming and very shallow young man she was presently mourning, but at twenty-two Holly Witchell was still touchingly naïve in many ways, and what she had been in love with had been the idea of love.

When she had first come to London a year ago she had had a vulnerable quality about her that had made Jan take her firmly under her wing, and she still hadn’t quite lost it.

‘I take it this engagement party’s not being held in London?’

‘No… at home,’ Holly told her briefly. ‘Rosamund, the girl he’s getting engaged to, wants to have it at her parents’ house.’ She made a face. ‘They’re the richest people in the village and very much aware of it. Pots of money… You know the kind of thing.’

‘Indeed I do,’ Jan agreed wryly. As a well-known London interior designer, she had a good cross-section of clients, but her least favourite was the type of couple just described by Holly.

‘All our old crowd will be there. Rosamund and I were in the same class. I didn’t like her then,’ she added inconsequentially, and then said woefully, ‘What I can’t understand is why he didn’t say something before. He must have known that I was expecting him to propose to me.’

‘Men can be cowards about things like that,’ Jan told her gently, repressing a faint sigh. For a very attractive and intelligent young woman, Holly seemed to have a blind spot where the facts concerning the average male of the species was concerned. Jan had already elicited during the twelve months that Holly had worked for her that her newest protégé had very little experience of the male sex.

A sheltered childhood had been the reason: elderly parents, now retired to New Zealand to live with their son and his family. Jan knew that Holly’s parents still owned a house in the village where Holly had been brought up. She went home to check on it periodically, and at the moment it was let on lease.

‘But he could have said something,’ she stressed again.

‘He should have said something,’ Jan agreed, ‘but I suspect he lacked the courage. How long has he been involved with this Rosamund?’

‘He didn’t say. It can’t have been long. She never comes to London and he…’ She paused, frowning, remembering how often in recent months he had not been available for their normal dates. ‘It must have started when we went home at Christmas. You remember, I told you. We stayed with his parents.’ She made a face. ‘I’ve never really got on with his mother. I don’t think she thought I was good enough for him. Heaven knows what Drew must be feeling,’ she added inconsequentially.

‘Drew?’ Jan questioned, used to Holly’s seemingly illogical thought processes.

‘Yes. Drew Hammond. He and Rosamund have dated since they were at school, just like Howard and me. I thought they would have married years ago. He’s bound to be devastated. Mind you, I always thought they were an odd couple. Rosamund likes the social scene and plenty of glitz, and of course her parents encourage her. Her mother wants to join the local county set. Drew isn’t a bit like that. He’s a farmer… Very down to earth.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ Jan commented. ‘I like down-to-earth men.’

‘Oh, everyone likes Drew, but he’s hardly the stuff to make your pulses race.’

‘Well, if you feel you have to put in an appearance and congratulate the happy couple, I suggest you do so dressed for the occasion. Plenty of glitz and to-hell-with-you glamour!’ she elucidated when Holly looked questioningly at her.

‘I haven’t bought a new dress in ages. I was saving up for…’

Her lower lip trembled and Jan said hastily, ‘No more tears, love. You’re better off without him, honest. I never liked him. Look, we’re fairly quiet this week. Why don’t we both take half a day off tomorrow and go shopping? I need something new myself. Luke’s got an important client to entertain next week, and he wants me to dazzle him with glamour.’

Luke was Jan’s husband. A solid, dark-haired man of medium height with a smile that could raise female temperatures at fifty yards. Holly had initially found his very male sexuality slightly intimidating, a fact that hadn’t escaped Jan. Her new employee’s shyness had come as a pleasant change after a succession of very forward young women who had spent more time flirting with her husband than doing their work. As an accountant, Luke had a major interest in his wife’s business, but he also had other clients—important and very wealthy clients, as Holly knew.

Two days later, her new dress carefully packed away in its nest of tissue paper, Holly climbed into her small car for the journey north to Cheshire.

The last time she had made this journey had been with Howard when they went home last Christmas. Now it was October. Next year he would be marrying Rosamund. She wanted a June wedding, he had told Holly, sublimely unaware of her own feelings.

Her small foot depressed the accelerator slightly. Surely he must have known how shocked she would be? They had always been a couple, right from leaving school. She had followed him to university and then later to London, both of them working and thriving on the busy atmosphere of the capital. All right, so maybe he had treated her casually at times—breaking dates, forgetting to phone—but his job as a salesman took him abroad at short notice. Anyway, their relationship was of such long standing and so secure… So secure, in fact, that she had lost him to someone else. To that scheming, horrid Rosamund Jensen with her baby-blue eyes and blonde curls.

Holly flipped her own dark bob back off her face with a defiant gesture. She hadn’t slept properly since Howard had broken the news to her, and she had lost weight. Still, that was no bad thing. She wasn’t plump, precisely, but there was no way she was as ethereally slender as Rosamund. But Howard couldn’t love her, she reflected stubbornly. He was just dazzled by her… dazzled by her parents’ wealth as well.

She bit her lip, remembering how shocked she had been to hear him reeling off an impressive list of Rosamund’s parents’ possessions. The villa in Spain, the boat, the cars… Howard, of all people, who had always been so amusingly witty about people like the Jensens.

Well, she might not have wealthy parents, she might not have blonde hair and blue eyes and stand five foot nine in her bare feet, but in her new dress, the vivid red silk showing off her curves, the skirt just short enough to be cheekily eye-catching, she would at least have the self-confidence to pretend that she was. However, as she drove, her full mouth drooped and her hazel eyes grew pensive. What hurt most of all was that Howard had said nothing to warn her. Not one word. No, he had let her continue to believe that he loved her. And that hurt, but, womanlike, she found excuses for him, blaming her own thoughtlessness in not realising that something was wrong, in not giving him the opportunity to be honest with her.

But she hadn’t given up yet; she would get him back. He would soon grow tired of Rosamund and her parents, she reflected fiercely. So fiercely, in fact, that a fellow driver, overtaking her, fell back in startled confusion, thinking the frown was for him and rather startled to see it on such a pretty and feminine face.

While she might be naïve where the male sex was concerned, when it came to the practicalities of life, and especially where they involved her career, as Jan had noted with approval, Holly was totally competent.

She had planned her trip home to Cheshire with the same meticulous attention to detail with which she planned her working days.

She had over a month’s holiday due to her, having volunteered to work all through the summer when the rest of the small staff wanted time off, partly because Howard had also been too busy to take a holiday, and partly because it was her nature to want to be helpful to others. She had seen how busy Jan was, and since they had now entered a period of pre-Christmas calm Jan had been quite happy to agree to Holly’s making a long weekend of the trip.

The small village had no hotel, but the local pub let rooms occasionally, and since Holly was well known to the landlord and his wife they had quite happily agreed to put her up.

She left London after the rush-hour had eased, conscientiously ringing Jan first to check that no rush job had occurred between her leaving the office the previous evening and setting off this morning.

‘If I had just two more girls like Holly, running this business would be a doddle,’ Jan commented to her husband when she replaced the receiver. ‘She’s a real treasure, and not just because she’s a first-rate artist.’

‘Mmm… with quite a flair for design as well.’

‘You know there must be a good-sized untapped market in the north for our kind of service. I’ve been thinking… wonderingif we should perhaps consider opening up somewhere like Chester, and putting Holly in charge.’

‘Expanding, you mean? Well, it’s certainly worth thinking about. Why don’t you talk it over with her when she comes back? It might be a good idea to send her north for a few days so that she can canvass around and find out the best venues.’

‘Yes, I think I will. I just hope this weekend isn’t going to be too difficult for her. What on earth she sees in that—that idiot, I’ll never know. I’ve told her she’s better off without him, but somehow or other she’s managed to convince herself that he’s the love of her life. Do you know that she’s been going out with him, if you can call it that, virtually since leaving school? Apart from the odd casual date at university, he’s been her only serious boyfriend. It seems incredible when you think how sexually sophisticated the average teenager is these days.’

‘Stop worrying about her. You’re like a mother hen with one chick.’

‘Yes… I suppose you’re right.’

Holly would have been touched had she known of her employer’s concern. She liked Jan and found it easy to work for her. She was something of a perfectionist, and the other girls often rebelled against her strictness, but Holly, educated at an old-fashioned local school with firm ideas about discipline and authority and fully backed up by local parents, found nothing to cavil at in her employer’s attitude.

It was a pity that her own parents were in New Zealand. She could have stayed at home with them, and been cosseted by her mother’s spoiling. She hadn’t seen them since they had emigrated, and that had been over a year ago. Perhaps she ought to think about saving up and visiting them next year.

The thought brightened her mood a little, her spirits lifting a little further when she found that the motorway was relatively free of heavy traffic.

She made good time, not bothering to stop for lunch until she was off the motorway, stopping her car on a leafy back road which curled its way from Nantwich to Chester, tucking the neat little Escort carefully off the road on a convenient patch of gravel.

The car belonged to the company and was provided for her exclusive use. She kept it immaculate both inside and out, polishing it lovingly each week, and having it regularly serviced, unlike the other girls.

She had visited the garage the previous evening, filling up with petrol and having her tyres checked. One of the garage staff had done that for her, and, surprised by his thoughtfulness, she had given him a tip.

The crusty bread and fresh cheese she had brought with her tasted heavenly eaten in the warmth of the late October sun. Beyond the hedge stretched fields in varying shades of dun gold and soft green until they merged into the violet grey of the Welsh hills.

The fields closest to her, empty of their crops, looked stubbly and bare; as she ate, a rabbit emerged from a small stand of trees and sat up on its hind legs looking round, until the sound of a tractor in the distance made it scuttle for the safety of its burrow.

The air, free of petrol fumes, tasted clear and fresh, and Holly felt the familiar calm that being in her childhood habitat always brought.

She loved London: its vitality, its busyness, its unique blend of ancient and modern, its frantic pace that never seemed to slow down. But she loved this as well: this peacefulness and tranquillity, this sense of time moving at a much more relaxed pace. Close her eyes and it was easy to imagine the dull tramp of Roman legions on their way to Chester.

Reluctantly packing away the remains of her lunch, she got back in the car. Home was less than half an hour away now.

The village had remained surprisingly unchanged, perhaps because it wasn’t close enough to any of the industrial centres to attract commuters.

Her own father had made a comfortable living for himself as a solicitor in the nearby town of Nantwich, and, although her parents had never aimed to be in the same wealthy bracket as Rosamund’s, her childhood had been a comfortable one with a happy blending of firmness and indulgence that had left her with an appreciation of the merits of being financially independent.

Holly didn’t look for wealth from life; to be rich held no appeal for her. What she wanted was marriage to a man she loved and who loved her; a man who would understand and appreciate her need to keep her independence and fulfil herself through her career.

When and if they had a family, that career would take second place, but would never be totally abandoned. A woman these days needed something of her own, and Holly liked the feeling of pride that came with her work.

Of course, when she had visualised this future, she had fully expected that Howard would be that husband.

But Howard was engaged to someone else.

It was a mistake. It had to be. Howard would come to his senses and realise that she was the one for him; and when he did, she would be waiting for him.

She restarted the car and pulled out into the lane. Fifteen minutes later she was approaching the outskirts of the village, the familiar pattern of the countryside of her childhood and teenage years taking shape around her. Those fields to her right belonged to Drew Hammond, Rosamund’s exboy-friend. How was he feeling right now? Much the same as she was herself, Holly guessed.

Deep in thought, she didn’t see the sprinkling of glass in the road until it was too late, grabbing hold of the wheel of her small car as she desperately tried to steer it, despite its punctured tyre.

Her actions were automatic and instinctive, but even so she couldn’t help expelling a sigh of relief when her car actually slid to a halt.

Not one, but two tyres were punctured, she discovered. The most sensible thing to do would be to walk to the village and ask the garage to collect her car for her. The safety triangle was in the boot underneath all her luggage, but conscientiously she opened it and rummaged for it.

Totally engrossed in what she was doing, and still suffering slightly from shock, she was deaf to the sound of the approaching vehicle, and didn’t even realise she was no longer alone until she heard a calm male voice asking, ‘Need any help?’

‘Drew!’ She looked at him in astonishment.

‘Holly!’

Both of them smiled, tentative, wry smiles that acknowledged their mutual surprise and recognition.

‘You’ve come up for the party, of course,’ Drew commented matter-of-factly. ‘Looks like you’ve run into a bit of trouble, though.’

‘Over it, actually,’ Holly told him with a sigh. ‘I was miles away and never even saw the glass.’

‘Mmm… I noticed it earlier. That’s why I’m here. I thought I’d drive down and clear it up. Looks as if I’m a bit too late.’

Thoughtful, kind Drew—he hadn’t changed at all. Well, not much, Holly amended, looking at him. He was certainly a lot larger than she remembered: taller and broader, although it was difficult to be too sure with the ancient Barbour and baggy cords he was wearing. Typical farmers’ gear with which she was quite familiar, but oh, so very different from Howard’s immaculate suits and crisply laundered shirts. She heaved a faint sigh. No wonder Rosamund had preferred Howard to Drew.

Drew was all very well in his way. He had a strong male face, well shaped with good bones, and an aquiline nose that could in profile give him an oddly autocratic look. Oddly, because everyone knew that Drew was the least autocratic person there was. As a teenager, he had unworriedly allowed the other boys to put him down, accepting their sometimes jeering comments about his clothes and lifestyle.

Drew’s parents had never been well off, and when his father died when Drew himself was barely sixteen, he had been forced to leave school and take over the running of the farm.

There had never been money to spare for the kind of things enjoyed by his peers, and Holly had always felt rather sorry for him, especially when the others teased him.

His dark brown hair looked thick and untidy, ruffled into slightly curling strands by the breeze. She contrasted it mentally with Howard’s expensive Knightsbridge haircut and sighed again.

Drew’s face and hands were brown; not the brown of a Mediterranean tan, but the ruddy brown of a countryman. Poor Drew! He wouldn’t have stood a chance against Howard…

What was she thinking? Rosamund had been the one to pursue Howard, not the other way round. She must have been, otherwise Howard would never have left her.

‘Both offside tyres are punctured, are they?’ Drew commented, squatting on his haunches to examine the damage. ‘Not much point in changing to the spare, then.’

‘No. I was going to walk to the village and ask them to come and pick it up at the garage.’

‘No need for that. I’ll run you back to the farm. You can call them from there. Get them to bring out another spare and fix it. Is this your only luggage?’ he asked, reaching into the boot and removing her case before Holly could make any objection.

Rather stunned, she followed him docilely to his Land Rover.

The Drew she remembered had surely never been as commanding as this; although, come to think about it, he had always had an air of calm dependability about him.

Howard was useless in a crisis. He lost his temper and put people’s backs up by criticising them. In fact, on more than one occasion he had severely embarrassed Holly with his attitude, something which she had chosen to forget.

In addition to her case there was a carefully wrapped parcel in the car, which she retrieved herself. Drew looked at it with raised eyebrows and a funny glint in his eyes.

‘Ah, a present for the happy couple. What is it?’ he asked her. ‘A time bomb?’

‘That’s not funny,’ Holly told him with dignity, softening a little to add compassionately, ‘I know how you must be feeling, Drew. I feel exactly the same way myself. But I’m sure it won’t last. The engagement, I mean,’ she added hurriedly, conscious of the fact that he was staring at her with a very odd expression. ‘I’m sure Rosamund will come back to you. After all, you’ve been together for so long. Since school, really, just like me and Howard. You mustn’t give up hope. I shan’t…’

When he didn’t say anything, she rushed on desperately, ‘I don’t suppose you like me mentioning it. Men hate talking about their feelings, don’t they? But… I thought it would help to know that—that I do understand. It can’t be easy for you—living here as well.’

Howard had already told her that he intended to give up his job and work for his new father-in-law to be. Rosamund didn’t like London, he had told her, and Holly knew why. Rosamund preferred to be a large fish in a very small pond than risk swimming in the much deeper and more anonymous seas of London.

Drew had his back to her. He was putting her case in the Land Rover. His voice muffled, he responded briefly, ‘That’s thoughtful of you, Holly, to think of me. You must be going through a bad time yourself at the moment…’

‘Well, yes, I can’t pretend it didn’t come as a shock,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Not that I’d tell anyone else that,’ she added with firm pride. As far as the rest of their friends were concerned, she was going to give the appearance of quite happily accepting the engagement. After all, she did have her pride. ‘But I know it won’t last. They’re so totally wrong for one another. Rosamund is so hard and grasping, while Howard—’ She broke off and flushed in embarrassment, all too conscious of the fact that she had just been less than kind about the woman Drew loved, but apart from lifting one thick and surprisingly well-shaped eyebrow, as though inviting her to continue, Drew made no comment.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she mumbled, still embarrassed. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘Why not, if that’s the way you feel?’ Drew responded with commendable tolerance. ‘I’ll have to lift you into the Land Rover. You’ll never make it in that skirt.’

It was true, she wouldn’t. The skirt was brand new, and very short and straight, in line with the new autumn fashions. It curved very pleasingly along the feminine lines of Holly’s neat little waist and hips, stopping just half-way down to her pretty knees, and the only way she could have climbed into the Land Rover in it would have been either by ripping the seams or by removing it completely, neither of which she wanted to do.

‘I’m afraid I’m rather heavy,’ she apologised self-consciously as she walked towards him.

Howard liked slim girls. He had often commented on her own hearty appetite and curving figure, and Holly was all too well aware that she did not have the sylph-like figure of Rosamund.

‘You think so?’ Drew asked, lifting her effortlessly. ‘Believe me, after heaving sheep and bags of feed into this thing, lifting you is nothing.’

Holly wondered doubtfully if he was trying to pay her a compliment. If he was, she was even less surprised at Rosamund’s defection.

Even so, there was something comfortingly reassuring about the strength in Drew’s arms as he carefully lifted her into the passenger seat. As she bent forward slightly to tuck her head under the top of the door, one dark wing of hair brushed his face.

He tensed instantly and so did Holly, not sure what was wrong, until she realised that holding her had probably brought home to him that he had lost Rosamund, and she looked at him compassionately and said earnestly, ‘Oh, Drew, it’s awful, isn’t it? I miss Howard so much, and you must feel the same way about Rosamund.’

The tears she had fought valiantly to control all week weren’t far away, but she couldn’t cry all over Drew. It just wasn’t fair.

‘There’s no one else in London then, who might take his place?’ he asked casually.

She shook her head, horrified by the suggestion. ‘No. No… There never has been. It’s always been Howard. Just as it’s always been Rosamund for you. I remember how you used to wait for her coming out of school, after you’d left… Do you? You used to be there when we got off the bus.’

‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’ he agreed blandly, and as he moved his head slightly Holly thought she caught that same odd glint in his eyes again, as though something both amused and infuriated him at the same time.

Once he was sure she was safely in her seat, he went back to the car, found the triangle, put it up and then came back, swinging himself into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut.

‘Sorry about the state of this,’ he apologised above the noise of the engine, ‘but I wasn’t expecting to rescue a damsel in distress.’

Holly giggled. Howard would never have said anything like that. He was thoroughly modern in every way, and never even opened the covers of a book unless it was a brilliant exposé on some unfortunate personality and very much in vogue. She doubted if he had ever read a fairy story in his life, and if he had he certainly wouldn’t admit to it. It struck her that it was a long time since Howard had made her laugh, much less shared that laughter, but she banished the disloyal thought firmly.

‘Here we are,’ Drew announced, turning into a cobbled farmyard.

Holly had visited the farm occasionally. To her, it had always been an exciting, fascinating place, but once they had all reached their late teens, Rosamund, Howard and one or two of the others had expressed disdain for such bucolic pursuits, and Holly had loyally said nothing rather than criticise Howard’s views.

Now, though, she felt the familiar frisson of pleasure she had felt as a girl as the Land Rover stopped and the yard was busy with a flurry of dogs, hens and geese, all of them making a considerable amount of noise.

A terrifyingly loud bellow far too near at hand made her jump, and Drew chuckled. ‘It’s all right, that’s just Ben.’

‘Ben?’

‘Benjamin Leonard Brahmin the Tenth. My prize bull,’ he informed her with a grin. ‘He’s tied up in one of the cattle sheds, and very resentful about it, too.’

‘Tied up? Oh, Drew, you haven’t gone in for all that intensive farming, have you?’

Her disappointment showed in her face. Drew’s father had grown mainly crops and kept a small dairy herd, and Holly had fond memories of the chickens who had scratched round the yard, and the goats kept by Drew’s mother. She hated the thought of the farm being converted into high-intensity units, with battery hens and tethered goats.