Hazard of Love Read online

  HAZARD OF LOVE

  Sally Heywood

  "A creature from another planet"

  That was what Lucas de Maine compared her to. And that was how Goldie felt. After her glamorous existence as a Hollywood starlet, she no longer seemed to have a place in the conventional English village where she'd been born.

  Still, Lucas's words stung. But then, he was firmly rooted in this community and any woman who married him would have to fit in, too. Would have to be the perfect country wife....

  Goldie was forced to play the hardest role she'd ever tackled--especially when Lucas made it clear that he thought she was quite wrong for the part!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Goldie knew she was wearing the wrong clothes the minute she stepped inside the front door. A sea of country tweeds and waxed jackets flowed slowly ahead of her along the passage towards the open doors of the sitting-room. She should have remembered. This was Yorkshire, not California; farming country, not a Hollywood film set.

  She glanced down at her high-heeled ankle boots with the silver heels, and then at the sensible brogues and lace-ups of the people queuing to go in ahead of her. The glance took in her long, slender legs, the deep tan almost visible beneath the sheer nylons she had had to buy at the airport, having forgotten such things existed in the hurry of departure.

  She cringed inside and tried to pull her tiny mini down to a more discreet level, failing miserably. Already odd looks were being cast in her direction. Though tiny and childishly slender, she was eye-catching anyway, but here with her golden tart and short, spiky platinum-blonde hair, and what now seemed outlandish get-up, she felt as if she stuck out like a sore thumb. And she had hoped that her return would pass unnoticed!

  A middle-aged matron in a tweed skirt and jacket was adding to the stares, eyes puzzled as she tried to name the face. Goldie dropped her glance. She couldn't get out now without causing even more of an upheaval, because people were already crowding round the front porch to get in out of the rain. Help, she thought, I should have thought this through before charging off without a proper plan!

  The woman said something to her companion, an elderly man in a Barbour, Langdale cap and glasses, and he, too, turned to stare at her. His glance flicked over her face without recognition, then suddenly the woman said something and they both began to smile. 'It's Goldie, isn't it?' she called between the intervening heads. People in front of Goldie turned round, too, then faced front smartly as she swept them with a cool stare in return. The woman was now beginning to push her way back along the queue. 'I'd recognise you anywhere, my dear. You're the spitting image of your mother. How is she?'

  'Very well, thank you.' Goldie felt mystified, and not a little embarrassed. Ought she to be able to remember who this person was?

  As if reading her thoughts, the woman said, 'You won't remember me. We live next door to your aunt.' She gestured in the general direction of the garden, and then looked contrite. 'I mean, lived next door—oh, dear, so tragic and so sudden.' Her expression changed. 'I didn't see you or Ravella at the funeral.' Although it was a statement, the question was implicit.

  Goldie felt distinctly uncomfortable, knowing exactly what was going through the woman's mind. 'We were all away on location at the time. I only got back two days ago, and the solicitor's letter telling me of Aunt Eva's death was waiting for me then. Mother's still filming in the Far East, and doesn't know about it even now. She'll be heartbroken,' she added defensively.

  'Of course she will.' The woman accepted her explanation at once, adding warmly, 'Ravella was very happy in the time she was here. And she and Eva were so very fond of each other.'

  This was no surprise to Goldie, but it made her feel a little glow inside to hear it said. There was something genuine about the woman, and she realised she'd become too used to the flip heartlessness of the people she worked with. The lack of any real depth of feeling in her everyday relationships had made her forget what natural warmth was like.

  By this time the woman's husband had joined them. 'By jove!' he exclaimed as he reached for Goldie's hand. 'You were a little whipper-snapper of twelve or so last time I saw you. I'm Sam Woollard.' He shook her briskly by the hand and turned to his wife. 'Hetty, are we taking this young lady back home for afternoon tea after this scrum's over?'

  'I really don't think --' began Goldie, then checked herself. She had nowhere to go afterwards. Her most pressing problem was to find a hotel for the night, then plan what to do next. She had whipped out of her apartment without giving the matter any thought at all, and on the flight over had slept most of the time, too tired by the previous six weeks' filming to do anything else.

  Mrs Woollard eyed her kindly. 'If you've time, we'd be delighted, Goldie. We're all so proud of you both, you know. We don't have many celebrities in Little Skidby.' She patted Goldie on the arm. 'I think we'd better go in to the sale now. It's due to start in a few minutes.'

  Goldie nodded and followed, childhood memories surging back the minute she set foot in the high-ceilinged drawing-room. How changed everything was, with rows of chairs set out in preparation for the auction of Eva's furniture and effects. Tables and cupboards, footstools and bedheads, all sickeningly familiar, were stacked along the walls with little familiar objects, vases and boxes and other trinkets she had long forgotten, grouped on every surface.

  'So tragic that this should all go to strangers,' Mrs Woollard said as they took their seats somewhere in the middle. 'Eva thought she was immortal. Indeed, I think we all did, didn't we, Sam?' She gave Goldie a sympathetic glance. 'I heard that in her will she asked for the proceeds of this sale to be divided between Ravella and Eva's favourite charity, but the furniture is so lovely, I'm sure you or Ravella would have welcomed it.'

  Looking round, Goldie wasn't so sure about her mother welcoming a lot of old English furniture in the luxurious ultra-modern penthouse in Bel Air which she shared with her latest live-in lover. There was nothing traditional about her mother, either in lifestyle or taste. She sighed.

  'I'm not very settled,' she admitted to Mrs Woollard. 'I would have loved some of Eva's things for old times' sake, and I wouldn't have minded buying some of it back, if only I had somewhere to put it. But it would be hopeless trying to take any of this back to California.' Her eye travelled slowly over the lovely but large and cumbersome pieces. 'I'm just here to say goodbye to everything, really,' she confessed.

  'You're not settled with a husband, then?'

  Goldie shook her head, not offended by the question, knowing that such bluntness was the way in these parts. 'I can't see me married!' She made a joke of it, but felt a twinge of sadness at the thought. It wasn't that she had anything against marriage as such, it was just the example of other people's marriages that put her off. They were almost always followed by divorce and acrimony. And she didn't want that.

  Nor did she intend to live with someone as her mother did, changing lovers when they became boring, as one might change a coat that had gone out of fashion.

  She wanted something else, but she didn't know what, and she couldn't escape the feeling that maybe she was just an old-fashioned idealist—if she wasn't careful she would finish up unmarried and childless like Eva, with all the things that added up to her life going to strangers when she died.

  'Here, have a look at the catalogue.' Sam pushed several sheets of printed foolscap into her hand. She hadn't thought of catalogues.

  Now she skimmed it rapidly as the auctioneer took his place at the front and made a few announcements.

  She was searching out the one thing she hoped was here, for if she could take anything back, then that was it. Her eyes alighted on lot sixty-three. A painting in oils, it said, rendered in the Impressionist manner by local artist Brendan Halliwell.
Subject, Mother and Child. She knew the painting intimately. It had hung in Eva's sitting-room over the roll-top desk for as long as she could remember. But where was it now?

  Her glance roamed the room again as the bidding started, then she gave a smile of satisfaction. A large wardrobe had been trundled out of place and there, behind it, propped on top of an oak and gilt console-table, was the painting.

  Framed now in a pale border of carved beech, its soft pinks and blues and mauves seemed to sing softly of a time long ago in a distant land when everything had been safe and unchanging. A woman, long fair hair trailing over one shoulder in soft tendrils, and wearing an expression of rapt concern on the beautiful oval of her face, was holding a small baby among the folds of a long blue gown. That there were references to a million portraits of Madonna and Child, Goldie could see now, but when, as a child herself, she had stood wrapped in the warmth and tranquillity of the picture, she had known none of this. To her it was simply her mother holding her on her lap, for she had been three when she had realised that the woman in the picture was her own mother, and the baby, the baby in her arms, was herself, being held with all the loving care she had yearned for.

  Somehow, just being able to come and look at 'Aunty Eva's picture' had seemed to make up for the neglect she had been so sorely conscious of in those days. Just beginning to make her way in films, her mother had been away so often and sometimes for so long, and no one seemed to appreciate how much the tiny child missed her. It had helped to be able to come and look at the picture, for it seemed to prove that she had once been loved, had once had all her mother's loving care.

  She came to with a start. Bidding had started and lots were being rapidly wheeled on and off. Soon she would have to catch the auctioneer's eye. She bit her lip. She had never done this sort of thing before. She turned to Mrs Woollard, hoping for some advice, but she was gazing intently at the auctioneer. Goldie saw her give a little nod. Then the hammer fell and she turned to Goldie with a smile. 'Oh, I am pleased. That's Eva's sweet little sewing-basket. Always in a jumble, it was—I was forever tidying it up for her.' She wiped the corner of an eye. Goldie put out a hand and patted her on the arm. It was like coming home. She hadn't expected to feel like this.

  'I'd like the picture,' she confessed in a whisper. 'It's of Mother and me.'

  Mrs Woollard nodded. 'Very nice it is, too.'

  Soon the painting was being held up by one of the assistants as the auctioneer gave a brief description. 'Shall we start at, say, one hundred pounds? One hundred am I bid?' There was a murmur of interest. Goldie smiled to herself. She could afford to spend whatever it took. Why not? It was a little piece of her past. It had been her comfort long years ago. She owed it to herself to buy it so that she could give it a home where its true worth could be appreciated.

  She managed to catch the auctioneer's eye, and when he said, 'Am I bid one-twenty? One-thirty?' she kept on nodding. Three or four would-be purchasers dropped out, and soon she became aware that there were only two of them left. With frightening speed the bidding seemed to have shot up to five hundred, then five-twenty. A hush had fallen over the room and she found she was holding her breath. It was like being on a roller-coaster, but she couldn't get off. The auctioneer was glancing from one side of the room to the other. First to herself, then to the other bidder.

  Daring to turn her head for a moment, she could just see the back of a man's head at the end of the row in front. She saw him nod again and, anticipating the auctioneer's eye, she nodded, too. Six hundred pounds? When on earth was the other chap going to stop? She was swept along. Soon it reached a thousand. A pin dropping would have shattered the silence.

  Goldie felt herself grow hot. Why was he bidding so fiercely? It was ridiculous. Surely the painting was only special to the people in it? As far as she knew, Brendan Halliwell had never been particularly famous.

  The auctioneer must have thought the same, for he now wore an expression of interested surprise. His eyebrows rose first left, then right. It was like the final game in a tennis match. The tension was unbearable. 'Drop out, damn you,' Goldie found herself muttering beneath her breath. Then there was a sudden break in the rising tide of bids. The auctioneer held up his gavel, and for one wild moment Goldie imagined he was going to knock it down to her, but instead he was leaning forward over his desk. 'Yes, sir? An objection?'

  To Goldie's amazement she heard a voice from the row in front ask if it was certain the bidder was able to hand over the sum lot sixty-three had already reached. 'Bearing in mind,' came the clipped English accent, 'that this particular auction house usually requires a written bank guarantee for sums over one thousand pounds.'

  Suddenly she found everyone on either side stiffening in their seats as they restrained themselves from turning to stare.

  'Yes, ma'am? Did you hear the objection?' The auctioneer smiled encouragingly.

  She nodded, confused. How much cash had she converted into sterling at the airport? Not much. She didn't believe in carrying too much in case she was mugged. But she had a card. That was usually all she needed. Her blood froze. What an idiot she was! Of course she couldn't pay by card. It had to be cheque with a guarantee or cash. Not knowing what to do, she simply gazed straight ahead, trying not to feel conscious of the interest she was arousing. She felt all wrong again, in her big coat with its huge padded shoulders—a coat that had seemed so fashionable, so right in the city, and was a concession to English weather, but now, in the depths of the Yorkshire countryside, looked too flamboyant, too theatrical and therefore, in the eyes of the people here, too unreliable by half.

  The tweed shoulders and short dark hair of her rival on the next row mocked her for her flightiness, and she slowly unclenched her tightly balled fists. What on earth could she do?

  'The penalty this auction house levies for bidding with insufficient resources, if I may just remind everyone,' the auctioneer looked round at the roomful of people, tactfully taking the pressure off Goldie for a moment, 'is ten per cent of the bid price, plus VAT, plus administration charges for representing the lot at a later date.' He beamed. 'Where were we? Two thousand four hundred and sixty pounds, I believe. Madam? Mr de Maine?'

  He knows his name, registered Goldie furiously. He would have no problems producing a bank guarantee out of a hat! This oh, so financially sound Mr de Maine. She remembered the name herself from all those years ago. They owned practically everything. Old Mr de Maine and his rolling hills stretching up to the moors. Her rival for the picture must be one of his clan. Her hackles rose.

  The auctioneer raised his hammer. Goldie gave another little nod.

  'Two thousand four hundred and seventy—and eighty?'

  Surely I can get the money? thought Goldie frantically. She could do it almost straight away. All she had to do was go to the nearest American Express office. She could walk away with thousands bundled up in her bag. If there was an American Express office in this backwater. If it wasn't Saturday afternoon. And if only the bidding could be halted while she called a cab . . . Miserably she gazed straight ahead. She'd lost. There was no point in pretending. She dared not go on any longer. It would simply be too embarrassing if they refused to take a cheque without a guarantee. In a daze of disappointment, she heard the auctioneer raise the bid another twenty and she saw the hammer come down.

  'To Mr de Maine at two thousand five hundred pounds. Thank you, sir.' The auctioneer looked pleased and mopped his brow with a large red handkerchief.

  Goldie, wedged in the middle of a row, sat out the rest of the sale in a state of misery.

  Sam and Hetty gave her sympathetic glances. 'Never mind, lass. You certainly made him pay through the nose for it.'

  She couldn't tell what they thought about that, for their expressions were noncommittal. It was clear what other people thought, though. Looking at her, they imagined she was some silly young girl who'd made a public fool of herself. It was worse later. As she was making her way towards the door, stuck fast in the thron
g of people all with the same idea, she overheard someone say, 'There she is. Bidded him up nice and proper, I reckon. If it was me, I'd ask for an inquiry.'

  Another voice chimed in, 'They should make the rules clear at the beginning. She probably didn't realise.'

  'He'd probably have got it for a couple of hundred if she hadn't pushed the price up.'

  She found a gap in the crowd and slid through it, coming out in the corridor leading, as she remembered, to the kitchen. Her only wish now was to escape from all these people who had seemed to represent a lost childhood, but now represented only humiliation and regret.

  Thankfully, she slipped inside and closed the door, leaning against it and trying to steady her breathing. But her respite was short-lived. Voices out in the passage sent her moving into the middle of the room, turning defensively as the door opened. A tall, broad-shouldered farming type came in, calling back over his shoulder, 'Don't let her get up, I'll bring it out to her.' He skidded to a sudden halt when he caught sight of Goldie. She was conscious of bark-brown eyes in a youngish face looking her over from top to toe, and then a sudden derisive tightening of lips that were really too full for good looks.

  'Oh, it's you,' he said, with no attempt at politeness. He pushed past her to reach the sink and she watched him turn on the cold water, drawing off enough to fill a glass. 'Someone's feeling faint out there. Probably at the thought of sitting next to a two-and-a-half-thousand-pound painting.' The glass filled, he made for the door again, turning briefly when he reached it, saying, 'Don't go, I want a word with you.'

  Goldie watched him disappear in amazement. It was only when she caught a glimpse of the back of his tweed shoulders, with that head of short, dark glossy hair, that memory stirred. Of course, it had to be—the man in the saleroom. The one she had forced to bid up for a painting that was probably only worth a few hundred. She felt blood swarm into her cheeks and her first thought was escape, but before she could move he was back, and, closing the door behind him, he began to advance slowly towards her.