Kitabı oku: «A Convenient Gentleman», sayfa 3

‘But you’re not going to, my dear, are you?’ Harold cut in smoothly, much to Caro’s relief. ‘Let me fill up your glass.’ He turned the full charm of his smile on to Caro. ‘Now, Miss Morgan. What do you think of Dunedin?’

Caro laid her knife and fork down precisely on her plate. ‘Apart from the cold, which is quite a novelty, I like what I’ve seen so far, Mr Thwaites.’

‘Good, good.’ He topped up Charlotte’s glass and looked askance at Caro. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like just a drop, Miss Morgan?’

‘Thank you, no,’ Caro said firmly. ‘But what I would like is to talk to you about the Castledene.’

He sighed dramatically. ‘What a dreary subject for a chill night, Miss Morgan. Surely we can find a more convivial subject on which to converse?’

‘It seems to me that it’s a subject we must discuss, and urgently, too.’ She looked pointedly at her aunt. ‘Don’t you agree, Aunt Charlotte?’

‘About what, darling?’ Her aunt smiled fuzzily at her and Harold leant over to speak in a stage-whisper in her ear.

‘Your niece wants to talk about business, Charlotte.’

‘Oh, do you? How tiresome,’ Charlotte pouted. ‘I don’t.’ She giggled and Harold propped her up carefully as she began to slide to one side.

Caro took a deep breath and began patiently, ‘Aunt Charlotte, the hotel has been forced to close down…’

‘No it hasn’t, silly,’ her aunt murmured into her glass.

‘Yes, it has,’ Caro corrected her. ‘You’ve lost staff, you can’t afford to pay the staff you have, there’s no money to stock the kitchen and feed the guests. You’re trading insolvently, Aunt Charlotte!’

Her aunt blinked at her. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling.’

She plainly hadn’t. Caro turned her attention to Harold who, despite his languid pose, had in fact been watching her sharply. ‘Mr Thwaites, the bar seems to be doing very well. How much rent do you pay my aunt for it?’

‘That, my dear, is between your aunt and myself,’ he said courteously enough.

‘Well, whatever it is, it’s obviously not enough!’ Caro retorted. ‘That bar was full of men this evening, all buying considerable amounts of alcohol—’

‘Which is an expensive commodity in this country,’ he broke in. ‘Besides which, may I ask how you know how well the bar is patronised, Miss Morgan? You would never cross the threshold of such a place, surely?’ As she hesitated, she saw the gleam of amusement in his eyes. ‘That was not wise, Miss Morgan. Anything could happen to you in a public bar. I’d advise you not to do anything so foolhardy in the future.’

He was probably right. For one disconcerting second she remembered the cold, dead eyes of the stranger in the bar. But far too much was at stake for her to be deterred by Harold’s veiled threats and she plunged on regardless.

‘Tomorrow I’d like to see the books for the hotel and I intend doing a thorough inventory.’ He shrugged, so she added provocatively, ‘And that includes the bar, too.’

His expression grew decidedly chilly. ‘The bar is run as a separate business, Miss Morgan. You’re not to set foot in it.’

‘Oh, stop it, stop it,’ Charlotte waved her hands at them helplessly. ‘Don’t argue. You know I hate people arguing…’

‘You’re quite right.’ Harold said soothingly, even while sending Caro a look of pure malice. ‘We don’t want to upset you, do we, Miss Morgan?’

Caro looked at her aunt and was instantly contrite. Under her makeup Charlotte was very pale, and the champagne glass was shaking in her hand. Caro helped her aunt to her feet and, when the waiter brought their coats, insisted on Charlotte wearing her own warm coat back to the Castledene. Charlotte protested briefly about how unbecoming the garment was to her, but was either too drunk or too unwell to complain for long. Caro felt her aunt’s feverish, bird-like frame as she buttoned up the coat for her and felt an overwhelming sense of protectiveness. Poor Aunt Charlotte, in appearance so much like Caro’s mother, but with none of the quiet contentedness that was part of Emma’s personality. And while Caro was firmly of the opinion that a woman should be able to look after her own interests, it was all too clear that Charlotte was relying far too much on the highly dubious goodwill of Mr Thwaites.

Resolving to tackle Harold again first thing in the morning, Caro followed his and her aunt’s unsteady progress back through the streets of Dunedin. It had stopped snowing, but the sidewalks were slippery with snowdrifts. On the corner of Castle Street Charlotte collapsed and Harold had to carry her the rest of the way. Caro followed him upstairs and into her aunt’s room, where she hurriedly lit the lamps while he deposited her aunt on the bed.

‘I’ll take care of her now,’ she said pointedly as he removed her aunt’s slippers, silly, frippery little things that they were. He stepped back with a sardonic smile.

‘As you wish. I’ll be in the bar if you need me. I take it you remember where that is, Miss Morgan?’

As he left Charlotte struggled to sit up, protesting that she was perfectly capable of seeing to herself. Calmly ignoring her, Caro set and lit the fire, and soon had the room in order and Charlotte tucked up warmly in bed with a bedpan.

‘Shall I see if there’s any milk in the kitchen?’ Caro asked, perching herself on the edge of the bed. Propped up against the pillows, her aunt wrinkled her nose in disgust.

‘Ugh! Yes, I remember Emma used to make me hot milk and honey before I went to bed at night to help me sleep.’ She held out a fine-boned hand to Caro. ‘I miss your mother, Caroline. She’s an angel…’

Caro fought back the pang of homesickness. ‘I miss her, too,’ she confessed.

Charlotte sighed and her eyes drooped. Her hand in Caro’s felt far too hot for comfort, despite her complaints of the cold. ‘Twenty years apart. Such a long time, and because of such a silly quarrel…’

She was asleep in seconds. Caro waited for a while, but her aunt seemed comfortable enough, so she tiptoed back to her own room. The meagre fire she had lit for herself had long since died out and when she pulled back the curtain the room was flooded with cold moonlight. She undressed swiftly without a lamp and pulled on the old, comfortable nightgown that always reminded her of home. Then, shivering, she slipped between the cold sheets, finding the still-warm bedpan with grateful toes.

She was so tired that she had expected to fall asleep immediately, but instead she lay staring blindly at the ceiling, missing the creaking of ship’s timbers beneath the wind and the waves. The silence here unnerved her, and although there was an occasional burst of noise from the bar below the sound was so muffled by the snow on the windowpanes as to be almost imperceptible. It was hours later when she heard the creaking of the stairs and the sound of quiet footsteps coming down the hall. Feeling suddenly very alone she sat up, pulling the blankets around her protectively. Too late she remembered that she hadn’t locked the door.

The footsteps stopped outside her room. Scarcely daring to breathe, she silently padded to the door and felt for the key. There wasn’t one. She gripped the doorhandle tightly, resisting the pressure as she felt it being turned on the other side.

‘Caroline?’ Mr Thwaites whispered hoarsely. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Not at this hour, I wouldn’t think, mate,’ snarled a familiar voice beside him.

‘Mr Matthews?’ Caro whispered incredulously.

‘Yes.’

She wrenched open the door and looked down at the little, whiskery, beloved face. Harold Thwaites seemed to have vanished silently into the shadows.

‘Oh, I’m so pleased to see you!’ She flung her arms around Mr Matthews and hugged him tight. He tolerated it for a full five seconds before pushing her away.

‘Enough of that!’ he said gruffly.

She drew him into the room and stared at him incredulously in the moonlight.

‘I can’t believe it! Oh, this is wonderful! When did you arrive in Dunedin?’

‘This evenin’. I shipped out from Sydney same day as you.’ He looked disparagingly around the room. ‘You ready to come home now?’

She sank down on the edge of her bed. ‘No,’ she said mulishly.

‘You’ve made your point, girl. Your ma’s beside herself, your pa wants you home safe again—’

‘But I can’t go home!’ she burst out. ‘Not now! Aunt Charlotte’s not well, and the hotel needs rescuing and Mr Thwaite’s cheating her, I just know it and—’

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ He held up a hand in protest. ‘Just slow down and tell me what you’re talking about.’

So she did, and he stood listening intently, nodding from time to time in what she hoped was agreement. His silence when she had finished, however, was ominous.

‘Well,’ she said after a moment. ‘You can understand why I can’t go home.’

He scratched his head. ‘I can understand why you won’t go home, girl. But why you should stay here beats me. You don’t owe your aunt nothing!’

‘But I do! She’s so sweet and helpless…’ She ignored Mr Matthew’s derisive snort and added, ‘I’m not leaving Dunedin until she’s out of trouble and that’s that. Now, do you have any money?’

‘What?’

‘Money. Did Father give you any before you left Sydney? I’m sure he would have.’

He looked shifty. ‘Can’t say that he did…’

‘Yes, he did. He would have given you enough to get us both home, if nothing else.’ She held out her hand. ‘That will at least pay some of the staff wages. It may even be enough to open the dining room again,’

Mr Matthews stepped back, his eyes widening in panic. ‘Your pa’d skin me alive if I gave your aunt so much as a penny! I’d never dare set foot in his house again!’

His consternation was so real that Caro uncharacteristically stopped arguing and lowered her hand. ‘Oh, this family feud is so ridiculous! Well, I’ll just have to think of something else.’ Somewhere in Dunedin a clock chimed three o’clock and she struggled to stifle a yawn.

‘Tomorrow,’ Mr Matthews said. ‘We’ll think of something tomorrow, girl. Now you get back into bed and keep warm.’

She couldn’t stop the next yawn. ‘I’ll find you a room along the hall…’ But he told her in no uncertain terms that he was perfectly capable of finding a room to ‘bunk down in’ and left her after several more admonitions that she return to bed directly. The bed was cold, and her feet felt like ice, but Caro was so happy she scarcely noticed. Mr Matthews was sleeping across the hallway and everything was right with the world. She fell asleep almost immediately with a smile on her face.

Chapter Three

‘A h, here it is!’ Caro hauled the heavy book up from under the registration desk, thumped it down triumphantly and blew the light layer of dust off the leather cover. The motes danced in the pale winter light pouring in through the long front windows of the Castledene Hotel.

Outside had dawned the loveliest imaginable spring day. The previous day’s snow still clung to the hilltops, but Caro had gone for an early-morning walk around the outskirts of Dunedin, with Mr Matthews puffing behind all the way, and she had returned with a clutch of bright daffodils. They sat now in a fine crystal vase on the registration desk, lending an air of cheerful welcome to the otherwise formal entry hall.

‘Oh, dear.’ She looked across to where Mr Matthews sat glowering at his feet. ‘Nothing has been entered in these books for over four months.’ Mr Matthews, who had a profound suspicion of anything on a page, merely shrugged. ‘I wonder who’s been keeping record of everything bought or sold since then?’ she murmured to the empty air. ‘I would have thought that would have been Oliver’s job.’

‘Or yer aunt’s,’ Mr Matthews said shortly.

Caro glanced up at her aunt’s door at the top of the stairs. She had looked in on her earlier, but Charlotte had been still sleeping restlessly and Caro hadn’t liked to disturb her.

‘She’s not well, Mr Matthews.’

He snorted rudely. ‘Never has been, that one. Never been sober, neither.’

‘Don’t be horrible!’ Caro said indignantly. ‘I meant, she’s not well physically. She’s not strong, and only recently widowed, and I don’t think she’s ever had to run a business before.’

‘Neither have you,’ he retorted. ‘What do you know ’bout books and figures and all that? Never noticed you paying any attention to your ’rithmetic lessons when your ma was trying to learn you.’

‘But the figures that relate to running a business make sense, don’t you see?’ Caro jabbed her finger at the offending blank space in the ledger book. ‘Without that information, I can’t tell how much it costs to run this establishment. And I’d really like to know how much Mr Thwaites is—or isn’t—paying for the lease on the bar.’

‘None of your bleedin’ business, I say.’

Caro closed the ledger book with a slap. ‘It is, Mr Matthews, because I’m my aunt’s closest relative in this town. Come on.’

‘Oh, Gawd help us.’ He got creakily to his feet. After weeks of inactivity on the ship from Sydney and a night spent sleeping outside Caro’s door, he had found the brisk walk around Dunedin exhausting. ‘Where’re you going now?’

‘To the bar. There’s bound to be a ledger kept there.’

His eyes widened in alarm. ‘A public bar? Now look here, girl…’

But she wasn’t listening as she strode out the front door and along the veranda to the bar. With Mr Matthews audibly following her, she wasn’t in the least bit afraid. In fact, the bar was deserted apart from a bartender—a different one from the unpleasant man the previous night—and a couple of comatose bodies slumped on the tables. Although she would not have admitted it even to herself, Caro was relieved that there was no sign of Mr Thwaites. The air was fuggy from tobacco smoke and beer and she left the door open behind her to allow in some fresh air.

‘Good morning,’ she said firmly to the bartender. He opened his mouth, caught the look on Mr Matthews’s face and closed it again.

‘Mornin’, miss,’ he said after a moment.

‘I’m Caroline Morgan, Mrs Wilks’s niece. My aunt is indisposed, so I will be in charge of the Castledene for a while.’ She smiled engagingly at him. ‘Could I see your books, please?’

‘Books, miss?’

‘Yes. Your ledgers. Please.’ Her smile did not falter.

‘Don’t think I’m allowed to do that, miss…’

‘I’m sure you are,’ Caro said with steely charm.

The bartender looked from her to Mr Matthews, whose whiskers were literally bristling with belligerence. The little man had to be one of the ugliest people the bartender had ever seen, in contrast to the stunning beauty of the tall and very pushy blonde facing him across the bar. Completely unnerved, he stepped back.

‘I don’t think…well, I couldn’t let them leave the premises…’

‘That’s quite all right.’ Again there was that quick, enchanting smile before the girl took the ledgers firmly from his grasp and bore them off. In the middle of the bar room she stopped and frowned at the slumped figures at the two tables.

‘I think these people should go home, Mr Matthews. The place looks so…so cluttered, don’t you think?’

Mr Matthews grumbled something, seized the legs of the closest man and hauled him out the door. While he was gone, Caro moved closer and peered at the remaining unconscious customer. Arms splayed out on the table, his face turned to one side, he was still recognisable as the man who had come to her rescue the previous night. She shook him, gently at first, and then harder until his impossibly long lashes fluttered open.

‘Sir? The bar is closed now, sir.’

It took a visible effort for him to raise his head off the table, and it was only by using his arms as leverage that he was able to sit upright. The cold, dead eyes that had looked at her so clearly the previous night were half-closed and he looked to be in some kind of private agony.

‘Come on, mate! On yer way!’ Mr Matthews said testily behind Caro and she held up her hand to stall him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, keeping her voice devoid of sympathy.

After a moment the man nodded, very carefully. ‘Yes, madam. I believe that I am.’

Again, the perfect vowels struck her as strangely exotic and behind her she heard Mr Matthews’s expelled breath of surprise. Slowly, with great precision, the man lifted his hand and felt inside his jacket. Then his face crumpled and his eyes screwed tight.

‘No…!’

‘Been fleeced, have yer, mate?’ Caro was surprised by Mr Matthews’s completely out-of-character sympathy. The man took a steadying breath and nodded. ‘Stay off the booze next time,’ Mr Matthews advised. ‘Then you can keep a hold on yer wallet.’

‘Thank you for the advice.’ There was not a trace of sarcasm in the man’s voice. He manoeuvred himself to his feet and stayed there, propped up against the wall as the room was obviously swimming around him. He didn’t look at all well.

‘Have you got somewhere to go?’ Caro was surprised to hear herself ask.

‘Yes, thank you, madam.’

She didn’t believe him.

‘Mr Matthews, please give me a pound note,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the man for a second. He was so pale she thought he was going to faint. With only an insignificant mutter of discontent, Mr Matthews did as he was told.

‘Here.’ She tucked the note briskly into the man’s jacket pocket. ‘Please get yourself a meal and somewhere to sleep tonight.’

For a moment he met her eyes and the anger she saw there shocked her to the core. Then he looked away, a faint flush rising to his cheeks.

‘Thank you,’ he said emotionlessly.

She watched him walk stiffly to the door and out into the sunshine.

‘You’ll have us both in the poorhouse if you keep giving money to drunkards,’ Mr Matthews grumbled as Caro propped the ledger open on the vacated table. She ignored him, as she was certainly not about to tell him what had transpired in the bar the previous night. It pleased her that she had paid her debt to the man, but she still felt unsettled by the expression she had seen in his eyes. He hadn’t even had the grace to be grateful.

Ten minutes of perusing the accounts confirmed Caro’s worst suspicions. Mr Thwaites was making very healthy profits, indeed, from the bar, but if he was paying any rent to the Castledene Hotel, it was not shown in the books. She sighed and sat back to study the gleaming rows of bottles lined up on the wall above the bar.

‘This is dreadful, Mr Matthews. My aunt is facing destitution, the hotel has had to shut down, yet the bar is taking in hundreds of pounds every night! I’ve got to find out why none of the profits are going to keep the hotel and why the hotel got into financial trouble in the first place. It appears to have been profitable until my aunt’s husband died.’

‘Well, I’d ’ave thought that was bleedin’ obvious.’ Mr Matthews rubbed his bristles thoughtfully. ‘Yer aunt’s spent the lot on men and fripperies and booze. Always has, always will. When yer grandfather—yer aunt’s first husband—died, yer pa gave her enough to keep most women for years. She was back with her hand out in a fortnight and cut up rough when he wouldn’t give her another penny.’

‘But she’s my mother’s eldest sister—and she was his widowed stepmother! Surely he had an obligation to care for her, Mr Matthews?’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘There was more to it than that, girl. Things you don’t need to know nothin’ about.’

‘You mean about Aunt Charlotte choosing my grandfather instead of my father?’ Caro said tartly. ‘I know all about that, Mr Matthews, my aunt told me. While I’m pleased that she did turn him down, of course, because he married Mother instead, I think Father was petty and mean to send her away without a penny. The least I can do is try to help her out now.’ There was an ominous silence. ‘Well?’ she prompted after a moment. ‘Don’t you agree?’

Mr Matthews shook his head slowly. ‘Darned if I don’t know whether to weep or to put you over my knee and paddle yer behind. All I can say, girl, is don’t believe a word yer aunt tells you. From what you tell me, she ain’t changed one bit in the last twenty years.’

‘Then what did happen?’ Caro demanded.

‘Not for me to tell you.’

‘Then kindly mind your own business.’ She shut the ledger and returned it to the cringing bartender with a brilliant smile. ‘Now, I must go and see if Aunt Charlotte has improved.’

But Aunt Charlotte hadn’t improved at all. She lay shivering and as pale as the satin pillows of her bed, giving anguished little cries as Caro tried to open the curtains.

‘Oh, the light, Caroline! Oh, I can’t bear it! Please, go away, darling. I just want to die!’

‘I’ve brought you a jug of water, Aunt Charlotte— Mother always makes us drink lots of water when we’re feverish.’ Caro sat down on the bed and, despite her aunt’s protestation that it had been years since she had drunk plain water, she persisted until Charlotte had completely emptied a glass. She then dampened a cloth for her aunt’s forehead and tiptoed silently around the room, tidying and straightening, until Charlotte was asleep again. After leaving a window open to let in some of the crisply fresh air, Caro left, closing the door carefully behind her. There was so much she wanted to ask her aunt, but this was clearly not the time.

There had been no staff in the kitchen in the early morning and there were none there now. Mr Matthews stood alone at the kitchen table, preparing one of the delicious soups he always seemed able to produce from nothing at all, grumbling away to himself all the while. Caro sat and watched him, her chin propped on her fists, her forehead furrowed with thought.

‘You’ll get wrinkles,’ he advised her after a while.

‘Mmm. Mr Matthews, I’m going to have to go to the bank.’ He sucked in his breath with horror, but she plunged on. ‘Aunt Charlotte’s in no condition to do so and Mr Thwaites won’t lift a finger to help and there’s no other way to get the money we need to start up the hotel again.’

‘How much’re we talking about here?’ he asked in alarm. ‘I’ve got a little bit on me, not much, mind, and yer pa’d kill me if he knew…’

‘By the time I’ve paid the staff wages, provisioned the kitchen, bought firewood, had the chimneys cleaned… I’d say five hundred pounds at the very least.’

‘I ain’t got that much.’ He slumped into a heap of misery. ‘But you don’t want to go off to a bank. Nasty, thievin’ places, banks. Have the shirt off yer back in two seconds, they will.’

‘My father always dealt with them satisfactorily.’ Caro recalled visiting the bank with her father on occasion. She remembered the dark panelled walls, the heavy-handed pleasantry of the manager as he plied her with compliments and pressed a glass of the best whisky on Ben… Why, it had been rather fun. It couldn’t be that bad going on her own account, surely?

‘Yer father never borrowed ’cept on what he knew were a good business deal. And he were a man. They’ll never lend to you,’ Mr Matthews predicted darkly, realising his mistake only when Caro’s chin came up.

‘Well, we’ll see about that!’

There were banks on every street in Dunedin, but it was the work of a minute to look through the ledgers and find out which one her aunt dealt with. It took somewhat longer before Caro was satisfied with the image she wished to present to the bank manager. The better of her woollen gowns was perfectly presentable, but her coat and bonnet were too plain to give her any confidence. She crept into her aunt’s room and managed to extract a particularly fetching bonnet in pale blue, together with a matching short walking cape, without waking Charlotte.

She was pleased when she looked at her reflection in the mirror. While Aunt Charlotte’s taste ran to the somewhat flamboyant, the bonnet Caro had chosen was a study in understated elegance once she removed the peacock feathers. Just right, she thought, for impressing bank managers with her innate good taste.

Her sublime confidence lasted all the way down Princes Street, past St Andrew’s Church and down Carlyle Street. It began to falter a little during the half-hour she was kept waiting at the counter for the bank manager to see her, and by the time Mr Froggatt spared the time to show her into his office, she was decidedly tense.

Mr Froggatt was a big, squarely built Northerner, and not one to waste time on niceties.

‘Come to pay off the overdraft, have you?’ he boomed loudly enough for any passing customer to overhear.

‘Overdraft?’ Caro said blankly.

‘Aye, overdraft.’ The bank manager viewed her through narrowed little eyes.

Caro swallowed hard and flashed him her most engaging smile. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about an overdraft, Mr Froggatt. I’ve come to see you about a business proposition. One I think you’ll be very interested in.’

‘Oh, aye?’ he responded drily, completely unmoved by her loveliness. ‘And what that might be? Nothing involving this bank lending further to the Castledene Hotel, I trust?’

She leaned forward to hide her shaking hands. ‘There’s no value to the bank in foreclosing on a business that should and could do very nicely on a small injection of capital, Mr Froggatt.’

He leaned back in his chair to distance himself, splaying his powerful hands on the desk as he bellowed, ‘There’ll be no more money lent to the Castledene Hotel, I say. No more, until the five thousand pounds already outstanding has been repaid in full, with interest. Am I understood, Mrs…?’

Five thousand pounds? It took all Caro’s resolve not to fly from the office there and then. She took a deep breath. ‘My name is Miss Caroline Morgan. I’m Mrs Wilks’s niece, from Sydney.’

He was instantly alert. ‘Are you, indeed? And would your father be Mr Morgan, of the Morgan Shipping Line?’

The word stuck in her throat. ‘Yes…’

‘Ah.’ Something that Caro hoped might have been a smile flickered far too briefly over the impassive features. ‘Yes, Mrs Wilks has spoken of your father several times and I understand he’d be prepared to stand for the losses incurred by your aunt. Are you here on his behalf?’

Thinking that she could cheerfully strangle Aunt Charlotte, Caro shook her head. ‘No, Mr Froggatt, I’m here on my aunt’s behalf. She’s not well, you see, and I’d like to put the hotel back on a sound financial footing.’ She spoke rapidly, before he could interrupt, outlining her plans for the resurrection of the hotel, speeding up when it looked as if he was about to raise an objection. To her relief he heard her out. When she finally ran out of words, he sat back, his shrewd eyes summing her up in a most demoralising manner.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Morgan. You’ve put forward some convincing arguments, but the answer has to be no.’ He almost sounded apologetic.

‘But why?’ She tried not to wail the words. ‘In a town expanding as fast as Dunedin, it would be impossible to run a failing business, if one were prudent!’

‘Mrs Wilks is not prudent,’ he pointed out patiently.

‘But I am!’

‘But you, Miss Morgan, are a young unmarried female.’

‘And?’

‘And the bank does not lend to young, unmarried females, no matter how…prudent they may be. That is the bank’s policy, it is a sound policy, and it will not be changed, Miss Morgan. I’m sorry.’

She took a deep breath. ‘And if I were married?’

‘But you are not married, Miss Morgan.’

‘I am engaged,’ she said brightly.

‘Then I offer my congratulations, Miss Morgan. But you are not married.’

‘I will be next week,’ she said recklessly, prompted by the dreadful vision of the Castledene Hotel falling into ruin. ‘I shall be a married woman then!’

‘Then, given the standing of your father, we might revisit the possibility of extending the period of the loan,’ Mr Froggatt said cautiously. ‘May I ask the name of your intended?’

‘My what?’ Caro said blankly, her mind whirling at what she had got herself into.

‘Your fiancé. The young man to whom you are affianced.’

‘Oh, him!’ she said quickly, trying not to panic at the note of suspicion in the banker’s voice. ‘You wouldn’t know him. He’s not long arrived from England. He doesn’t know anyone here. Well, he knows me, but he doesn’t know anyone else…’

‘My congratulations, then, Miss Morgan. I shall look forward to meeting him when you’ve tied the knot.’ He stood, terminating the meeting. ‘Until then, Miss Morgan.’

Somehow she managed to hold herself together until she returned to the hotel. She ran into the kitchen, took one look at Mr Matthews sitting huddled on the kitchen stool and burst into tears.

‘Mr Matthews, I’ve got to get married!’ she wailed.

In a trice he was at her side, pressing her down on to a chair, patting her shoulder in helpless sympathy. ‘Oh, girl, girl. These things happen. Don’t you fret…’

She wiped her nose on her sleeve, struggling for control. ‘But I have to get married immediately! Within the week!’

He sat beside her, finding a large handkerchief from a pocket and dabbing ineffectually at her eyes. ‘Now, it won’t have to be that soon, you know. It kin happen to the best of us. Why, me and my missus—’

‘You have a wife?’ Caro was so amazed by this information that she almost forgot her own problems for a second.

‘Had a wife. Might still have one. Dunno. England…’ His voice trailed off and she dared not ask further questions. Mr Matthews had once, a very long time ago, been a convict, and no one in the family ever spoke about his origins, respecting him as deeply as they did. He took back the handkerchief and harrumped loudly into it. ‘All I’m saying, girl, is it’s not the end of the world. When did it happen?’

‘Just now, at the bank.’

‘At the bank?’

‘Yes. Mr Froggatt the banker…’

‘The banker?’

She nodded miserably and Mr Matthews sat looking positively stricken.

After a while he cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t realise you wanted the loan this bad, girl.’