CHAPTER ONE
CHELSEA frowned thoughtfully as she parked her small car carefully behind her sister’s BMW. Ann had sounded worried and anxious on the telephone, unusually so, and she sighed a little as she slid long slender legs out of her car. Parenthood brought many perils, if Ann was to be believed, but none more burdensome than those engendered by a seventeen-year-old daughter.
As she had expected she found her sister in her large modern kitchen busily engaged in mixing fruit in a huge bowl.
‘Cake for tomorrow,’ Ann told her, reaching out automatically to slap away her hand as Chelsea filched a small amount of the raw mixture. ‘You’re as bad as Kirsty,’ she complained, tempering the criticism with a warm kiss on her sister’s cheek, as she added, ‘Thanks for coming. Did I drag you away from anything important?’
‘Only a sixteenth-century chair cover,’ Chelsea replied humorously, referring to her work as a restorer of mediaeval embroidery. ‘And speaking of Kirsty, what’s the problem this time? Not threatening to run off with her favourite pop singer again, is she?’
Ann Stannard shot her sister an exasperated glance. With the fourteen years’ difference in their age, Ann sometimes felt more like Chelsea’s mother than her sister. Their parents had died when Ann was just twenty-two and on the brink of marriage to Ralph Stannard, and for all her teasing of her sister, Chelsea never forgot Ralph’s generosity in giving his orphaned sister-in-law a home. It couldn’t have been easy, she recognised from the vantage viewpoint of twenty-six, for the newly married pair to make a precocious and inquisitive teenager welcome.
Kirsty was the Stannards’ only child, a spirited and attractive teenager, currently still at school, but as Chelsea well knew, rebelliously determined to leave just as soon as she possibly could.
‘She’s not still got this bee in her bonnet about becoming an actress, has she?’ Chelsea queried.
‘I wish that was all we had to contend with. I’m afraid it’s far more serious than that. We’re both at our wits’ end, Chelsea. You’re our last hope. You’ve always been so close to her. Ralph and I were hoping you could make her see sense…’
‘About what?’
‘About Slade Ashford,’ Ann said grimly. ‘She’s absolutely infatuated with him. Nothing either Ralph or I say to her makes the slightest difference.’
‘Calf-love,’ Chelsea informed her, trying not to smile. Ralph and Ann were extremely protective of their daughter, and a high-spirited girl like Kirsty was bound to rebel. They had been the same with her. Ann, for all her placid nature, seemed to have an imagination that worked overtime when it came to the fates that could befall an unprotected girl. In Chelsea’s view, Ann was almost an anachronism in this day and age; a woman who was quite content to be a stop-at-home wife and mother, and who moreover was still as deeply in love with her equally staid husband as she had been when she first met him.
‘Look, I know you don’t want to admit your little girl has grown up, but girls do fall madly in love at seventeen…’
‘I’m well aware of that, Chelsea.’ Ann eyed her sister frowningly. ‘If it was a boy her own age, another teenager, it wouldn’t matter, but Slade is far from being that. He’s in his early thirties at least.’
‘And Kirsty worships him from afar,’ Chelsea grinned, still refusing to take her sister seriously. ‘Look, love, I know Kirsty is a very pretty girl and the apple of your eye, but a man of thirty-odd isn’t going to be interested in a schoolgirl.’
‘You wouldn’t think so,’ Ann agreed, ‘but he is—and interested enough to keep her out until two in the morning the other night. Ralph was furious!’
‘Has he tackled him about it?’ Chelsea asked frowningly. ‘Does he know how young Kirsty is?’
‘The situation’s a very difficult one,’ Ann told her. ‘Slade’s company has just bought out Lutons.’
Lutons Engineering was the largest firm in the small town of Melchester, and Ralph had been the Works Manager there for several years. Chelsea could quite see, without her sister needing to put it in as many words, that her gentle brother-in-law might find it rather difficult to tackle his new boss on the subject of his liaison with his young daughter. But surely the man himself must realise… Contempt darkened Chelsea’s long blue eyes. Surely the man must know that Kirsty, for all her prettiness, was no more than a child… a little girl still, despite her frequent attempts to appear more sophisticated—far more sophisticated than she had been at seventeen, Chelsea thought wryly. But then at that age she had not had the advantage of Kirsty’s ripe prettiness. Well could she remember her too thin body and straight dark red hair. But at seventeen girls didn’t consider themselves children. She could remember that.
‘How about sending Kirsty off to stay with Ralph’s parents for a while?’ she suggested.
‘Not possible, I’m afraid. Ralph’s father’s heart is troubling him again, and besides, I don’t think Kirsty would go. She’s changed, Chelsea. I barely recognise her,’ Ann admitted. ‘And I’m so afraid for her. Slade isn’t a boy… he’s a grown man, who could never be satisfied with the sort of innocent relationship…’ Her voice trailed away and she looked helplessly at her younger sister.
‘You want me to talk to Kirsty? Do you think she’d listen?’
‘No. And I don’t want you to talk to her exactly.’ For the first time that she could remember, Chelsea saw that her sister couldn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘Chelsea, I hate reminding you of this’ Ann began in a low voice, ‘but…’
‘But if anyone can speak from experience, it has to be me,’ Chelsea supplied for her in a bitter voice. ‘I agree, but experience is something everyone has to learn for themselves. God knows there were people enough to warn me that Darren was married, that all he wanted with me was an affair, but did I believe them? No. And I went on disbelieving them right up until I was inside the bedroom door.’
‘It still hurts, doesn’t it?’ Ann questioned gently. ‘It’s nearly ten years ago now, but you’ve never really got over it.’
‘A sensitive little plant, that’s me,’ Chelsea agreed with self-mockery, ‘I should have listened to you in the first place. You never really wanted me to go to drama school, did you? But I insisted, and you and Ralph gave way. When Darren told me I was exactly right for the ingénue part in his new play I swallowed it completely; fool that I was. The only part he had in mind for me was the traditional role of mistress, and a very brief part at that.’
‘Oh, Chelsea, don’t!’ Ann protested, hating to hear the bitter self-accusation in her sister’s voice. ‘We were as much to blame. You were far too young to leave home—we should never have let you go to London alone. When you came back that night…’
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‘My pride in tatters but my virtue intact,’ Chelsea supplied dryly. ‘I honestly believed that he loved me and that in time he intended to leave Belinda. He actually laughed at me when I told him that, you know—I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that touching little detail before. Heavens, when I look back, the whole thing was more farcical than tragic, although at the time no one could have convinced me of that fact. I thought the world had come to an end, turned my back on drama school.’
‘And made a first-class career for yourself…’
‘As a repairer of ancient tapestries,’ Chelsea supplied. ‘But we were talking about Kirsty, not me. What’s this man like? He can’t be much of a man if he needs to search the ranks of schoolgirls for female companionship.’
Ann’s dry, ‘Don’t you believe it—he’s very, very much a man,’ brought Chelsea’s eyes to her sister’s face in astonishment. Ann pulled a face. ‘Oh, it’s not just that he’s good-looking—and he’s that all right, but he’s also incredibly sexy with it. You know the type—even I went weak at the knees.’
Chelsea did. Darren had been the same, and she was beginning to dislike Slade Ashford without even meeting him.
‘Well, in that case Kirsty can hardly be the only contender for his… attentions,’ Chelsea told her sister. ‘Is he married?’
‘No. In a way I almost wish he was,’ Ann admitted. ‘Chelsea love, please, you’ve got to help!’
‘Willingly,’ she agreed, her dislike and contempt for Slade Ashford growing with everything Ann said about him, ‘but how?’
‘We’ve invited him to our anniversary party. Kirsty insisted, and of course he is Ralph’s boss. You know we’ve decided to hold it at the Clarence?’
Chelsea nodded. The anniversary Ann spoke of was their twentieth, and she knew that her sister and brother-in-law had planned for some time to celebrate the event in some style. The Clarence was their most expensive local hotel, an old country house set in its own grounds, and the party was something Ann had been planning for for many months.
‘Well, what I thought was that you…’ you Ann stirred her cake mixture carefully, avoiding Chelsea’s eyes. ‘I thought you could somehow get Slade away from Kirsty,’ she finished, adding defensively, ‘I know it’s a cruel trick to play on her, but kinder in the end, surely you can see that?’
‘It’s certainly cunning,’ Chelsea agreed. ‘Always supposing it was possible. What makes you think he’d drop Kirsty for me?’
‘Haven’t you looked in the mirror lately?’ Ann demanded dryly. ‘Kirsty may be a pretty girl, but you’re a beautiful woman, Chelsea.’
‘Well, thank you!’
‘It’s true,’ Ann said quietly. ‘You are beautiful, even though you always try to deny the fact.’ She studied the rich dark red fall of her sister’s water-straight hair, and the long, dark-lashed eyes with their sensuous, smoky darkness. A faint flush touched her high cheekbones, emphasising the triangular shape of her face, faintly feline and subtly sexy, although Chelsea herself always denied the fact. Add to that a tall slender body with long, long legs, a narrow waist and rather fuller than fashionable breasts, and it all added up to a woman men looked at and looked at again. And it was all such a waste, Ann thought regretfully. She had lost count of the men she and Ralph had introduced to Chelsea; the little dinner parties they had arranged. She sighed… Just because she had been hurt once Chelsea seemed to have made a decision never to let any other man close enough to her to be hurt again.
‘It takes more than physical appearance to attract a man,’ Chelsea was saying crisply. ‘I’m sorry, Ann, but it just wouldn’t work. I don’t have the right aura…’
‘But you do have the right equipment, and the training to use it properly if you wanted to,’ Ann reminded her quietly. ‘Please, Chelsea, if you won’t do it for me, do it for Ralph. He thinks the world of Kirsty. It would break his heart if she did anything… foolish.’
‘Like letting herself be seduced by a man old enough to be her father, you mean? Are you so sure it hasn’t happened already?’ Chelsea asked bluntly.
Ann paled, her hands trembling slightly. ‘She said it hadn’t so far, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. If you could just show her that his interest is only fleeting; that he would respond to any attractive woman who made herself available to him…’
‘So… I’ve got to make myself available to him as well as steal him away from my niece? Anything else?’
‘Oh, Chelsea!’ There was real anguish in Ann’s voice. ‘Kirsty is making a fool of herself over him. Please help! I hate having to ask you, but I can’t think of anything else. I know you’ll hate doing it, but with your drama training…’
Ann’s shoulders were hunched, tears making damp tracks down her floury cheeks. Chelsea took her in her arms, remembering all the times as a child when their roles had been reversed and Ann had been the comforter.
‘It’s all right, love—I’ll do whatever I can,’ she promised. ‘He must be a swine to contemplate an affair with an innocent like Kirsty. It’s been a long time, though, since I was called upon to put my training into practice, let’s just hope I can rise to the occasion. I seem to recall that I never was much good at the role of femme fatale!’
* * *
It was a thought that lingered in her mind on the drive back to her flat, images of Darren coming back to torment her. A stupid little prude he had called her, and worse. She had gone round to his house to read the script, or so she had thought. She had been surprised to find him dressed only in a bathrobe as although she felt herself in love with him she had been too naïve to contemplate a full-blooded affair. But she went willingly enough with him when he said his study was upstairs. She shuddered as she remembered what had followed. Darren’s fury when he realised she wasn’t going to give way to his advances had been a real eye-opener. He had been amused at first, and then amusement had given way to anger. Chelsea could remember quite vividly how disillusionment had warred with sickness as she listened to his furious abuse. And then his wife had returned, setting the seal on her humiliation with her amused contempt. Apparently Chelsea hadn’t been the first little diversion Darren had sought. Even now, years later, her stomach heaved at the memory; because there had been a moment when because of her love for him she had been tempted to give way to him. She had loved him—or had thought she had, she thought bitterly. God, she had been a fool, and naïve! And now here was history almost repeating itself with poor little Kirsty!
Her phone was ringing as she entered the flat, and when she picked it up she heard the familiar voice of her boss, Jerome Francis. He wanted to tell her about a new commission they had obtained from the National Trust. Jerome’s company specialised in repairing prize tapestries and other antique fabrics, and Chelsea was his most skilled employee. She had left drama school after her débâcle with Darren, too humiliated to return, guessing that the others on the course with her must have known how Darren had been deluding her, and admitting to herself that she did not have the aptitude for the stage she had once thought. She lacked the hard, unyielding core that made a first-rate actress, one of her teachers had told her, but she had gained a certain panache; a way of moving and holding her head that drew the eye, even while she herself was unaware of it.
Instead of the stage she had turned instead to her second love, embroidery, being lucky enough to enrol at the Royal College of Embroiderers, where she had come to know Jerome and eventually to work for him.
The new commission sounded just her cup of tea. The Trust had just taken over a mansion in Northumberland. The house had been in the same family—a cadet branch of the Percys—for many centuries and had been inherited by a cousin who had decided to offer it to the Trust.
The pattern was a familiar one, but what excited Chelsea was Jerome’s information that among the contents being left in the house was an extremely old tapestry, said to have been stitched by the ladies of the family during the Third Crusade.
‘If everything
goes well you could start work up there when you’ve finished the chair covers,’ Jerome suggested. ‘I’ll be away most of next week, so we can finalise arrangements when I get back.’
One of the joys of her job was that her work was never monotonous or boring and could and did take her all over the country, and sometimes to the chateaux and palaces of Europe, but Northumberland was somewhere she had never before visited, and Chelsea felt the familiar excitement growing in her as she replaced the receiver, her happy smile being replaced by a sudden frown as she remembered her conversation with her sister.
Ann was not a fusser, nor prone to exaggeration, and Kirsty was an enchantingly feminine girl; pretty and clever with an excellent future ahead of her, providing she did not fall into the same trap that had so cruelly mauled her, Chelsea thought grimly.
She was granted an unexpected opportunity to judge for herself exactly what danger her niece was in when she had to drive into town for some embroidery silks she had run out of.
For most of the articles she worked on, Chelsea dyed her own silks, using natural dyes of the same type as would originally have been used, and these were then cleverly faded to match the existing colours, but in this instance all she wanted was an oyster-coloured silk she knew she could obtain from a local craft shop.
Parking her car in the cobbled square which doubled as a market place on market days, Chelsea got out and walked down the narrow street which housed the craft shop, stunned as she did so to see her niece emerging from a newly opened restaurant, accompanied by a darkly tall man.
For a moment the elegance of the expensively cut charcoal grey suit, the way the lean brown fingers cupped Kirsty’s elbow as they stepped off the pavement, took her back in time and she herself was seventeen again.
Fighting against anger, Chelsea stepped back automatically into the shadows, the progress of the other couple across the road affording her an uninterrupted view of her niece’s escort for the first time.