‘Surely I don’t need to spell out for you the fact that you used what you learned from my daughter in an ef
fort to dissuade me from bidding for the house?’ Jenna said by way of explanation, hoping that he would not probe any further.
‘Meaning that you don’t give a damn whether your daughter wants to move up here or not?’
The injustice of his calmly delivered comment stung. That wasn’t what she had meant at all, but she was too honest to be able to refute completely what he had said. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped, ‘but I happen to believe that at fifteen Lucy is not old enough to know where she does or does not want to live. I don’t consider that London is exactly an ideal environment for an impressionable teenager.’
‘She tells me you sent her to boarding school,’ he commented, changing tack.
Dark colour flamed in Jenna’s cheeks.
What else had Lucy told this threatening stranger? And he was threatening…every instinct Jenna possessed told her so.
‘That’s right.’ Her curt, clipped voice warned him against any further intrusion, but, as before, he ignored it.
‘Do you think that’s wise, for a mother to completely abandon the upbringing of her child to others?’
For a moment Jenna was so angry that she had to clench her hands tightly against the leather of the seat to stop herself from coming out with the first biting retort that sprang to her lips.
‘I am a single parent, Mr Allingham,’ she said at last, ‘and in common with other single parents I have to earn money to support myself and my daughter. Much as I would love to spend more time with Lucy it just hasn’t been possible.’ Inwardly she was shaking with temper. How dared he? How dared he criticise her like this?
‘Oh, come on now, I don’t believe that.’
Against her will Jenna felt her glance drawn to his. His eyes were cold and watchful where her own were hot with resentment. ‘A woman with your…assets,’ he said softly ‘would never have any problem in finding a man to support her…and her child.’
His implication stunned her. There were a thousand things she could have said: that she loathed his sex and would never, ever allow herself to be dependent on a member of it, that she preferred to be independent, that——Bottling up the violent emotion clamouring for release inside her, she gritted through her teeth, ‘But I happen to prefer paying my own way through life.’
Now he smiled at her, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘A rather masculine way of looking at things, wouldn’t you say? Most women prefer to have a husband to lean on for both emotional and financial support.’
‘Yes, no doubt,’ Jenna agreed crisply, ‘and a good many of them discover later in life just how fragile that support is when their husbands leave them for someone else. Someone younger and fresher. I have no desire to marry, Mr Allingham,’ she told him in brittle tones, too carried away by her feelings to watch what she was saying, ‘even if that means that I don’t have as much time to spend with Lucy as I would wish. She’s a teenager and at the moment, as all teenagers are wont to do, she’s apt to feel herself hard done by.’
‘Umm. Lucy told me that she didn’t have a father.’
A sensation of pain lanced through Jenna. She could feel him watching her. ‘Are you widowed, divorced?’
She longed to refuse to answer his impertinent questions, but pride would not allow her to do so. ‘Neither.’
‘So…’
The way he murmured the word made Jenna suspect that he had already known what her answer would be. ‘You must have been very young when Lucy was born.’
‘Old enough.’ She wasn’t aware of how much bitterness there was in her voice, only a profound sense of relief as the Hall lodge gates came into sight.
‘And that’s why you hate my sex so much, is it?’ he pressed. ‘Because Lucy’s father deserted you. Left you to bear the burden of parenthood alone?’
As they went up the drive, all Jenna wanted was to escape from his questions and his proximity. ‘Is that what you think?’ she snapped at him. ‘It fits neatly into all the psychiatrists’ theories, doesn’t it?’
She was conscious of the glance he gave her, but because of the other cars parked ahead of him, he had to stop, and the moment he did so, Jenna unfastened her seat-belt and got out of his car without waiting to see if he was following her.
The cool morning air soothed her flushed cheeks and. her temper. It had been foolish to let him get to her so easily. She shrugged dismissively as she walked towards the house. After today, once the Hall was hers, she would never see him again. But would it be hers? The doubts she had refused to give weight to since he had first made her aware of his intentions now surfaced.
For all that it needed a good deal of money spending on it, the old Hall was not being auctioned cheaply. James Allingham would be as aware of the reserve price as she was herself. In order to buy it, he would need to be a reasonably wealthy man. Without false modesty Jenna knew that many people would consider her to be very comfortably off, but for her to buy the Hall and restore it she would need to employ her company’s assets. Hence her decision to use it as the company headquarters.
What line of business was James Allingham in, she wondered. He had mentioned that his ancestors had included a sugar planter, but with the abolition of slavery the finances of these once-wealthy men had waned. His accent was American—but only faintly so. Shrugging impatiently she cautioned herself to put him out of her mind and to concentrate instead on the coming auction. But James Allingham and the house had become strangely intertwined, and it was becoming impossible to think of one without the other. Straightening her spine, Jenna vowed mentally that she was not going to let him best her.
There was a martial glint in her eyes that Harley would have recognised—and deplored. Normally extremely cool and level-headed when it came to business matters, Jenna could occasionally be provoked into a certain rashness—the curse of her red hair and turbulent temperament, she acknowledged as she walked into the house.
CHAPTER THREE